当代社会科学哲学对理想类型方法的批判和改进

Critiques and Improvements on Methodology of Ideal Type from Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science

社会科学解释的核心问题是意义理解和因果解释之间的关系。韦伯的理想类型方法试图融合二者关系,其关于意义、价值中立原则和意向性因果关系的观点均受到当代社会科学哲学的批评。针对因果机制探索何以可能,批判实在论提出了本体论和方法论上的改进。它提出分层的本体论,将因果机制放到了本体论层面,而因果关系则是"人为封闭系统"中的一种认知上的关系,由此澄清了因果机制和因果关系,同时,它提出的RRRE模式和MIT的方法论核心虽然都是回溯,但RRRE模式更契合最佳解释推理对回溯的推进,亦即通过可爱性原则和可能性的关系来反映理解和解释的互动关系。

The relationship between understanding and explanation is the core problem of explanation of social science. In order to blend the opposite opinions about the relation,Max Weber proposed the methodology of ideal type. However,his views on meaning,value-free principle and intentional causal relation are criticized by contemporary philosophy of social science. Among these critiques,critical realism improves Weber＇s approach on methodology and ontology. It makes clear the difference between causal mechanism and causal relation. In ontology,critical realism proposes layered ontology whose core concept is causal mechanism. Meanwhile,causal relation is an epistemological relationship in the man-made closed system. In methodology,critical realism insists RRRE mode of explanation. This paper argues that both RRRE mode and MIT have the same inferential process of retroduction,but RRRE mode is closer to the inference to the best explanation which is the improvement on retroduction because it shows the interaction between explanation and understanding through the relation between loveliness and probability.