民族志也能【做出】机制式因果解释？实用主义回答

Tavory,Iddo, and Stefan Timmermans. 2013. “A Pragmatist Approach to Causality in Ethnography.” American Journal of Sociology 119 (3): 682–714.

尽管民族志学者像社会科学学者一样喜欢说我在搞因果分析，但其实民族志的特点使得这样的宣称面临着更大的挑战，因而需要一套标准、流程、程序还说明

——做民族志的时候，怎样才算是因果分析呢？

——民族志式的因果性有什么特点呢？

Tavory, Iddo, and Stefan Timmermans于2013年在AJS提出了从皮尔斯（Charles S. Peirce）入手的实用主义答案，分为三个步骤：

第一步：在田野中发现意义塑造的诸结构，并由此去识别某种因果序列。

 The first activityentails identifying a causal sequence based on meaning-making structures.

第二步：以迭代的方式，将提出的解释与田野中的诸种变异加以对话。

The second activity is toiteratively rework the proposed explanation through an examination ofvariation.

第三步，让提出的因果解释在学术社群中加以讨论

The third interlinked activity consists of engaging the proposed causal explanation within a broaderintellectual community.

第一步——因果解释、机制与意义

毫无疑问，民族志的强项在于打开意义塑造的过程。（ethnography’sstrength in capturing unfolding meaning-making processes）从这个角度出发，因果解释对机制式宣称（mechanism-basedaccounts）将能得到新的理解。

Tavory二人将Peter Machamer,Lindley Darden, and Carl F. Craver （2000）的机制定义、Gross(2009)对机制的行动角度的理解，并进一步以皮尔斯的sign/object/interpretant三分法结合起来，认为

1.机制过程可降解为行动（action）面对特定情境在时间意义（不间断、连续……）的回应与序列。

2.行动的回应与行动的序列实际效应的是意义塑造的过程（process of meaning-making）。

3.这样的意义过程，是由阐释（interpretant）将符号（sign）与对象（obejct）连接起来。

4.因此，机制（解释），转变为：行动的意义塑造（meaning-making-in-action）=语义链条（semiotic chains）。

Since ethnographers actually follow meaning-making-in-action, they are able toprovide compelling semiotic accounts of iterations of meaning making.

但是，单一的案例观察并不必要地构成概化的因果解释。（A semiotic chain of action in asingle observed instance does not necessarily constitute a generalizable causal explanation.）

第二步：挑战解释变异

为解决这个问题Tavory二人提出要从变异（variation）入手，以generalize across observed variation and to recursively rework their proposed causal explanation.

在将单一的案例观察，跨到概化的因果解释时，需要考虑三种变异：

1. 相似情境或数据集的变异，prototheoretically similar situations, or data set variation。这种办法与Mills的求同求异法类似，往往借用反事实分析，在此阶段会问：How similar isthis situation to another situation in which a specific outcome was evident?

Thelogic of data set variation shares much with Mill’s methods of agreement and of difference to assess causality: interactions and situations are compared inorder to see how specific differences in the situation lead to differentoutcomes.

2. 意义塑造在贯穿时间中的变异，variation in meaning making over time。当然，讨论路径依赖、事件种种。

Relying on anassessment of salient differences and agreements, they assess causality byexamining how processes change over time and across observations.

3. 交互情境的变异，intersituational variation，能把一些看似不相关的情境下的表现联接起来。

actionsin different settings and situations and shows that seemingly unrelated actionsmake sense as a single set under the researcher’s theoretical description…. Acausal account emerges largely through the ways in which the ethnographer accounts for different interactional outcomes that arise in different situations…The ethnography-specific causal theorization is precisely what makes thedifferent situations and observations comparable.

第三步：回到学术共同体

也有三个标准：

1. 信度（plausibility）：我的解释比其它替代项能解释得更好。

Acausal explanation’s plausibility refers to the extent to which there are alternative accounts that do a better job of accounting for observations.

2. 恰适（fit）：能得到观察数据更好地支持

Fitreflects the extent to which a causal claim is backed up with the observations that the researcher presents.

————以上两种都是从理论/替代理论与数据的单个研究入手，简单地讲：

Thetruth of a causal explanation in ethnography is judged according to its abilityto cover different forms of variation found in the study, but also in relationto other plausible explanations, and their respective “fit” to the same set ofobservations.

3. 使用（use）the use of scientific inquiry

一人从其民族志中提出的因果解释，会taken up, contested, or ignored，因此，需要acritical pragmatic test of a causal explanation’s value lies in the differenceit makes in the way it shifts the habits of thought and action within thecommunity of inquiry.

总的来说：

1.民族志式因果解释所提出的社会实在是：As in everydaylife, an ethnographic causal claim provides an explanatory generalization of atemporal flow of action that renders past, current, and future eventsmeaningful.

2.在这种实在所导出的解释中，过程式机制观是：based on a processual mechanism-based approach, requires researchersto trace the iterations of meaning-making-in-action through which the proposedexplanans is connected to the explanandum.

3. 为使得民族志的单一观察真正能走向概化的解释，需要解释三点变异：dataset variation, variation over time, and intersituational variation.

4.并且，还需要从理论与数据、理论家与学术共同体中的“共谋”：plausibility,fit, the use of scientific inquiry

(Sociological理论大缸第56期)