核心畫面

Think of a camera pointed at people living together, asking the kind of question you can actually go and check: who decides this, who ends up better off, what changes when the rule changes. Pulled all the way back, the camera shows one wide field, and that field is social science. Zoomed in, it shows one subject inside it, history or or sociology, and then English calls that a social science.

可以想成一台對著「人怎麼生活在一起」的攝影機。它問的是那種可以真的跑去查證的問題:這件事誰在決定、誰因此過得比較好、更多收起可以想成一台對著「人怎麼生活在一起」的攝影機。它問的是那種可以真的跑去查證的問題:這件事誰在決定、誰因此過得比較好、規則一改會發生什麼。鏡頭拉到最遠,畫面裡是一整片領域,那就是 social science。鏡頭推近,畫面裡只剩其中一門——歷史、政治學、社會學——英文這時候就會說 a social science。同樣兩個字,差別只在 a 和 -s。