原文：Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2000. “From Sociology to Historical Social Science: Prospects and Obstacles.” The British Journal of Sociology 51 (1): 25–35.

一、現(xiàn)代性與社會學(xué)的發(fā)展

在這篇文章中，沃勒斯坦指出，社會學(xué)發(fā)展的黃金時代大約在1945-1965年，當時社會學(xué)的科學(xué)任務(wù)似乎很明確，大家對于社會學(xué)研究也很有信心：

The golden era of sociology as a discipline was probably 1945–1965, when its scientific tasks seemed clear, its future guaranteed, and its intellectual leaders sure of themselves.

他認為，實際上，社會學(xué)從誕生以來，一直充滿歷史樂觀主義，相信科學(xué)技術(shù)發(fā)展與歷史進步是有益的并且是必然的（受樂觀的社會進化論思想影響：先富能帶動后富，天下終將大同，美美與共，人人自由）：

The era in which sociology was born and has lived until recently was suffused with historical optimism, based on widespread confidence in the unlimited virtue and endless future development of technology. It was anera in which intellectuals believed in human progress not only as something that was good in itself but as something that was historically inevitable.

沃勒斯坦認為，這種歷史樂觀主義產(chǎn)生了自由主義“宏大敘事”的世界觀，社會學(xué)家們在這一自由主義遠景之上創(chuàng)造了“現(xiàn)代性”概念，這一概念對世界進行了二元的新舊劃分（近現(xiàn)代這種二元對立理念也深刻影響了社會學(xué)理論的發(fā)展）：

Sociologists built on this vision to create the concept of modernity, which term was designed to denote the more recent of two alternatives in a binary conceptualization of the world’s social possibilities: contract rather than status, Gesellschaft rather than Gemeinschaft, organic rather than mechanical solidarity, and so forth. These binary concepts permitted us to create elaborate descriptions of the modern world and the ways in which it was said to differ from 'traditional society.’

在他看來，近現(xiàn)代以來中庸自由主義與其他思潮斗爭，成為主流思潮，之后無論是左翼激進派，還是右翼保守派，雖然是對自由主義的“反動”，但其實都在自由主義范疇內(nèi)，只是自由主義的“變種”（個人自由主義-國家/民族自由主義-社會自由主義，這是沃勒斯坦在《現(xiàn)代世界體系》一書中表達的核心觀點）：

There existed two main dissenting variations on the liberal grand narrative. One was conservative; one was radical. The conservative dissent expressed doubts about the inevitability of the liberalvision, and even more about its desirability. There were conservative sociologists, to be sure. But sociology as a field was not very receptive totheir message, and never gave their theoretical ideas much space. In order tosurvive in intellectual milieus, conservatives had to renounce their more reactionary instincts and remold their arguments into a version that incorporated an evolutionary process, although to be sure it was one that nonetheless maintained the desirability and inevitability of hierarchy in the finaloutcome. Hegelian thought offered a logic on which such theses could be built, and its emphasis on the State was compatible with the ever-spreading sense of national identities.

The main radical alternative was Marxism, which offered a variant of the liberal vision that was more coherent than that provided by conservatism, but it was also one that was less different from liberalism. Essentially, Marxism laid emphasis on the fact that the present era was not the ultimate but only the penultimate moment in historical progress. This revision of the scenario had important consequences for the analysis ofthe present (  'class conflict’ ) and for political action ( 'revolution’ ), but Marxism shared with liberalism the belief in the centrality of abinary conceptualization of the present, and of the inevitability of progress.

二、介乎科學(xué)與人文之間的社會學(xué)

另一方面，“現(xiàn)代性”高歌猛進中，所謂的“進步”也給一些個人和群體帶來了損害，社會學(xué)在這個過程中開始研究城市、研究種種社會問題，并介入社會工作，這個時候，社會學(xué)進一步得到發(fā)展：

The self-image of sociologists as social workers, or as the theorists of social workers, provides a key to the real definition of the activity of sociologists. Indeed, the world of the financial sponsors ( states, foundations and so on ) was particularly attracted to this concern of sociologists, without which sociologists would have received even less financial support than they in fact did.

然而，此后，新自由主義的興起、在全球范圍內(nèi)的擴張引起了沃勒斯坦的思考：進入二十一世紀，科學(xué)技術(shù)與現(xiàn)代性將會繼續(xù)高歌猛進，帶來社會的繁榮？還是有另一種可能，即現(xiàn)存世界體系終將崩潰？

So one major question before us is whether the twenty-first century promises a linear thrust forward of technology and modernity ( whether called globalization or post-modernity or whatever ) or whether it portends a collapse of the existing world-system.

在上述這一現(xiàn)實爭論背后，是這樣一種變化：近現(xiàn)代早期，隨著科學(xué)技術(shù)的發(fā)展，自然主義與人本主義不斷分野，逐漸形成二元對立的態(tài)勢（科學(xué)主義的認識論與解釋學(xué)和人本主義的認識論的對立）。社會科學(xué)則介乎期間，搖擺不定：

The natural scientists won acceptance for their claims. The Western world, which by then had become the centre of a capitalist world-economy that would come to encompass the entire globe in the nineteenth century, enthroned a scientific epistemology as the preferred mode of knowledge. In defensive retreat, a counter-view, a different epistemology, hermeneutic and humanistic, asserted itself as 'non-scientific’ and laid battle.

From circa 1850 to circa 1970, the world university system had separate faculties of the natural sciences and of humanities pulling epistemologically in opposite directions, with the social sciences located in-between and being pulled apart by these two strong forces.

但是，隨著自然科學(xué)（和數(shù)學(xué)）領(lǐng)域復(fù)雜性科學(xué)的發(fā)展，對近現(xiàn)代以決定論、還原論和線性論為基礎(chǔ)的自然科學(xué)的基本模式受到了挑戰(zhàn)：

Basically, the sciences of complexity have challenged the fundamental model of modern science, sometimes called the Baconian/Cartesian/Newtonian model, which was determinist, reductionist, and linear. The new group argues that this older and dominant model, far from describing the totality of natural phenomena, in fact is descriptive of very special and limited cases. The scientists of complexity invert almost all thepremises of Newtonian mechanics, insisting on the 'arrow of time’ and the 'end of certainties.’

此外，這一時期，文化研究興起，研究者將“文化”的研究歷史化與相對化，身份政治研究、后現(xiàn)代主義思潮興起，關(guān)于少數(shù)群體的相關(guān)研究不斷深入。社會科學(xué)同時受到這兩種運動的影響，并對此兩種發(fā)展進行了整合：

Today, we have scientists of complexity using language more consonant with the discourse of social science  ( the arrow of time ) and advocates of cultural studies doing the same ( social-rootedness of values and aesthetic judgments ). Both these groups are growing in strength. The model is becoming centripetal in the sense that the two extremes ( science and the humanities ) are moving in the direction of the in-between centre (social science), and to some degree on the centre’s terms.

三、建立歷史的社會科學(xué)

鑒于以上的新發(fā)展，沃勒斯坦重新思考社會科學(xué)的未來，認為社會科學(xué)家或許能夠促進一種新的綜合，重建社會科學(xué)認識論基礎(chǔ)，積極的整合社會科學(xué)各學(xué)科，以創(chuàng)造一個更為明智的學(xué)術(shù)分工體系：

Perhaps social scientists can help to clarify the issues and thereby promote a new synthesis which would reunify the epistemological bases of the structures of knowledge. Perhaps not, but we shall not know unless we try.

The third scenario, perhaps less likely but probably more desirable, is that social scientists themselves take the lead in reunifying and redividing social science so as to create a more intelligent division of labour, one that would permit signi?cant intellectual advance in the twenty-fi?rst century.

在沃勒斯坦看來，社會科學(xué)要跳脫出韋伯的形式理性與實質(zhì)理性二元劃分，從經(jīng)驗的、歷史的、綜合的視角出發(fā)展開具有價值關(guān)懷的社會科學(xué)研究。沃勒斯坦將之稱為歷史社會科學(xué)（想到黃宗智倡導(dǎo)的“實踐歷史與社會科學(xué)”研究……），強調(diào)它必須建立在這樣認識論的假設(shè)之上，即對社會現(xiàn)實的描述都必然同時是“歷史的”，不僅要考慮情境的特殊性，還要考慮結(jié)構(gòu)的延續(xù)、互動與變動：

I think such a reunification could only be achieved on the basis of considering that we are all pursuing a singular task, which I call historical social science, to underline that it must be based on the epistemological assumption that all useful descriptions of social reality arenecessarily simultaneously 'historical’ ( that is, they take into account notonly the specificity of the situation but the continual and endless changes in the structures under study as well as in their environing structures ) and 'social scientific’( that is, they search for structural explanations of the longue durée, the explanations for which, however, are not and cannot be eternal ). In short, process would be at the centre of the methodology.

接著，沃勒斯坦又繼續(xù)詳述了一下這種歷史社會科學(xué)的綜合性與世界性特征，在這里，沃勒斯坦與布迪厄的倡導(dǎo)頗為類似，都很有左派的理想，那就是：“全世界知識分子，聯(lián)合起來！”（沃勒斯坦還說，這要求所有社會科學(xué)家都要能夠：read scholarly work in ?five to seven languages，慚愧慚愧，我連英語都還沒學(xué)好……）：

In such a reunified ( and eventually redivided ) social science, it would not be possible to assume a significant divide between economic, political, and sociocultural arenas ( no ceteris paribus clauses allowed, even provisionally ). And we would have to be very careful about the 'we’ and the 'other’. Instead of drawing a line between the modern and thepre-modern, the civilized and the barbaric, the advanced and the backward ( which we continue to do in so many subtle and not so subtle ways ), historical social scientists have to incorporate the tension of universal–particular intothe centre of their work, and subject all zones, all groups, all strata to the same kind of critical analysis.