A Response to "The STS Challenge to Philosophy of Science in Taiwan"

When Professor Ruey-Lin Chen invited me to respond to an article that he had written partly as a criticism of a few paragraphs in my 2002 article (Lei 2002), I felt both honored and hesitant. I felt hesitant because, in my humble opinion, Professor Chen stretches way too much the three noncentral paragraphs in my original article, one of them only a footnote, into what he characterizes as "skeptical discourses on the constructive function of philosophical debates." I feel uncomfortable about using the valuable space of EASTS as a forum to clarify a noncentral point of my essay. On the other hand, I feel honored because Professor Chen has made such effective use of this misinterpretation and has turned it into a tool to call for a wide-ranging reform of Taiwanese philosophy of science. Rather than explaining and rectifying the unfortunate misinterpretation, I would now like to help articulate, and perhaps advance a bit, the core issue Professor Chen is concerned with: namely, the "STS challenge to philosophy of science in Taiwan."

When composing the present response, I decided that there was no need for me to clarify my original position, partly because this special issue also includes Professor Francesca Bray's response, which already addresses this topic. Her statement makes it abundantly clear that hardly any STS scholar would consider the interdisciplinary field of STS a science, let alone a "normal science," as Professor Chen's argument stated. These are certainly words I personally have never used to characterize STS. Even if Professor Chen had been correct when he characterized my position as one that considered STS a "normal science" and hence not in need of the help of philosophy, one scholar's idiosyncratic and erroneous view could by no means constitute a challenge to philosophy of science in Taiwan. Regardless, I do agree with Professor Chen that STS poses a challenge to certain traditions within philosophy of science, and I therefore appreciate his brave and sincere efforts in grappling with this challenge upfront.

From my rather limited understanding, one of the essential difficulties in philosophy of science is the profound transformation of what counts as philosophical thinking. No more revealing expression of this transformation exists than the following statement by Thomas Kuhn in a collection titled American Philosophers (Borradori 1994: 157): "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is addressed to philosophical readers . . . . Today I would consider it part of a discipline that at that time did not even exist: the sociology of knowledge." While sociologists might have a hard time agreeing with Kuhn's self-evaluation, his statement does foretell that scholars engaged in philosophical questions could from then on be found in various places on a university campus other than the philosophy department. The development of STS in Taiwan has likewise kindled new interest in philosophical reflections on technoscience; sociologists, historians, informaticians, psychiatrists, and even practicing engineers have become interested in the ontological, epistemological, and political-philosophical aspects of technoscience. One salient feature of the Taiwanese STS community is the active participation of practitioners from the fields of medicine, science, and engineering. Quite a few practitioners have found philosophy useful in the real-world issues that concern them.

I know that Professor Chen would protest at this point, saying, "But they are interested only in the kind of philosophy that is close to and even connected with STS." If Professor Chen does indeed feel this way, as he has said in past e-mail exchanges with me, this protest can help us specify the real nature of the challenge. As such, STS does not constitute a challenge to philosophy of science in general, but only to certain specific traditions within philosophy of science. In my eyes, it would be more effective and helpful if Professor Chen could first identify those traditions that he views as being underappreciated by the Taiwanese STS community, and then elaborate on their contributions to our understanding of technoscience.

I very much welcome almost all of the reform efforts that Professor Chen has encouraged his colleagues to take on, especially his call for...