Hacking discusses three “sticking points” in the debates on the epistemic authority of science: contingency, nominalism, and stability
在科學認識論權威的辯論中, 有三個關卡:
三個客觀實在與建構論者的關卡[卡關點,絆腳石](sticking points)
Contingency (偶發的,權變的,非必然的): 科學發現的權變性, “things could be otherwise”
To Hacking, contingency in science is to be found in the framing of the questions, but once questions are framed, the answers, the “contents” of a science, are noncontingent. [from http://www.ualberta.ca/~cjscopy/reviews/what.html]
Nominalism 唯名論
Hacking identifies nominalism as the second “sticking point” in debates about scientific knowledge. Nominalism debates question the relationship between our names and categories as referents to the world-as-it-is. ‘Realists’ posit a correspondence, while nominalists posit a disjuncture. Hacking’s argument overall is weakest here, because, as he notes, realism is not treated as the opposite of nominalism anymore, but he does not review the alternatives. [from http://www.ualberta.ca/~cjscopy/reviews/what.html]
Stability 科學發現的固化, 社會建構論者認為是受到外在因素影響
Finally, the problem of the stability of knowledge is at issue in ‘the science wars.’ Is the stability of knowledge the result of ‘getting it right,’ of the correspondence between scientists’ fact statements and the world out there, or it the stability of knowledge the result of ‘external’ factors, such as its institutionalization, social networks, and so on. [from http://www.ualberta.ca/~cjscopy/reviews/what.html]