“介入之下的不变性”——论可操控性因果概念及其社会科学哲学意蕴

可操控性概念将因果关系刻画为介入之下的不变性,这是近些年越来越被主流科学哲学的讨论所接受的视角。它一方面跳出了能动性因果理论的人类中心主义窠臼,另一方面又避免了律则性因果理论的缺陷,能够主张有限程度的因果意义。这对于刻画社会科学的因果定律与说明有较大的优越性。     

Instruments and rules: R. B. Woodward and the tools of twentieth-century organic chemistry

The paper illustrates how organic chemists dramatically altered their practices in the middle part of the twentieth century through the adoption of analytical instrumentation — such as ultraviolet and infrared absorption spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy — through which the difficult process of structure determination for small molecules became routine. Changes in practice were manifested in two ways: in the use of these instruments in the development of ‘rule-based’ theories; and in an increased focus on synthesis, at the expense of chemical analysis. These rule-based theories took the form of generalizations relating structure to chemical and physical properties, as measured by instrumentation. This ‘Instrumental Revolution’ in organic chemistry was two-fold: encompassing an embrace of new tools that provided unprecedented access to structures, and a new way of thinking about molecules and their reactivity in terms of shape and structure. These practices suggest the possibility of a change in the ontological status of chemical structures, brought about by the regular use of instruments. The career of Robert Burns Woodward (1917–1979) provides the central historical examples for the paper. Woodward was an organic chemist at Harvard from 1937 until the time of his death. In 1965, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.