Loet Leydesdorff教授的理论思考从未停歇

武夷山

荷兰科学计量学家Loet Leydesdorff是位高产、高被引作者。如果只阅读他的高被引论文（主要是实证分析的论文），就不一定能注意到他的宏大理论追求。这不，德古意特出版社2015年出版了Lorenzo Cantoni 和James A. Danowski主编的新书Communication and Technology（交流与技术），其中收入了Loet Leydesdorff教授的又一篇理论色彩较浓的文章， The Sciences are Discursive Constructs: The communication perspective as an Empirical philosophy of science （科学是话语构念：作为经验性科学哲学的交流视角）。该文摘要如下：

新的通信技术给科学带来了新的动力学：除了（局部的）发现语境和（全局的）证明语境外，第三种调节语境使得学者们能够对作为话语构念的科学进行反思。与科学之哲学视角不同，科学之交流视角能够使我们进入操作化阶段。例如，人们可以期望，作为论著文稿中的知识主张之科学传播不是一成不变的。这些知识主张是选择性地组织于期刊中的，期刊间关系所反映出的学科结构可用于将专业与学科分类编码所采用的潜在维度给可视化展现出来。文本的重构就改写了科学，于是产生了对新词的需求，或是已有词汇被赋予了新的含义（例如，牛顿物理学的“力”与亚里士多德物理学的“力”是不同的）。这样，遵循时间箭头的历史视角之上又增添了演化动力学，即从后见之明视角进行重构。从这个视角去看，科学的认识论地位就发生了变化，我们就可憧憬一种经验性的科学哲学。通过探讨三种语境可能出现的不同构型（组合），就可期望发展出不同的学科与跨学科。

博主：Communication这个词，在中文中可能视情况译为通信、交流、传播、交通等。因此，这个短短的摘要中，多次出现的Communication只好译为不同的中文词，实在也很无奈。

摘要原文如下：

The new communication technologies have introduced a new dynamics in the sciences: in addition to the (local) context of discovery and the (global) context of justification, a third context of mediation enables scholars to reflect on the sciences as discursive constructs. As against the philosophical perspective, the communication perspective on the sciences enables us to proceed to the operationalization. One can, for example, expect the variation of scientific communications as knowledge claims in manuscripts. These knowledge claims are selectively organized in journals, and the disciplinary structures in the relations among journals can be used to visualize the latent dimensions of coding into specialisms and disciplines. The reconstructions in texts rewrite the sciences so that new words are needed or existing words (e.g., “force” in Newtonian and Aristotelian physics) are provided with new meaning. Thus, an evolutionary dynamics—restructuring from the perspective of hindsight—is added to the historical perspective following the arrow of time. From this perspective, the epistemological status of the sciences is changed, and an empirical philosophy of science can be envisaged. The different disciplines and interdisciplines can be expected to develop by exploring possible configurations of the three contexts.

  对Loet Leydesdorff教授的理论探索感兴趣的，最好读一读他的著作，包括：

The Challenge of Scientometrics: The Development, Measurement, and Self-Organization of Scientific Communications Feb 15, 2001

Aug18, 2006（我对该书的书评见/blog-1557-8415.html）

Aug 15, 1994

by Loet Leydesdorff and Peter Van Den Besselaar

Apr 2002

by Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff

Feb 15, 2001