重访计算社会科学:从范式创新到交叉学科

Reviewing the Computational Social Science:From Paradigm Innovation to Interdiscipline

第四次科技革命驱动人类社会迈入数字时代,整个人类文明正在经历快速、大尺度和深层次的数字化转型.计算社会科学致力于形成交叉学科,从本体论、方法论和认识论层次为理解数字文明语境下新生社会经济现象构建概念、理论和方法体系.计算社会科学构想自提出以来经历了三大转变:一是研究范式从聚焦数据驱动发展为理论驱动与数据驱动相融合,重新重视因果关系;二是技术方法从聚焦各类数据挖掘方法到推进数据挖掘、仿真模拟、复杂系统方法并存的多样化研究方法;三是从聚焦论转变为从本体论和认识论构建新概念、新理论以解释数字时代的社会演变.我国计算社会科学发展迅速,已经形成了数字经济、计算政治学、计算社会学、计算传播学和计算法学等新兴交叉学科,未来应加快计算社会科学交叉学科建设以形成独特学术、话语和学科体系,为人类社会进入数字文明时代贡献原创理论和范式.

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution is driving human society into the digital age,the entire human civilization is undergoing a rapid,large-scale and deep digital transformation.Computational social science,which contributes to the development of interdisciplinary study,plays a role in constructing conceptual,theoretical and methodological systems at the ontological,methodological and epistemological levels to guide the understanding of emerging socio-economic phenomena in the context of digital civilization.Since its introduction,the concept of computational social science has undergone three major shifts:Firstly,the research paradigm has shifted from the one focusing on data-driven development to one that integrates theory-driven and data-driven development,with a renewed focus on causality;Secondly,in terms of technical methods,computational social science has shifted its focus from various data mining methods to diverse research approaches that advance the co-existence of data mining,simulation and complex systems methods;and Thirdly,computational social science has shifted from a method-focused discipline to one that constructs new concepts and theories at the ontological and epistemological levels to explain the evolution of society in the digital age.China’s computational social science is developing rapidly,with new interdisciplines emerging,including digital economics,computational politics,computational sociology,computational communication,computational law,and so on.In the future,China shall make efforts to accelerate the development of interdisciplines in computational social science,to form unique academic,discourse and discipline systems,and to contribute original theories and paradigms to the development of digital civilization in the international community.