History, Action and Identity: Revisiting the ‘Second’ Great Debate and Assessing its Importance for Social Theory
History, Action and Identity: Revisiting the ‘Second’ Great Debate and Assessing its Importance for Social Theory
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历史、行动和身份：重温“第二次”大辩论并评估其对社会理论的重要性
DOI：
10.1177/1354066106061323
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发表时间：
2006
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
F. Kratochwil
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
F. Kratochwil
这篇文章提出了关于知识在实践中的性质的问题。传统上，这个问题已经回答了指向“理论建设”和领域独立的认识论标准，应该提供知识的理论框架内作出的断言保证。在这种情况下，普遍性，即“数据”的普遍性和跨历史可靠性，是特别强大的标准，通过“测试”确立理论命题的“真理”，从而有助于累积“知识”。但是，这种“理论”知识的理想，在很大程度上既代表了我们在作出实际选择时所需要的知识类型，也代表了把我们构成为行动者的“历史”知识类型。在第二次辩论中使用布尔的论点作为陪衬，并在重新审视有关民主和平和宏观历史研究的作用的争论时，我首先阐述了所有实践知识的“历史性”和情境性的性质。在第二步中，我试图澄清过去的知识如何与实际选择相关，因为“历史”不仅仅是固定数据的仓库，而是记忆的产物，这反过来又深深地参与了我们对身份的建构和我们所追求的政治项目。在第三步中，我提出了当我们面对实际问题时更合适的知识生成标准。
This article raises the issue about the nature of knowledge in practical matters. Traditionally this question has been answered by pointing to ‘theory-building’ and to field independent epistemological criteria that are supposed to provide the knowledge warrants for the assertions made within a theoretical framework. In this context universality, i.e. generality and trans-historical reliability of the ‘data’, are particularly powerful criteria that establish the ‘truth’ of theoretical propositions through ‘tests’ and thus contribute to cumulative ‘knowledge’. But this ideal of ‘theoretical’ knowledge significantly misunderstands both the type of knowledge we need when we make practical choices and that of ‘history’ in constituting us as agents. In using Bull’s argument in the second debate as a foil, and in revisiting also the controversies concerning the democratic peace and the role of macro-historical studies I first elaborate on the nature of the ‘historicity’ and situatedness of all practical knowledge. In a second step, I attempt to clarify how the knowledge of the past relates to practical choices in that ‘history’ is not simply a storehouse of fixed data, but a product of memory, which in turn is deeply involved in our constructions of identity and of the political projects we pursue. In a third step I adumbrate the criteria for knowledge generation that are more appropriate when we face practical problems.