別把STS做小了：麥肯其訪談錄

Broadening the horizons of STS: An interview with Donald MacKenzie

麥肯其教授（Professor Donald MacKenzie）是愛丁堡學派第二代中最富盛名的學者之一，也是前代元老退休後，還繼續鎮守在強綱領發源地的台柱。這篇訪談是從「一加一怎麼可能不等於二」這個簡單的問題開始的。麥教授告訴我們，把視野放寬，一加一就有無限的可能；它可能是10，也可能引來一場大爆炸。緊接著，他告訴我們「數學」是他多年研究的主軸。換言之，不管是導彈議題、碳權交易、還是金融市場，這些看似繁雜的研究背後，都有條「數學」的主線。其次，麥教授也為我們說明了他所理解的有限論（finitism）與操演性（performativity），並替我們解釋了他如何在研究議題上具體運用這些概念。此外，在談到「布洛爾──拉圖爾」論爭的問題時，他也從愛丁堡學派人的角度，來闡析一連串的誤解。最後，麥肯其教授也為東亞的科技與社會研究提出了建言。「不要把這個領域想得太窄！」是他的肺腑之言。

With a background in applied mathematics, Professor Donald MacKenzie has recently been named among the top 25 brains of the financial crisis. He is also a pioneer in developing the discipline of science studies of finance. For decades, he has explored new fields in the sociology of science and technology, especially those that deeply affect people’s lives such as the eugenics movement, the accuracy of nuclear weapons, emissions markets, and his recent work on current credit crunch. This interview started with a simple, but baffling question of how it could be possible that one plus one does not always equal two. We then attempted to find a thread from a diversity of his research topics. He responded that most of his studies have revolved around the application of mathematics and its impacts on our daily lives. We also asked for his comments on the Bloor-Latour debate. To this request, he replied what he described as a ’very biased Edinburgh School answer’. That is, he sees the attacks on the Edinburgh School as being attacks on a sociologically reductionist misunderstanding of its position. At the end of this interview, he encouraged East Asian scholars to move away from the traditional topics and to be prepared to search for novel ones.