批判实在论:重返西方人类学经典时代的关怀及延展思考

Critical Realism:A Return to the Care of Classical Era of Western Anthropology and Some Extended thinking

与西方人类学经典时代相比,今天的人类学所提供的碎片化知识难以产生具有整体性和根本性的思考。那一时代的研究固然有其本身的严重局限,但基于实在论的立场和聚焦于人的核心关怀也促成了一种与人及现实中的人文、自然状态紧密结合的视角,对于当时的思想界产生了巨大的影响。今天的人类学深受后结构主义、后殖民主义、后现代主义等的影响,对现代主义时期的那种还原主义的理性主义及实证主义进行了深刻和有效的批判,指出了那种自以为是的简单实在论的问题和局限。但这种对知识的不确定性、建构性、历史性、偶然性、语境性的过度强调,不可避免地会导致实在的相对化,以及对实在的可知性的质疑,甚至进一步消解掉了实在的“实在性”。因此,有必要带着批判意识重返西方人类学经典时代的关怀,借用批判实在论的进路,一方面坚持实在论的立场,一方面带着强烈的批判意识拒绝那种自以为是的简单实在论。这样一种实在论的回归,或许能够重建人类学对于根本问题的关注和解决能力,继续生产出新的更具影响力的知识。

Compared with the classical era of Western anthropology,the fragmented knowledge provided by today's anthropology is hardly able to generate holistic and fundamental thinking.While the research of that era certainly had its own serious limitations,its position based on realism and its focus on the core concerns of human beings contributed to a perspective closely aligned with human beings and the humanistic and natural states of reality,which had a tremendous impact on the thinking of the time.Deeply influenced by post-structuralism,post-colonialism,post-modernism,and other “postschools,”today's anthropology have profoundly and effectively criticized the reductionist rationalism and positivism of the modernist period,and accurately pointed out the problems and limitations of that kind of self-righteous and simple realism.However,this overemphasis on the indeterminacy,constructiveness,historicity,contingency,and contextualization of knowledge inevitably leads to the relativization on the real and the doubt about the knowability of the real,and even further dissolves the “reality”of the real.Therefore,it is necessary to return to the care of the classical era of Western anthropology with a critical consciousness by borrowing the way of critical realism,insisting on the position of realism on the one hand,and on the other hand,rejecting that kind of selfrighteous and simple realism with a strong critical consciousness.Such a return to realism may be able to rebuild anthropology's attention to fundamental issues and ability to tackle them,and continue to produce impactful knowledge.