大数据时代的计算社会科学与学术话语体系重构

Computational Social Sciences and the Reconstruction of Academic Discourse System in the Age of Big Data

社会科学的发展经历了从分析到综合再到复杂性科学三个阶段,与之相伴,科学方法论从还原论到整体论再到复杂适应论持续演进。复杂适应系统理论把被经典科学理性所简化、排除的多样性、无序性、个体性因素重新带回科学的视野,深刻了社会科学家对研究对象的本质的认识,指明了社会科学方法体系创新和突破的方向。但由于缺乏能够满足复杂适应系统研究要求的数据条件和技术手段,使其实际取得的成果远未达到人们的期待。大数据时代带来的空前丰富的数据资源与先进的数据处理技术,为社会科学实证研究开辟出新的路径,计算社会科学已经形成大数据的获取与分析、多主体社会模拟、互联网社会科学实验三大方法体系,为社会调查、统计分析、社会实验等研究方法增添了全新的内容。复杂适应系统研究的技术实现正在成为可能,社会科学正处在一次突破性进展的前夜。在新一轮的信息技术革命浪潮中,中国已经跻身于世界先进行列,这为中国社会科学实现"弯道超车"准备了极为有利的条件。中国社会科学界应当敏锐地觉察和把握这一重大机遇,积极推动计算社会科学的发展,使之在实现国际学术话语体系重构上发挥重要作用。

The development of social sciences has gone through three stages from analysis to synthesis and to complexity science.Along with it,the scientific methodology has been gradually evolving from reductionism to holism and to complexness adaptation.Complex adaptive systems bring the diversity,disorder and individuality simplified and excluded by classical scientific rationality back to the scientific field of vision,profoundly deepening the social scientists＇ understanding of the nature of the research object and pointing out the direction of innovations and breakthroughs in the methodology of the social sciences.However,due to the lack of data conditions and technical means that can meet the research requirements of complex adaptive systems,the actual achievements are far from satisfaction.Now the ever-rich data resources and advanced data processing technologies brought by the era of big data have opened up a new path for the empirical study of social sciences,and the computational social sciences have resulted in the three methodologies of the acquisition and analysis of big data,the multi-subject social simulation,and the internet social science experiment,adding new content to research methods such as social surveys,statistical analysis and social experiments.It is becoming possible to realize the technology of complex adaptive systems and the social sciences are on the eve of a breakthrough.In the new wave of information technology revolution,China has ranked among the advanced countries in the world and this has provided extremely favorable conditions for China＇s social sciences to realize ＂ overtaking in turn.＂ Chinese social science circles should be sensitive to perceiving and grasping this great opportunity and actively promote the development of social sciences so that they will play an important role in the reconstruction of international academic discourse system.