“科尔曼船”及其变形与社会科学的说明逻辑

Coleman’s Boat,Its Variables and Explanatory Logic in Social Sciences

“科尔曼船”所揭示的“宏观-微观”和“微观-宏观”联结,为经验社会科学处理不同层次的社会现象、事实、实体、性质或结构之间的因果联结问题提供了一种全新的说明图式。它的不同变形(结构个人主义变形、机制变形、社会层次变形)分别引申出结构个人主义、因果关系类型、社会机制、社会层次、因果力、本体论个人主义、方法论局部主义等一系列新的重要论题,使之成为了当代探讨社会科学的说明逻辑的一个基础范式。“科尔曼船”的复合变形可以为经验社会科学的多层次、多路径、多过程的因果说明提供一个基本的分析框架。

Coleman’s boat,which initiates the debate between macro-micro link and micro-macro link,provides a new explanatory scheme for empirical social sciences to deal with the causal link among social phenomena,facts,entities,properties,or structures.Some new theses,such as structural individualism,causation type,social mechanism,social level,ontological individualism,and methodological localism can be derived from its variables(e.g.,structural individualism variable,mechanism variable,and social level variable).If Coleman’s boat is regarded as a foundational paradigm for exploring explanatory logic in social sciences,the proposed composite variable of Coleman’s boat could provide a multi-level,multi-path,and multi-process analysis frame for empirical social sciences.