✪ Zhang Jing | Department of Sociology, Peking University
[Introduction] "Understanding China" is a proposition of the times. What is the basis for “Understanding China”? How to “understand China”? This is a theoretical problem facing the Chinese social science community. As a senior sociologist, Professor Zhang Jing, the author of this article, believes that if is subject to the "involution of ideological vision", lacks critical scrutiny, and is content with self-absorption or even narcissism, it will not be conducive to a better understanding of human history and development. General theoretical explanation.
Zhang Jing believes that human knowledge system is diverse and complex. If we want to explain a new general principle from China's development practice and withstand the challenges and tests of other experiences, we need to understand the shared knowledge of mankind. In-depth understanding of knowledge and belief in the existence of general thinking logic for understanding things. In her view, social science research strives to provide general knowledge through local experience. For example, To understand China's position in the world system, it is necessary to go beyond China, understand the whole, and put what we know about China into the entire human knowledge system. Only then can we see the value of China. If we lack the ability to interpret general facts from particular experiences, we will regard others' interpretations as unique experiences and ourselves as unique experiences. And if 's unique experiences cannot be interoperated and there is no universally shared fact, it is tantamount to denying the possibility of mining generality from one's own unique experiences.
She pointed out that today our researchers are trying hard to help the world "understand China", but they are faced with the embarrassment of being unable to explain their reasons clearly and no one listens to them. If we want to better explain the Chinese experience, we need to start from the aspects of research objectives, analysis framework, reasoning logic, abstraction and formalization, and comprehensively improve our ability to discover general theories from special experiences. Otherwise, it will be difficult to jump out of talking about different things. situation.
This article was originally published in the 2022 issue 3 of " Academic Monthly ", with the original title "Discovering the General from the Particular - Reflecting on the Explanation of China's Experience". only represents the author’s opinion and is for your reference only.
Discovering the general from the particular——Reflecting on the elaboration of China’s experience
▍ Problem awareness
Social sciences are working hard to let the world “understand China”. The commonly used method is to demonstrate our uniqueness—local characteristics and differences. Patterns, unique paths. is not wrong to do this, but the effect is limited. As a result, there were sharp criticisms: the reasons were unclear and no one listened. Why is so? We need to reflect on ourselves. There is an unavoidable question, that is, how does explain the uniqueness?
In academia, the prerequisite for understanding is to evaluate whether it is worth knowing. "Worthy" is a specific professional judgment, referring to whether it has intellectual value. Having intellectual value means two things: providing facts rather than assertions, and revealing the principles underlying the facts. The belief of the academic community is still what Bacon said: knowledge is power , but not power is knowledge, so just loudness is not enough, there must be content. This content must be explanatory principles proven by facts. The exposition of facts and principles can help improve the legitimacy of a position, at least its arguability and acceptability, but the mere expression of a position cannot be equated to reliable facts or true principles. This relationship prompts a problem: when engaging in social science research, if you neglect to elaborate on facts and principles, communication will encounter difficulties.
Can different positions lead to identification (positive standards) or acceptance (negative standards)? There are many such examples in the world, which is why we have the terms "respectable opponents" and "constructive competition". "Respectable" and "constructive" here usually come from an understanding of the basic principles of behavior. Although social science research is not irrelevant to value positions, positions need to be explained through verification principles. This is different from talking about politics in academic language, because academia targets knowledge, while politics targets opponents..Although knowledge discovery is competitive, the purpose is to overcome human ignorance through learning. Therefore, in the eyes of rigorous scholars, whether a phenomenon contains knowledge worth understanding has little to do with who the actor is. In political struggles, if one admits that the opponent’s actions are in line with principles, political incorrectness may arise. This difference, expressed in a commonly used classification in sociology, is that the knowledge perspective is universalist (aimed at behavior), and the measurement standards are consistent, otherwise it will be difficult to convince others, while the political perspective is particularistic (aimed at objects), and the measurement standards are diverse. Otherwise, the enemy cannot be attacked. Since there are friendly and enemy camps, politics must first identify positions and demonstrate strength to control the other party. However, knowledge needs to treat everyone equally, explore the principles of action based on different experiences, and gain a better understanding of human beings themselves. If this difference is recognized, can the practice of politics in the form of knowledge truly promote mutual understanding? I'm skeptical.
Unfortunately, discourse guided by particularist principles often dominates problem consciousness in the social sciences. This is manifested in the abandonment of knowledge-seeking questions and the use of academic discourse to assert the will to power and the use of universalist concepts to package particularist facts. This situation is manifested both at home and abroad. For example, in the English-speaking world, there is a common question pattern: According to the standard, it should be..., but why (a certain country) does not... In the Chinese-speaking world, countries or groups are used as boundaries to ask "What is universal and whose value is it?" It's not uncommon either. These questions based on the object may seem to have opposing positions, but in fact they share the same principle of particularism. The difference between a real researcher and a social audience is that he will be interested in further understanding because a certain principle can explain reality, while a simple statement of position will hardly have a strong impact on independent thinkers.
The limitation of the principle of particularism lies in the warm " empathy " approach to facts. This is well-intentioned, but unqualified from a research perspective: "If we only understand human behavior through 'empathy', we can never falsify descriptive hypotheses or provide them with information beyond our own experience." The evidence and conclusions drawn from it can never go beyond those untested hypotheses. Such explanations will stop at personal understanding rather than scientific research. "Empathy" is often premised on identifying objects and inevitably ignores systematicity. Comparing thinking and frames of reference often results in rejecting evidence beyond one's own experience and falling into absolute belief in limited experience. This "involution of ideological vision" is characterized by a lack of critical scrutiny, contentment with self-absorption and even narcissism - although this warning is directed at the Western intellectual community, it is worth remembering by the intellectual community around the world. Because it transforms academic issues into political issues and turns the exploration of principles into declarations of stance, there are many cases in "debates" in Chinese academic circles. For example, what Fei Xiaotong put forward, why the mixed agricultural-industrial rural economy exists in China has become a question of different development models - why China's rural industrialization did not follow the Western path; what Peng Yusheng put forward, in the absence of individual property rights Under the circumstances, why clan unity and trust can protect informal property rights has become a special industrialization model issue - why is the family the answer to the industrialization of Wenzhou .
Such changes in focus reflect the indifference to the pursuit of general knowledge deep in the problem consciousness, and the attempt to replace the competition of academic principles with academic politics: pointing out that the general path of industrialization or the modern enterprise system cannot be established in Chinese society.If this is the case, then how to explain the emergence of human industrialization as a more efficient production method in China over the past hundreds of years? How to explain that from a long-term historical perspective, the various management rules of Chinese enterprises are more similar to the world than divergent? Are you accustomed to the transformation of such problems? Do you lack the self-focus of overall care? The questioning logic of particularism may be suitable for fighting, but it is not suitable for exploration - if our success means that we have done something right, what is the principle of this "right" behavior? Compared with other successful experiences, are the principles similar or completely different? If it is the latter, needs to reveal new and explainable general principles from special experiences and be challenged and tested by other experiences in order to be persuasive.
▍ Holisticness and Systematicness
A common question related to this is Should reasoning activities be bounded by regions? I am not yet sure what this question means for knowledge production, due to the complexity of knowledge flows. Although knowledge comes from a certain region, its value is often not limited by geography, and global academia and industry will participate in the evaluation. This means that judging whether knowledge is valuable is related to widespread recognition. Therefore, new knowledge needs to be related to existing knowledge systems, and it is difficult to define it unilaterally. In other words, all new explorations must be based on existing knowledge. Why should
be connected with existing knowledge? The continuity and systematic characteristics of social science require a strong supporting relationship between knowledge: “In more mature sciences, there are some interrelated models, which can be called hypotheses and theories, which provide a solid foundation for individual researchers. The development of these hypotheses and theories is combined with the progress of specific information and data through continuous reverse feedback. "Without the previous steps, there would be no subsequent steps, and the subsequent steps would surpass the previous ones." steps, yet the significance of the previous steps as a link in the entire chain of research work remains unchanged. "This "firm support" comes not only from concrete experience, but also from the systematic connection of experience and theory: "If there were not some comparisons. Autonomous, interrelated models and relatively autonomous theoretical development, and just selecting some individual literature materials from the vast literature will be dominated by some short-lived and untested research conventions", thus inevitably " The fate of "history is always being rewritten" under the influence of various factions as the times are vacillating and fleeting.
The holistic and systematic nature of social science is also related to whether it points to non-short-term, non-accidental and non-specific generality. Here, short-term refers to a temporary relationship, accidental refers to a situation that is less likely to occur and is not the norm, specific means that it must rely on a large number of limiting conditions, and limited means that it is not easy to occur naturally. In social science research, the exploration of short-term, accidental and specific factors is not meaningless, but its relative importance is low: because there is no identification of differences that will not appear and have not yet appeared, changes and recurring differences , not to mention the difference between inconsequential daily activities and changes in social structure (social relations), conceptual power (thoughts and beliefs), and economic and political relations (distribution of power). What social sciences are looking for are the normal causes that drive important changes, rather than the accidental causes that cause the causal relationship to immediately collapse if conditions change slightly. Not all activities play an equally important role. Most human activities only result in the continuation or repetition of social and cultural structures and do not bring about significant and meaningful changes. Therefore, they can be identified from complex social phenomena. Normal causes are important in attracting the attention of other researchers.
Obviously, under the requirements of integrity and systematicity, "familiarity" does not mean "knowing". Be familiar with relevant empirical phenomena and know relevant principles. Phenomenons are fragmented and changeable, while principles must have correlations and stable reasons.Principles can explain phenomena, but phenomenon A cannot explain phenomenon B. The key connections between phenomena can only explain similar phenomena after they are generalized into theoretical relationships. For example, China's poverty alleviation practices have been recognized by the world. This is a phenomenon, but it cannot be used to explain the poverty phenomenon in other places, nor can it explain the poverty phenomenon in the future. But why do people always fall into poverty? The book "The Nature of Poverty: Why We Can't Escape Poverty" uses a large number of interviews and comparative experiments to explore the reasons why specific groups fall into poverty, and to explain the occurrence of most poverty phenomena. If this explanation can broadly explain the poverty experience in many places, it will form general knowledge and become a reference basis for solving poverty problems in different regions.
Social science research is committed to providing general knowledge through local experience, which requires not only knowing oneself but also knowing others, not only elaborating experience, but also transforming experience into principles. This transformation of is inseparable from the system's reference frame comparison. To borrow a metaphor: Imagine China is a room. If I only stay in the room, I can tell you every detail in the room, "but I cannot tell you the location of the room." To know this position, you must be able to step out of the room, understand the whole, and put what you know about China into the entire human knowledge system before you can see its value. Therefore, by communicating with existing knowledge systems in theoretical form and discovering the general principles behind different stories, local experiences can be related to the experiences of others. This is the only way for different local experiences to be communicated smoothly. If general relationships cannot be discovered from local experiences, either these experiences do not have general significance, or the researchers lack the cognitive ability to discover general relationships.
found that the general requirement is centered on theoretical output, which is different from focusing on empirical (case) output. The latter is case-specific and does not need to pay attention to the connection between case conclusions and overall human knowledge, while the former must respond systematically to existing knowledge and clarify the position of new conclusions in the knowledge system. If there is no intention to generalize local experiences, many Chinese experiences will remain as specific stories and cannot appear as general knowledge. If a certain uniqueness also has universal significance, then its knowledge value will be increased, and it will be easier to attract others to use local experience to verify it, and spread it outward through the communication process. If the research only focuses on the Chinese stories we are familiar with and cannot provide behavioral principles for the entire human race, then what motivation do others have to understand an experience that has nothing to do with them?
▍ Ontology and History
Going one step further, in the face of China’s experience, why don’t we explore - the general in the unique - this knowledge with higher value and easier dissemination, may be related to deeper thinking characteristics . Philosophy is the way to embody the way of thinking, so we need to enter the philosophical discussion for a moment.
The goal of ancient Greek philosophy is to answer the essence or natural properties of things, that is, to explore ontological questions. Driven by this goal, it is very important to distinguish the fixed differences between objective facts and subjective feelings, and to construct classification characteristics and objective definitions of relevant facts as the basis for further analysis. This means that in terms of basic principles, there is a difference between the knower and the known object. If the known object does not have fixed objective properties, or this property can be changed at will by the knower's imagination, it is not a fact. This presupposes that facts must have transcendent, free and stable characteristics in order to serve as categories and lay the foundation for cognition.
Does this of course become the epistemological prerequisite for different ways of thinking? not necessarily. Comparative analysis of different philosophies found that in Chinese philosophy, there is no fixed difference between objective and subjective that cannot be changed, and facts do not necessarily have stable characteristics for "invoking"."The formation of Chinese culture does not attempt to resort to universal categories that define human nature and establish the unity of mankind. The Chinese are more willing to discuss themselves in regional languages such as the people of the Middle Kingdom or the Han people... In terms of culture In the understanding of history and history, ancient Chinese thinkers would not invoke the principle of transcendence to support their views. The reason is: "The theory of righteousness and the theory of current situations often do not match, and there are those who cannot fully adhere to righteousness." . The reason must be based on the current situation, which is the truth. "
For the sake of easy distinction, let's call this historical thinking, which corresponds to the above-mentioned ontological thinking. There is a noteworthy difference here regarding the way of knowing objective things: specific and constant qualitative presuppositions. The theory of history defines things differently: it views things as being a blend of subject and object, concrete, changing, and interrelated, rather than having general characteristics that are constant, objective, independent, and transcendent. Historical thinking makes less attempts to generalize the characteristics of things, because generalization usually means a higher degree of constant classification, which is contrary to basic assumptions. In comparison, ontological thinking attempts to understand those "universal categories that establish human unity", that is, general qualities, based on constant classification characteristics. For example, these concepts − specific person (man) , general human (mankind) ; special individual (person) , universal individual (individual) ; single behavior (behavior) , collective behavior Pattern (collective patterns of behavior) and so on. In these groups of concepts, the facts referred to are both particular and general at the same time: the former is unique but the latter is general, the former is specific but the latter is universal. Just like Zhang San and Li Si are different individuals, but the rights they have as individuals are common and can be cited as a basis for general comparison. In this distinction, particularity is not universality, and concreteness is not generality. The two cannot replace each other, but there are universal characteristics in uniqueness and general characteristics in concreteness that can be recognized. They have special and concrete facts. basis (based on).
What is the significance of this convoluted conceptual distinction? Different ways of thinking will give different answers. The important difference lies in this point: the way of thinking and cognitive beliefs - looking for the general in the individual, and exploring the universal in the particular - whether there is any value. Under the ontological way of thinking, pursuing objective universality and abstract principles, transcending the limitations of concrete and special experiences, and exploring the general constant essence of things are important goals of research work. In the historical thinking mode, things are changing, historical, and concrete, and do not rely on constant, general abstract qualities as the premise of existence. So, who would explore the qualities of things that they think do not exist? Logically, how is it possible to explore general traits if they are not believed to exist objectively at all? Furthermore, without such distinguishing premises as a priori invocations, how can some key differences be made in concrete/particular storytelling - empirical (visible)/transcendent (expected), reproductive (from being to Has) / constructed (from scratch) has a vision? If you don’t think it is important to advance understanding to the general level of theorems/axioms/principles, what is the need to discover the general from the particular?
The problem is indeed difficult: since principles belong to the general properties of things, then, if there is no (constant) belief in general properties, what exactly is the so-called exploration principle exploring? How will it be done? Is what you see in your immediate experience the principle? Experience can give examples of the process of a thing, but exploring principles requires telling its general meaning, universal characteristics and reasons for its repeated recurrence. When the knower does this, "it is inevitable that he will step out of the particular world of process and enter the realm of knowledge of ideas and forms." Obviously, "going out of the particular world of process" to understand the general, whether it is useful, promising, and valuable is closely related to cognitive beliefs. The two mental beliefs process facts very differently.We all already know that ontological thinking is the epistemological foundation of modern science. In the natural sciences, this foundation is unanimously recognized, but the epistemological foundation of the social sciences is still full of differences. This problem is especially obvious in China, a country with a profound humanistic tradition.
Graham once used the comparison of "causal thinking" and "correlation thinking" to explain the difference between ontological and historical thinking. He found that due to different logics, the two kinds of thinking have different aspects and abilities to pay attention to. The belief in relational thinking is based on experience itself, assuming that facts are historical, changing, and interrelated, but it does not distinguish between homogeneous and heterogeneous definitions, nor does it use general characteristics as a basis for citing. The belief in causal thinking is based on the understanding of generality, assuming that things belong to each other according to their different natures, and that there are universal and general principles (causal relationships) that can be explored among homogeneous things. These two kinds of thinking orientations are different. The causal orientation is vertical (concrete to abstract, special to universal), while the correlation orientation is horizontal (parallel analogies, pointing to concrete and experiential things, without resorting to any transcendent realm). Can lateral thinking and vertical thinking produce common knowledge goals? The author has no answer.
But we cannot avoid it, because it is related to what knowledge is and what we need to know - this belief greatly affects the logic of thinking. As long as we observe why different people often have different depths of understanding and analysis when facing the same data, we can find that compared with mastering the material (experience phenomena), thinking logic (analytical ability) is not at all secondary (because ) "Thinking gives very different statuses and values to natural events and objects." The empirical materials in the "world of particularity" are scattered and random. Their significance lies in their interconnectedness. The establishment of such connections relies on the cognitive process. The empirical materials can be used for verification, but how to organize them for explanation depends on theory. Systems and analytical logic. It is often they, rather than seeing itself, that determine what the knower can "see" from experience. Therefore, thinking is even better than data when it comes to discovering causal relationships, because only by using logic can we discover the key connections between data. Stacking data and materials can "generate good stories, but it usually does not produce knowledge. Because it is just the blooming of feelings, the purpose is to strengthen people's moods or feelings, and the link between them is the coherence of emotions. ... (And) thinking It is based on some kind of grounded belief, which is not something directly felt, but real knowledge, knowledge believed to be true."
▍ Facts and wishes
The distinction between the above thinking styles can help researchers distinguish whether the so-called "knowledge" when facing a phenomenon means discovering facts or elaborating wishes. These two things are sometimes mixed into communications, but distinguishing them is critical to establishing a common basis for communication. Willingness is a view of facts, which often leads to disagreements, because it is difficult for will not to include considerations of interests, benefits, potential, morality and results, but facts are beyond these considerations. Factual arguments must rely on the presentation of sharable evidence and allow all parties to add new evidence and information to support, supplement, amend or even overturn old evidence. If the evidence is true and obvious, it is more likely to be accepted by those with different wishes. For example, after a traffic accident, the parties involved say that it was the other party's fault and that they were not responsible. This is a wish, not necessarily factual evidence. Another example is court debates. The accusations made by the prosecution and defense against each other are expressions of moral will, not necessarily factual evidence.
In knowledge exchange, the reason why facts are easier to accept than wishes is because they have the characteristics of transcending different emotions, positions, ideologies, interests, morals, individual experiences and preferences. This characteristic can be called for the independence of facts. Willingness is subject to the influence of different emotions, positions, ideologies, interests, morals, personal experiences and preferences, and it has no way to exist "independently" of these influences.The independence of the fact makes it pure: it is not a wish, it has nothing to do with whether you like it or not, it has nothing to do with what it should be, or what you wish it to be. This is indeed very cold, and is often frowned upon by common minds that have emotions, warmth, and morals. But the reason why revealing facts can convince people is that they are different from literary fiction, emotional catharsis, moral judgment and individual preference. If the discovery of facts is confused with the expression of wishes, it will be difficult to distinguish wishes from facts. In this way, what the thing is, what it should be, and what I want it to be become the same question.
This kind of confusion - regarding the characteristic definition of facts as preferences and wishes, adds difficulties and confusion to the communication of social science research. For example, sociologists often use “modernity” and “tradition” to refer to the heterogeneous characteristics of the two societies. They are not natural empirical times, but defined times based on traits, used to understand different social phenomena and structures. Whether this definition is regarded as a factual description, or as an expression of willingness to elevate oneself and belittle others, greatly affects the effect of people's communication. Those who regard it as a fact believe that this concept provides a useful summary of factual characteristics, and those who regard it as a will believe that those who adhere to this definition welcome modernity and reject tradition, and also describe the special history of their own society as the origin of modernity. land. For them, the two concepts are not neutral. There is no distinction between facts and wishes, and it is easy to interpret facts as wishes.
No matter how the factual phenomenon is defined, it must have an empirical basis and evidence, but not necessarily will. For example, the aforementioned "modernity", what it is, why it appears, and how it spreads must be proven with historical facts. This is completely different from whether people like it and whether they should promote it. James Vernon discovered from British history that population mobility promoted supra-local transactions, and a series of social changes followed: Unlike the previous limited and unchanged living areas, extensive population mobility provided diversity (strangers society), leading to the intersection of different objective evaluations in new places of life. In order to distinguish, the different rules in the hometown and the place of migration must be named, so the former is defined as tradition and the latter is defined as modernity to distinguish between particularist rules based on object identification and relationship determination, or based on behavior Universalist rules for identifying and identity rules.
The author observed that universalist rules are more prevalent in unfamiliar societies, which encourages the formation of more abstract social relationships. At the same time, as the relationship between individuals and their place of origin continues to weaken, their hometown becomes less and less important in their life course, and the old relationship model rooted in the individual and their place of origin gradually becomes unsustainable. The old world was built around intimate places and personal relationships, and strangers must develop new laws, constraints, and moral codes in their interactions with each other. They are something that acquaintance society cannot provide because the rules are fundamentally different. A society of strangers faces a series of new coordination problems. In order to solve these problems, abstract rules that are different from those at home emerge. It is these challenges that inspire the implantation and reinvention of abstract rules.New rules of social activities and more detailed social classifications gradually take shape, so that people who are strangers to each other can correctly anticipate and deal with each other in various situations; power and authority are no longer held by those prominent and familiar figures, but by those who are prominent and familiar. Gradually handed over to abstract and anonymous bureaucracies; with the emergence of many new organizations, trade that had long relied on local networks and personal credit was gradually reconstructed, and economic activities began to be controlled by abstract and standardized new transaction rules (laws); New occupational groups continue to appear (soldiers, craftsmen, temporary workers, priests, state employees including tax collectors, postal workers, etc.), giving rise to new categories of citizens; in more open and mobile cities, strangers work together The increased probability of encountering strangers frequently creates problems such as maintaining private space, proper interpersonal communication, and establishing social distance; printed materials about abstract concepts are widely disseminated, promoting a community based on a sense of identity rather than geographical divisions and relationships. The establishment of a local market for face-to-face communication is restructured into an abstract space. The mode of commodity exchange is no longer conditioned by personal identification, and extensive, cross-local transactions become possible.
These descriptions of phenomena based on facts do not mean that the author's intention is to weaken the tradition. Here, the decline of tradition is a factual judgment, not a value judgment. As a fact that occurs independently of the will of the discoverer, they are described because the fact actually occurs, not because the speaker has a will to make the tradition disappear. Vernon described the disintegration of a series of traditional rules and the proliferation of modern rules. She used the term "rule abstraction" (referring to general rules that are not specific to a specific object. It no longer needs to be premised on identifying the object, thereby reducing the face-to-face relationship of traditional society. The huge cost of communication), summarizes the general phenomena that appear in changes. Why is this a common phenomenon? Because although it is found in British historical experience, the heterogeneity described appears in the social changes of many countries. Therefore, similar facts can be proved from any regional experience, including China’s experience. But if we lack the ability to interpret general facts from specific experiences, we will regard other people's interpretations as unique experiences, and we will also regard ourselves as unique experiences. If unique experiences cannot be communicated with each other and there is no universally shared fact, it is equivalent to denying the possibility of exploring generality from one's own unique experiences.
▍ Goal setting and reasoning logic
In any communication with a way of thinking, explaining yourself may have two consequences: strengthening or alleviating confusion in communication. Why does communication intensify and confusion arise? It becomes you talking about yours and me talking about mine? There is also a lack of shareable goal setting and reasoning logic. Starting from reflection on warning issues, I briefly discuss the following common aspects: (1) despising the need to connect empirical and theoretical issues and actively weakening the connection between the two; (2) ignoring conceptual frameworks such as analytical frameworks and presuppositions Participation cannot make the narrative subject to the order of explanation; (3) Use moral interpretation and ideological judgment to replace theoretical explanations and factual attributions; (4) Stay on the causes of phenomena with limited (local) experience and ignore systematic exploration Theoretical causes of sexual value; (5) Use the complexity of phenomena to reject the simplification of models beyond experience. These five points, simply put, are research goals, analytical framework, reasoning logic, abstraction, and formalization. These issues may limit the ability to discover general theories from particular experiences.
(1) Research objectives
What are the basic objectives of empirical research in social sciences? There is no sufficient discussion in the academic circles, and it seems that researchers can make their own choices. In fact, there can be many practical goals in the name of research, many of which, while indispensable, have little to do with the pursuit of knowledge. For example, if the research goal is to demonstrate achievements, the key point is to list the achievements and assume that the reasons are known - otherwise, how could the achievements be achieved? Less likely to automatically move towards further exploration - what exactly is done right, why it is done right, what is the principle, how is it related to other known principles, how to respond to different explanations, etc.For example, if the research goal is to educate and improve the ideological realm of students, then it is usually condescending and self-confident. As a teacher leading students, how can he explore the unknown with them on an equal footing? For another example, if the research goal is combat, and if you want to defeat your opponent, you must assume that you are right and the opponent is wrong. How can you compare different experiences and try to discover universal principles? Obviously, there are many purposes for research, and not all goals will naturally lead to knowledge exploration.
The goal of knowledge exploration is actually simple. The questions it cares about are limited and pure: What facts were discovered? What are the reasons? Are the existing explanations correct? Due to the exploratory nature of the research, different answers are entirely possible. This does not matter. Authenticity can be distinguished through critical examination. Therefore, the existence of a market for ideological debate is indispensable for knowledge competition. For example, researchers have observed that in some cases, there are huge increases in social wealth, while in other cases this is not the case. This is a phenomenon discovered. For this phenomenon to arouse the concern of the academic community, further explanations need to be found - why this is so and where is the principle. Many researchers work toward this goal, exploring what institutional conditions create incentives for wealth production. Hayek's answer to this question is a system that can effectively utilize dispersed knowledge (among members of society); Becker's answer is a system that can promote extensive investment in human capital; Tijol's answer is a system with corresponding Tolerance and incentives can form a system that maximizes benefit sharing. Although these three answers are different, they all attempt to discover general knowledge about institutional incentives and explain the causes of wealth growth. In this way, the results from different experiences can create an interest in mutual understanding.
(2) Analysis framework
The analysis framework is similar to an ideal type and is an effort to theorize the relationship between factual elements. Analytical frameworks are competitive and represent genre traditions, so there are actually as many analytical standards as there are analytical frameworks. These standards often affect researchers' views on specific facts, and play a role in discovering facts, determining values, providing standards, and organizing evidence in research. Without the help of an analytical framework, many differences would remain hidden in history and invisible. Because the judgment of what are the key elements is not automatically given by the material, but is found by the analyst from the material.
For example, for the analysis of social transformation, one analytical framework is: the development of productivity has changed the production relations, resulting in the emergence of a social form dominated by property owners... Therefore, changes in productivity are the cause of the transformation of social form. Another analytical framework is that the determination of property rights relations stimulates efficiency-seeking behavior, promotes R&D and renewal of productivity, and turns more production surplus into investment, thus giving rise to a social form dominated by property owners... Therefore, the relationship between property rights Change is the cause of the transformation of social forms. So, is it productivity that drives social transformation, or property rights relations? Rather than the fragmented data itself, it is the organization of the data that the analytical framework can provide the answer to. does not have an analysis framework, so it is difficult to reveal the causal linkage mechanism. This kind of revelation must involve the participation of conceptual architecture. Tocqueville's narration of the history of the French Revolution served him to discover the key limitations of French society: absolute autocracy, centralized bureaucracy, abstract ideas, and lack of political experience. He uses historical facts to reveal the role of these key variables in shaping change, not to write about historical facts themselves. Therefore, he abandoned the order of natural chronology and subordinated the narrative to the order of conceptual construction.
(3) Inference logic
Different languages, due to historical and cultural reasons, often have different focus. Many times, people don’t understand each other. The problem is not their opinions (disagreement is normal in academia), but the logic of the argument. For example, whether to use proof or judgment belongs to different logics. Proof requires the presentation of evidence, which must come from multiple sources and be independent. Judgment usually does not distinguish between evidence and opinions, nor does it require the independence of multiple sources of evidence.If we proceed from the logic of proof, judgment should be the result of the evidence rather than the evidence itself. For another example, explaining a problem requires a program that is consistent with inferences, setting aside conditions layer by layer, revealing the role of influencing factors, showing facts that are visible to others and can be reviewed and verified, "presented with step-by-step testing rather than with the events in the case." Written in a narrative style." These logics are not opinions, but inference methods that produce opinions. If inferential logic is rejected, opinions will not win the attention of serious scholars.
Communication in different languages especially requires understanding the logical basis of the other party, because thinking follows the path set by the language, and every researcher cannot escape the influence of the accustomed mother tongue. “A language is an organization, which systematically Focusing on certain aspects of the real world and cognitive realm, while systematically abandoning those features that other languages focus on. The person who uses this language is completely unaware of the existence of this organization (because) he is completely conditioned by this language. ". The constraints of language are often expressed as logical differences. For example, the logic of recording facts and using concepts to summarize the relationship between facts is very different from the logic of "conveying emotions and guiding behavior". This reminds researchers of the need for self-reflection: Logically, are they accustomed to judging rather than proving? Do you regard your opinion of the facts as a description of the facts? Are moral or ideological judgments treated as statements of causal principles? Users of any language need to be alert to their own limitations and look for a common logical basis. Only by exchanging ideas can they enhance mutual understanding.
(4) Abstraction
Searching for general knowledge is a kind of theoretical exploration. Theory is the principle relationship behind social phenomena, which is expressed as an abstract proposition that transcends specific phenomena. The theory is not bound to a specific object, but an abstraction of the influence relationship of a type of action mode. The theory does not say that someone is right, but that a certain type of behavior is right. If this pair has a principle meaning, then it should be in Under the same conditions, if any subject adopts this behavior, similar results may occur. This is the abstract theoretical cause. Theory is not a simple induction of phenomena, but requires deduction and analysis. If causal relationships could be discovered just by observing the occurrence chain, "science would be too easy." The theory must reveal key causal influences and answer the question: If any event is observed to occur in a particular order, why can we be sure that it is due to some naturally stable causal rule rather than to chance? Although specific experience is regional, theory is global and systematic. If it cannot be abstracted into theoretical propositions, it will be difficult for any experience to be meaningful in the world of others.
Abstraction requires seeking the explanatory cause in the superordinate concept of the phenomenon and expressing it in a simplified propositional form. It is assumed that there is a vertical ladder from experience to theory. Experience presents specific, changeable, and complex diversity, while theory presents general, (relatively) constant, and concise relationships. The search for theory requires an increase in the level of abstraction along this ladder, so that findings from experience can (temporarily) be separated from experience and independently become a set of causal propositions. Theoretical abstraction only highlights key causal relationships, such as the principle revealed by Marx - productivity determines production relations. When it is separated from specific experiences (English and German industrialization) and can explain other industrialization experiences, it becomes a general theoretical proposition. A theory is an expression form that can exist independently from a certain experience and is self-consistent, non-contradictory, and concise. It does not just explain an empirical phenomenon, but describes the causal motivation of a type of phenomenon.
(5) Formalization
Formalization can easily cause negative "formalism" associations in Chinese, so it has not attracted the attention it deserves. However, the formal expression of social science is not the formalism that people usually hate, but refers to a presentation form of knowledge deduction: similar to geometric figures, it can also be expressed in words, numbers and lines, and can be deduced and analyzed in a concise form. . In most disciplines, formalization is the norm - for example, using formulaic models to express the relationships between things.The reason some liberal arts reject this is that it cannot represent complexity. If complexity is a goal, it can be presented in other ways - such as narrative - but this is not a reason to deny formalization. Because the more important goal of social science is to extract key connections and features from complexity, which exactly requires formal capabilities.
In addition to expressing conclusions, formalization is often a necessary starting point for analysis to unfold. For example, when we analyze the two phenomena of capitalism and socialism, we must start from the formal characteristics of the two. These characteristics were constructed by previous scholars through specific empirical facts: one is capital-driven, highly competitive, and mainly regulated by the market. The allocation system has less welfare protection and the risks are borne by the individual decision makers; the other is a resource allocation system driven by administrative organizations and mainly regulated by central planning, which has more welfare protection and risks are borne by the organization. These characteristics formalize empirical phenomena into model forms, which are widely known and accepted by the academic community through knowledge dissemination. The formal expression of social phenomena and relationships has the function of systematically providing characteristic benchmarks. It should be said that a large number of concepts in social sciences, as well as the relationships between concepts (empirical facts expressed), are all the results of formalization. Without this kind of formal work, the academic community can only fall into a situation where everyone talks about his own story. It is impossible to use key features as standards to carry out analysis, let alone use the comparison of formal models to start a dialogue.
This article was originally published in the 2022 issue 3 of "Academic Monthly", originally titled "Discovering the General from the Particular - Reflecting on the Explanation of China's Experience" . is welcome to be shared by individuals. Please contact the copyright owner for media reprinting.
