{"title":"用复杂性理论降低复杂性?用批判现实主义重新审视复杂性科学的本体论和认识论基础","authors":"Yi Yang","doi":"10.1111/jtsb.12412","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Complexity theory (CT) identifies our social system as a contingent and emergent product of non‐linear interactions between existing patterns and events. However, CT scholars carrying out various empirical applications have often adopted constructivist positions that disallow the separate existence of social systems and agency, thereby preventing effective analysis of their interactions. Instead, with the help of Critical Realism (CR), we offer a realist complexity approach that sees complexity in terms of the distinction between the domains of the Real, the Actual, and the Empirical, when existing studies of CT still work with a flat ontology that collapses the three domains into one (the Empirical domain). Our non‐conflationary CR‐CT approach thus argues that a satisfactory explanation of social complexity cannot be at the level of agential experience (the Empirical domain) or at the level of human and systematic events (the Actual domain) but needs to identify causal mechanisms (in the Real domain) of such events. It then combines this depth ontology (that distinguishes the three reality domains) with epistemological relativism (that underscores the contingent character of knowledge claims) to argue that though our knowledge and complexity reduction techniques are socially constructed, it hardly follows that the ontological dimension of reality (spreading across the three domains) is always affected by our complexity reduction efforts at the epistemological dimension in the Empirical domain.","PeriodicalId":47646,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Complexity theory for complexity reduction? Revisiting the ontological and epistemological basis of complexity science with Critical Realism\",\"authors\":\"Yi Yang\",\"doi\":\"10.1111/jtsb.12412\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Complexity theory (CT) identifies our social system as a contingent and emergent product of non‐linear interactions between existing patterns and events. However, CT scholars carrying out various empirical applications have often adopted constructivist positions that disallow the separate existence of social systems and agency, thereby preventing effective analysis of their interactions. Instead, with the help of Critical Realism (CR), we offer a realist complexity approach that sees complexity in terms of the distinction between the domains of the Real, the Actual, and the Empirical, when existing studies of CT still work with a flat ontology that collapses the three domains into one (the Empirical domain). Our non‐conflationary CR‐CT approach thus argues that a satisfactory explanation of social complexity cannot be at the level of agential experience (the Empirical domain) or at the level of human and systematic events (the Actual domain) but needs to identify causal mechanisms (in the Real domain) of such events. It then combines this depth ontology (that distinguishes the three reality domains) with epistemological relativism (that underscores the contingent character of knowledge claims) to argue that though our knowledge and complexity reduction techniques are socially constructed, it hardly follows that the ontological dimension of reality (spreading across the three domains) is always affected by our complexity reduction efforts at the epistemological dimension in the Empirical domain.\",\"PeriodicalId\":47646,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.4000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-01-03\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"102\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12412\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"心理学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q4\",\"JCRName\":\"PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12412","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
Complexity theory for complexity reduction? Revisiting the ontological and epistemological basis of complexity science with Critical Realism
Complexity theory (CT) identifies our social system as a contingent and emergent product of non‐linear interactions between existing patterns and events. However, CT scholars carrying out various empirical applications have often adopted constructivist positions that disallow the separate existence of social systems and agency, thereby preventing effective analysis of their interactions. Instead, with the help of Critical Realism (CR), we offer a realist complexity approach that sees complexity in terms of the distinction between the domains of the Real, the Actual, and the Empirical, when existing studies of CT still work with a flat ontology that collapses the three domains into one (the Empirical domain). Our non‐conflationary CR‐CT approach thus argues that a satisfactory explanation of social complexity cannot be at the level of agential experience (the Empirical domain) or at the level of human and systematic events (the Actual domain) but needs to identify causal mechanisms (in the Real domain) of such events. It then combines this depth ontology (that distinguishes the three reality domains) with epistemological relativism (that underscores the contingent character of knowledge claims) to argue that though our knowledge and complexity reduction techniques are socially constructed, it hardly follows that the ontological dimension of reality (spreading across the three domains) is always affected by our complexity reduction efforts at the epistemological dimension in the Empirical domain.
期刊介绍:
The Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour publishes original theoretical and methodological articles that examine the links between social structures and human agency embedded in behavioural practices. The Journal is truly unique in focusing first and foremost on social behaviour, over and above any disciplinary or local framing of such behaviour. In so doing, it embraces a range of theoretical orientations and, by requiring authors to write for a wide audience, the Journal is distinctively interdisciplinary and accessible to readers world-wide in the fields of psychology, sociology and philosophy.