再思社会科学方法论的形式主义与实质主义之争——以经济学的新进展为例

笔者从社会科学方法论中的形式主义与实质主义之争这一古老论题出发,阐明了经济学中的形式主义思想在最近半个世纪的发展是建立细节完全刻画的"全模型",并指出其背后的理念不在于建立普遍规律,而在于形成可以用以启发人们理解经验世界的辅助性认知手段。在澄清全模型方法认识论价值的同时,本文也指出其应用重点不在于形成理想化与意识形态化的叙事,而在于针对局域的经验事实,建立具有确定经验限定意涵的模型化推论,以阐明经验事实背后不易被单纯质性研究阐发的机制。当代经济学方法论显示的这一发展,可以被称为"形式主义经济学的实质主义化",对这一趋势的把握有助于揭示主流经济学独特的认识论价值。

Rethinking the Debate between Formalism and Substantivism in Social Science:a Perspective from New Developments in Economics

Taking the old debate between formalism and substantivism in the methodology of social sciences as the point of departure,the author attempts to clarify that the development of formalist ideas in economics in the last half century is to establish"complete models"that aim to fully specify all the details of the models. The author further points out that the idea behind it is not to establish universal laws,but to form auxiliary cognitive tools that can be used to inspire people’s understanding of the empirical world. While elucidating the epistemological value of the complete-model approach,the author emphasizes the point that its application is not fo-cused on formulating idealized and ideologically-minded narratives,but on establishing modeled inferences to understand empirically delimited facts. Its purpose is to unravel the mechanisms behind empirical facts that are not easily interpreted by purely qualitative research. Such development in the methodology of contemporary economics may be called"substantialization of formal economics."A good comprehension of this trend will help reveal a unique aspect of the epistemological value of mainstream economics.