论布鲁诺·拉图尔的技术哲学

The Remarks on the Technique Philosophy of Bruno Latour

面临全球环境失衡的危机,拉图尔提倡依据技术"客体"和行动者网络进行思考。他还倡导"对称性外交",这一概念强调在谈判中人与非人行动者的平等。然而,对于拉图尔的哲学是否能为我们提供有效的方式来控制不断加速的技术进步对环境和社会带来的影响,笔者抱有怀疑态度。拉图尔的行动者网络理论对于说明特定技术创新的生产和发展有一定作用,但是当我们的视角从技术客体扩大到科技工业体系,或者从技术的短期完善扩大到其长期功能及其社会影响,他的方法便无法提供充分的解释了。在这个日益阻碍我们对技术后果进行认真反思的背景下,技术的功能和信息的相互依赖性有利于其根据自身的逻辑和动力组合成为结构化系统,这就使得我们难于控制发展前进的道路上产生的影响。在经验主义的幌子下,拉图尔提出了一套令人稍感安慰的、源自天主教技术进步主义的技术形而上学理论。可以说,拉图尔的哲学提出了一种新的"神正论",消除了一切非人化进程的可能性以及政治、经济或技术异化的可能性。

As a way out of the threat of global environmental disorganization, Latour proposes a new way of thinking in terms of technical objects and actors’ networks. He promotes a "symmetric diplomacy" based on equal negotiation between human and non-human actors. Nevertheless, it is doubtful that Latour’s philosophy gives us a sufficient purchase on the consequences of an ever-accelerating technological progress. Indeed, the ANT method advocated by Latour can be useful for understanding the social construction of technical objects and specific technological undertakings. But if we enlarge our focus from technical objects to the technoscientific and industrial system, or from the short duration of the development of new technologies to the long term effects of their implementation on natural world and on social life, this method seems insufficient. This context of acceleration precludes a serious assessment of the consequences of our technological enterprises;besides, the functional and informational interdependence of our technologies results in their coalescence in systems operating with their own logic and their own dynamism. Under the banner of empiricism, Latour is promoting a comforting metaphysics of technology derived from the catholic technophilic progressivism. His philosophy offers a new Theodicy which eliminate the very possibility of impersonal processes and of social, economic or technological alienation.