“云景观”思想实验及其社会本体论运用

The Thought Experiment of “Cloud Landscape” and Its Application in Social Ontology

社会本体论是当代形而上学和社会科学哲学的前沿领域之一,围绕社会实体的物质构成与物质组合论题,“云景观”的一系列思想实验成为该研究领域中的一个热点,并由此形成了两条进路:一是分体论分析,它关注事物的组合是否受到某种限制;二是同一性分析,它关注时空偶合对象是否存在某种同一性标准。然而,基于分体论同一性的主流立场难以回应来自“构成无需组合”以及“构成并非同一性”这两个原则的挑战。分体论同一性的两个方面都假定了人类中心主义立场,因此关于云的稳健实在论所需要的只是一个“相对类别同一性”概念,为此需要引入“可能世界”的概念。借助爱泼斯坦社会本体论中的“锚定-奠基”模型、巴恩斯的“本体论涌现”以及达斯古普塔的一般主义等理论资源,能够克服主流立场背后预设的还原论和个体主义倾向。由此观之,对“云景观”的这一探索路径不仅适用于诸如云这样的自然种类,而且能有力地刻画社会事实和社会群体的本体论特征。同时,社会事实和社会群体的“云景观”思想实验还必须基于对分体论同一性论题的拒斥。

Social ontology is one of the frontiers of contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of social science.Around the thesis of material constitution and material composition, a series of thought experiments on “Cloud Landscape” has had a profound influence on contemporary metaphysics. For this reason, two approaches have been formed: one is the mereological analysis, which focuses on whether the composition of things is restricted or not;the second is identity analysis, which focuses on whether there is some kind of identity criteria for temporal-spatial contingent objects. However, based on the mainstream position of mereological identity, it is difficult to respond to the challenge from the two principles of “constitution without composition” and “constitution is not identity”. Both aspects of mereological identity assume an anthropocentric position, so all that is needed for a robust realism about clouds is a concept of “relative sortal identity”, for which the concept of “possible worlds” is introduced. With the help of Epstein's “anchoring-grounding” model, Barnes' s “ontological emergence” and Dasgupta's generalism, the presupposition of reductionism and individualism behind the mainstream position can be overcome. Thus, this approach to “cloud landscapes” is not only applicable to so-called natural species such as clouds but also powerfully characterizes the ontological characteristics of social facts and social groups. Finally, it shows that the “cloud landscape” of social facts and social groups must be based on the rejection of the mereological identity thesis.