本文探討科學哲學在「科技與社會」中的角色與挑戰，並企圖回應《台灣社會研究》季刊第四十五期「科技與社會」專輯中雷祥麟的〈劇變中的科技、民主與社會〉與陳信行的〈科學戰爭中的迷信、騙局、誤解與爭辯〉兩篇大作。同期的「編輯室報告」花了近四頁的篇幅介紹兼評論兩文，總結地說他們以相當不同的理由，取消了「科學戰爭」的學院爭議的優先性，不認為於今關於實在論或是建構論熟優這個老問題還有啥好談的。 實在論與建構論之爭，是一個典型的科學哲學爭議。可是，科學哲學爭議不一定發生在哲學界。相反地，它更頻繁地發生在科學內部。「科學戰爭」其實是自然科學家對於「科技與社會」這個新興學科的懷疑與攻擊，從而引發的一場哲學大論戰。為什麼哲學爭議反而更頻繁地發生在科學內部（不同科學之間的相互質疑）？這其實已暗示了哲學爭議對於科學發展的重要性。 在本文中，我將從科學哲學的觀點來論證，哲學爭議在「科技與社會」的常態發展中，扮演著非常重要的角色。由此而帶出本文的核心問題：科學哲學在當代「科技與社會」中的角色與挑戰是什麼？為了回答這個問題，本文將討論「事實與價值的關係」這個古老的哲學議題；再考察科學哲學在當代「科技與社會」的「新社會位置」。

This paper inquiries the role and challenge of the “Philosophy of Science” (PS) in the face of contemporary STS. It also tries to respond to the macroscopic articles on STS published in a special issue, the “Technology and Society,” of this journal (TRQSS, No. 45, 2002); they are Sean Hsiang-Lin Lei’s “Techno-science, Democracy and Society in Transformation: Challenges for STS” and Hsin-Hsing Chen’s “Superstitions, Imposture, Misunderstandings and Debates in the Science Wars”. The Editor’s Report in No. 45 contributed four pages to introduce and comment them. It concluded that both of the authors had eliminated the priority of Science Wars as an academic debate in terms of very different reasons; it claimed that both authors thought that the debate on realism and constructivism, which is a typical one in PS, had been no longer worthy of discussion. Debates in PS, however, do not always occur within the philosophical academia. On the contrary, they happen more frequently among scientific fields. As a matter of fact, the Science Wars is a large-scale philosophical debate resulted from the attack of natural scientists on STS, a new born scientific discipline. Why do philosophical debates happen more frequently among different fields of science? The fact implies that philosophical debates are essential important to the scientific development. In this paper, I shall argue, from the view of PS, that philosophical debates play a significant role even in the normal development of STS. Second, an old philosophical issue, the relationship between fact and value, will be examined. Lastly, I’ll outline a newly social status of PS in Science, Technology and Society.