Abstracts

The concept of ‘tacit knowledge’ as the means by which individuals interpret the ‘rules’ of social interaction occupies a central role in all the major contemporary theories of action and social structure. The major reference point for social theorists is Wittgenstein's celebrated discussion of rule-following in the Philosophical Investigations. Focusing on Giddens' incorporation of tacit knowledge and rules into his ‘theory of structuration’, I argue that Wittgenstein's later work is steadfastly set against the ‘latent cognitivism’ inherent in the idea of tacit knowledge and tacit rules. I also argue that the idea of tacit knowledge and tacit rules is either incoherent or explanatorily vacuous. Scholars of the emotions maintain that all anger requires an object of blame. In order to be angry, many writers argue, one must believe than an actor has done serious damage to something that one values. Yet an individual may be angered without blaming another. This kind of emotion, called situational anger, does not entail a corresponding object of blame. Situational anger can be a useful force in public life, enabling citizens to draw attention to the seriousness of social or political problems, without necessarily vilifying political officials. In the first half of this paper I show how H. L. A. Hart's theory of rules can resolve, or at least clarify, a central methodological problem in legal anthropology that was first posed in Llewellyn and Egebel's The Cheyenñe Way In the second half I explore and develop Hart's theory (a) of rules, and apply it to problems of agency and behaviourism in legal anthropology, and (b) of legal development, and apply it to the problem of rule-scepticism in legal anthropology as it is posed in Roberts and Comaroffs Rules and Processes and elsewhere. As human beings, we share many historically developed, language-game interwoven, public forms of life. Due to the joint, dialogically responsive nature of all social life within such forms, we cannot as individuals just act as we please; our forms of life exert a normative influence on what we can say and do. They act as a backdrop against which all our claims to knowledge are judged as acceptable or not. As a result, it is not easy to articulate their inadequacies in a clear and forceful manner. However, within most of our forms of life, we have a first-person right to express how our individual circumstances seem to us. And by the use of special forms of poetic, gestural talk—talk that can originate new language-games—we can offer to make our own ‘inner lives’ public. In this paper, I want to claim that this is just what Wittgenstein is attempting to do in his later philosophy: by use of the self-same methods that anyone might use to express aspects of their own world picture, he is offering us his attempts to make the background ‘landscape’ of our lives more visible to us. These methods are explored below. Proponents of the view that social structures are ontologically distinct from the people in whose actions they are immanent have assumed that structures can stand in causal relations to individual practices. Were causality to be no more than Humean concomitance correlations between structure and practices would be unproblematic. But two prominent advocates of the ontological account of structures, Bhaskar and Giddens, have also espoused a powers theory of causality. According to that theory causation is brought about by the activity of particulars, in the social psychological case, individuals of some sort. Consistence would demand that structure be those individuals. But neither Giddens nor Bhaskar wish to reify structure to the extent that would fit it for a role as a powerful particular. If only human beings can be powerful particulars in these contexts, the only way that structures can be real must be as properties of conversational (symbolic) interactions. Human action is social just in so far as people direct themselves to engage well in joint activities with others.     

Agentive Spaces,the “Background”, and Other Not Well Articulated Influences in Shaping our Lives

What is special about all our living exchanges with our surroundings is that they occur within the ceaseless, intertwined flow of many unfolding strands of spontaneously responsive, living activity. This requires us to adopt a kind of fluid, process thinking, a shift from thinking of events as occurring between things and beings existing as separate entities prior to their inter‐action, to events occurring within a continuously unfolding, holistic but stranded flow of events, with no clear, already existing boundaries to be found anywhere (Mol & Law, 1994)—a flow of events within which we ourselves are also immersed. We thus become involved in activities within which we find things happening to us, as much as we make things happen in our surroundings—in other words, our surroundings are also agentive in that they can exert “calls” upon us to respond within them in appropriate ways. Consequently, what we can learn in such encounters is not just new facts or bits of information, but new ways of relating or orienting ourselves bodily to the others and othernesses in the world around us—although much can “stand in the way” of our doing this. My concern below is to explore events happening on the (inter)‐subjective side of the Cartesian subject/object divide which “shape” our spontaneous ways of acting in, and reflecting on, the “worlds” within which we live out our lives.     

滕尼斯的“新科学”:“1880/1881年手稿”及其基本问题

在早期的1880/1881年手稿《共同体与社会--文化哲学的原理》中,滕尼斯奠定了一门经验的文化科学及其未来理论体系的基础。通过对这部作品的考察,本文揭示了滕尼斯的“文化科学”内含的三个辩证运动着的维度:(1)洞察经验事实;(2)在对事实进行反思的基础上形成生活理想;(3)寻求在经验中实现理想。对滕尼斯来说,“文化科学”的奠基工作同他对德国现实命运的关切紧密联系,面对抽象个人主义与国家专制主义的双重困境,滕尼斯产生了重塑伦理生活的理想。通过“文化科学”对人性的重新解读,他提出了一种可能的“共同体”的生活模式。在1887年出版的第一版《共同体与社会》里,滕尼斯将历史的维度加入“文化科学”之中,继承并发展了1880/1881年手稿的基本问题。本文尝试指出,考察滕尼斯所奠基的文化科学传统,对于反思当今的社会科学研究仍然具有启发意义。     

DEBATE A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM

The publication of Jonathan Swift's original Modest Proposal in 1729 caused outrage. His suggestion that, to survive, the Irish poor should make food of their own children (whether ‘stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled… in a fricassee or a ragout’) carried the logic of the government of his day to its brutal extreme. Polite society was not amused. But as the critic David Ward has noted: ‘Swift employs pessimism as a weapon to scourge away the smug credulity of most optimists, just as he employs the language of evil … to make us fear the worst in ourselves. ‘ In this piece Rodney Allen and Ian Hunt of the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Flinders University, find inspiration in Swift's pamphlet to make their own contribution to one of the the great debates of our day.     

Ethnic Aspects of Gender Social Inequality

Egor Gaidar has just completed work on his book The State and Evolution. Analyzing the major trends in Russia's historical development, the author aims at a deeper understanding of what has happened to us in the recent past, which has been so stormy, of the precise point in our centuries-long journey at which we find ourselves, and of what is inscribed upon the milestone before which the wandering Russian knight stands once again, wondering: "Should I go left, or right?"     

Pawns or Pioneers? The Logic of User Participation in Anti‐poverty Policy‐making in Public Policy Units in Belgium

Since anti‐poverty policy‐making in Belgium is embedded in a logic of user participation, social policy has shown interest in employing users with experience of poverty as experts in public policy units in order to implement and monitor anti‐poverty policies. In this article, we discuss this recent development as a relevant case for contemporary public service delivery in the European context. In the light of the ambiguous practices of user participation in Belgium, the enacted logic of involving service users in public service delivery is discussed, and potential risks and opportunities identified: do these individuals function as pawns or as pioneers? In search of opportunities for the implementation of anti‐poverty policies, we explore different ways in which public policy units can act upon the participation of employed service users in public service delivery. On the level of public service delivery, we argue that the participation of expert users risks their use as a mere blind, de‐responsibilizing those who work in public policy units in providing high‐quality services and being responsive to all service users including those living in poverty. On the level of these individual experts, we argue that the employed service users risk becoming pawns, acquiring a tragic‐optimistic outlook on life. We conclude that enabling service users to participate as pioneers requires the joint and mutual responsibility of the employed service users and those who work in public policy units for implementing and monitoring anti‐poverty strategies rather than exclusive responsibility assigned to individual service users.     

What Are We? The Social Construction of the Human Biological Self

This essay explores how the human biological self is socially constructed, and rejects various truisms that define our character. Rather than being stand‐alone entities, the human biological self forms what biologists call “superorganisms” and what I call “poly‐super‐organisms.” Thus, along with prokaryotes (bacteria), viruses, and other entities, we are combined in an inseparable menagerie of species that is spread across multiple bodies. Biologists claim that only males and females are organisms. As described here, however, human sperm and eggs are equally entitled to that rank. Much about human reproduction is also socially constructed. For example, contrary to scientific wisdom, humans have always reproduced both sexually and asexually. Moreover, human life (the creation of a new organism) does not begin between conception and birth, and neither event creates new life. In addition, some cancer cells are organisms; they are contagious entities formed by asexual human reproduction. Finally, while science universally describes humans as being living entities, accumulating evidence makes clear that the life concept is failing. In fact, much that originates from human bodies does not fall under current biological or cultural classifications. How we construct the human biological self has consequences for understanding our health, how we reproduce, and what we are. These social constructions greatly influence our views on abortion, stem‐cell research, human cloning, and our post‐human future. A more accurate construction of the human biological self will help us better navigate these contentious issues.     

无须德性的伦理生活——黑格尔论现代社会的理念

比较黑格尔的伦理概念与古代伦理概念的区别有助于澄清现代社会的理念。在亚里士多德那里,“伦理”是一个借助习惯、法律和政制搭建起来的、旨在塑造人的欲求和欲望的生活方式。对于处在自然德性和思虑德性之间的伦理空间而言,习惯、法律和制度并不是自足的,它们着眼并取决于德性。相比之下,在黑格尔那里,现代人无须具备多么高的德性,仅仅通过服从健全的法律和制度就能够驯化自己的欲望,从而赢得他人的承认和自由。不过,我们需要反思,在法律和制度的健全和完备之外是否还有其他可能性？或许,这仍然取决于我们能否在自身的文明传统中再度唤醒某种伦理特质,去驾驭这些理性化的法律和制度,营造出一种值得欲求的共同生活。     

A New Structure for Intake and Allocation in a Field Probation Unit

Summary From a background of practice and a post-qualifying fellowship,the author draws on the experiences of other Senior ProbationOfficers, as well as his own and his team members. In this article‘intake’ within the probation setting is taken asinitial agency impact as well as that part of team strategywhich has a bearing on allocating new work. Allocation and theconsequential deployment of resources are then seen as centralto the professional lives of team members. A structure is presentedwhich in practice pervades the totality of the team's life;most radical is the author's notion of allocating ‘workepisodes’. The model provides a structure for team membersto specialise in different forms of social work, and at thesame time allowing clients choice to be supervised without being‘sentenced to social work’. It also depends uponthe active use of a team as a group of interacting, interdependentprofessionals who share their work.     

没有公众的公共空间:北京大栅栏院落调整中的国家与个人

本文采用社会学干预的研究方法,在北京大栅栏的院落空间调整中讨论了公共空间的含义与公共重建的问题。与西方将公共空间作为具有政治或社会意义的公共生活不同,大栅栏的居民从所有权出发将公共空间定义为国家财产,又在使用中逐渐侵占并瓜分了这些在管理上被忽视的国家空间。这既是住房等公共服务欠缺的结果,也被历史形成的国家与个人关系所建构,公共空间因此充满了各类行动者在日常生活与社会实践中的互动。本文将介绍两个强干预的社会行动案例,它们分别以“孵育社会生活”和“划分公私边界”为思路进行院落空间调整实验,但前者失败,后者成功。结论部分对此进行反思并指出,公共重建需要调整空间中的国家与个人关系,并建立公共空间使用的规则。     

社会学家作为说故事者

过去,一些重要的西方社会学者主张,社会学者最主要的任务乃在于挖掘与诠释社会互动现象所可能意涵的“未预期结果”。在结构功能论之思维传统的主导下,最具代表性的,莫过于默顿的说法,他认为,“未预期结果”是客观地存在于社会体系中的一种具潜在功能作用的社会事实,乃反映着那些有助于体系的调整与适应、但却未能为该体系之参与者所意图、且认识到的客观结果。在本文中,笔者则采取另类的观点,尝试表达如下的见解,其实,社会学家原本只不过是一个编织故事的艺匠而已。他大体上犹如都市中漫游的行走者,一直处于当下此刻,在一再分岔的街道上一边行走一边浏览着沿途的景观,也就是说,他选择个人特别亲近的、但具深邃文化－历史意涵的某种核心概念作为出发点,以不断分岔的方式来编织“社会”的图像。准此,韦伯所提出之理念型的研究策略,可以说是最为典型的例证。     

The public problem of ‘Aboriginal gambling‘: winning the struggle for an urban space

Gambling by Aboriginal people is increasingly identified as a significant public problem in Australia, eliciting responses mainly concerned with measurement and harm minimisation. We adopt the utilitarian philosophy of John Dewey to critically examine the way this ‘problem’ is socially constructed. We recast our roles as pragmatic researcher‐activists in the ongoing struggle to have Aboriginal practices taken seriously We draw particularly on the work of a group of senior Yolnu Aboriginal consultants and re‐present their story of gambling alongside other research on the Aboriginal use of urban gambling spaces. This helps us develop a nuanced explication of the public problem, one that challenges existing discourses and proposed solutions. We identify an Aboriginal space being produced within existing casinos which is only supported reactively by government and casino owners, and met with anxiety by community service providers. We propose the radical idea of Aboriginal urban gambling venues as indicators of what is needed for a successful, state‐supported, socially inclusionary and non‐exploitative space for Aboriginal people, and what obstacles may stand in the way of achieving this. Through this process, we assess how, as participant researchers, we can help to reformulate of the public problem in a way that is more closely aligned to Aboriginal needs and aspirations.     

Undisciplining Social Science: Wittgenstein and the Art of Creating Situated Practices of Social Inquiry

There are now countless social scientific disciplines—listed either as the science of … X … or as an ‐ology of one kind or another—each with their own internal controversies as to what are their “proper objects of their study.” This profusion of separate sciences has emerged, and is still emerging, tainted by the classical Cartesian‐Newtonian assumption of a mechanistic world. We still seem to assume that we can begin our inquiries simply by reflecting on the world around us, and by allowing our conceptualizations to guide our actions in our inquiries. Beginning our inquiries in this retrospective manner, however, means that our concepts and conceptualizations are both after‐the‐fact and beside the point, for ‘something else’ altogether is guiding us in the performance of our situation‐sensitive actions than merely our conceptualizations. We need before‐the‐fact, hermeneutically‐structured inquiries that can ‘set out’ inner ‘landscapes of possibilities’, to think‐with and to provide guidance, as we try in our more scientifically organized efforts to achieve socially desired outcomes in particular socially shared situations. Conducting such preliminary inquiries is thus an art, requiring not only judgment, but also imagination and poetic forms of expression aimed at creating such shared, inner landscapes among all concerned.     

Transnational Caregiving for My Father: An Opportunity and a Blessing

Transnational caregiving can be daunting, yet it often brings out the strengths of the caregiver that he or she may not have been aware of. Thus, it is a wonderful opportunity to know oneself and use those strengths to become better in other areas of life. Transnational caregiving is also a blessing, in that one can still continue to provide care for a loved one by surmounting the barriers of geographical distance. To transform what often is a challenging situation into a blessing, a fresh eye is needed to seek different ways of fulfilling the needs of the loved one by focusing on one thing: How can the caregiver, in his or her individual capacity, make a difference in the quality of life of the family member? This article, while relating personal experience in caring for a parent, traverses these issues.     

论道德和精明理性的不可通约性

按照西方哲学家一般的理解 ,只有符合行动者的个人利益的行为对行动者来说才是合乎理性的行为。这种意义上的理性叫做“精明理性”。然而道德的行为常常包含利他主义的因素。相当多的西方哲学家极力想证明道德与精明理性总是一致的。笔者认为道德的价值基础和精明理性的价值基础是不可通约的 ,即无法客观比较的 ,故当它们相冲突时 ,我们无法从逻辑上客观地证明道德的理由总是优于精明理性的理由 ,反之亦然。当道德与精明理性相冲突时 ,我们究竟应该怎么做 ?笔者认为最好的办法只能是求助于具有反思精神的公众舆论或理性反思的共识。然而这种共识依然不是完全客观的 ,我们依然没有纯客观的标准决定我们最有理由做什么。     

‘‘With the greatest respect and fidelity:’ a Cherokee vision of the ‘Trust’ doctrine”

The trust relationship is the conceptual/philosophical framework against which all relations between the federal government and indigenous groups are conducted. Yet despite the centrality of this concept, federal policymakers have no consistent or agreed upon definition of what the trust relationship actually entails (Wilkins, 1997). And, more importantly, indigenous conceptions of trust have rarely been assessed. This article analyzes and advances one tribe's—the Cherokee—perspective on trust. In focusing on how the Cherokee perceive trust, this section emphasizes that from an indigenous viewpoint the trust relationship embodies a complex and sophisticated understanding that both the tribe and the United States have reciprocal responsibilities to maintain positive relations towards one another. The leaders of the Cherokee people—one of the more diverse indigenous groups— understood in the federal government's actions, whether these were expressed in treaties, policy statements, congressional laws, or court decisions, that the federal government was pledged to protect Cherokee property and sovereignty, would act with utmost integrity in its legal and political dealings with the people, and would insure that the United States political and judicial representatives would act in a moral manner regarding the tribe's rights. Notwithstanding the federal government's tremendous variety of treaty and trust violations, the Cherokee conception of trust is regenerative from generation to generation. This breathes new life into a seasoned concept and offers hope for the often difficult political/legal relations between the federal, state, and tribal governments. And here we beg leave to ask of our father that, in future transactions of a public nature between the United States and our nation, the American Government will not require of our nation any thing which, as our protectors and guardians, they will not, after due deliberation, advise us to comply with; and having no doubt of the magnanimity and benignity of the Government, we shall return home satisfied, and report to our nation the result of our mission to this. With the greatest respect and fidelity, we subscribe our names (Going Snake, et al., 1817, p. 147)     

护教者帕斯卡尔的思想史意义

帕斯卡尔的《致外省人信札》记录并展示了路易十四时代一场重要的思想和宗教争论：耶稣会与詹森教派之争。这场争论代表了天主教会的分裂，也在一定程度上代表了现代性与教父传统之间的冲突。帕斯卡尔直接参与了这场论战，《致外省人信札》正是这场论战的产物。本文试图回归现代性诞生之初的思想战场，重新梳理古老传统的护教者们对现代哲学作出的反应和批判，借以全面而深入地理解当下的生活、制度和危机。作为路易十四时代少有的天才，帕斯卡尔深刻而卓有智慧的洞见能够提供一种超越我们自身境遇之上的视角。     

觉醒与抗争:北洋军阀吴佩孚民族意识述评

吴佩孚作为北洋军阀的直系首领,在激烈动荡的年代,曾纵横捭阖,翻云覆雨;或排斥异己,挑起战端,给中华民族带来巨大的灾难。长期以来,被视作"反动军阀"与"人民公敌",然而,这并非其人生的全部。"五四"时期以"爱国将军"声名鹊起;北伐之后,落魄下野,即使处境艰难,仍以家国为念,面对日伪的威逼利诱,依然洁身自好,自全名节,浓厚的民族意识渗透其一生的方方面面,晚年演绎了一段失败英雄的悲壮传奇。