Ontography: Investigating the production of things, deflating ontology
Ontography: Investigating the production of things, deflating ontology
复制标题
本体论：研究事物的生产，压缩本体论
DOI：
10.1177/0306312713475925
复制
发表时间：
2013
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
M. Lynch
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Lynch
在这篇关于科学技术研究中的“转向本体论”的《科学社会研究》特刊的后记中，我讨论了贯穿该特刊许多文章的一种张力。这是一种在采用一般哲学本体论和追求对特定历史和当代实践的经验研究之间的紧张关系。一般本体论强调多样性和差异性，并拒绝这样的想法，例如，一个相同的疾病实体在不同的临床和研究情况下，该疾病的不同实际制定的基础。实证方法研究如何特定的身份和差异的谈判和实例化在特定情况下。这两种方法并不一定是不相容的，但第一个解决问题的身份和差异，通过“前理论的决定”，而第二个仍然开放的不同的决议，什么算作身份和差异的实际设置研究。在这篇附言中，我认为，对一般哲学本体论的承诺混淆了对具体实践本体论的研究。为了避免这样的混淆，我推荐“本体学”：对特定的创造世界和维持世界的实践进行历史和人种学调查，这些调查开始并不是假设世界的总体图景。这样的研究避免了在认识论和本体论之间做出尖锐的区分，并采取了对称的方法来关注同一性和差异性。
In this postscript to the special issue of Social Studies of Science on the ‘turn to ontology’ in science and technology studies, I discuss a tension that runs through many of the articles in the issue. This is a tension between adopting a general philosophical ontology and pursuing empirical studies of particular historical and contemporary practices. The general ontology highlights multiplicity and difference and rejects the idea that, for example, an identical disease entity underlies different practical enactments of that disease in different clinical and research circumstances. The empirical approach investigates how particular identities and differences are negotiated and instantiated in specific circumstances. The two approaches are not necessarily incompatible, but the first settles questions of identity and difference through a ‘pre-theoretical decision’, while the second remains open to distinct resolutions of what counts as identity and difference in the practical settings studied. In this postscript, I argue that a commitment to a general philosophical ontology confuses investigations of specific practical ontologies. To avoid such confusion, I recommend ‘ontography’: historical and ethnographic investigations of particular world-making and world-sustaining practices that do not begin by assuming a general picture of the world. Such investigations avoid making sharp distinctions between epistemology and ontology and take a symmetrical approach to concerns about identity and difference.