书籍介绍
这本书最打动人的，是作者阿伯特近乎'小说家式'读文本的功力。读者反复提及的，不是某套现成方法，而是他如何从一封'临时打来的电话'、一段'想不出选题的焦虑'里，读出社会过程与时间结构。全书以作者自身学术经历为线索，把'案例分析到底有什么用'这类本科生会真实发问的困惑，转化为对因果、事件、能动性的高度思辨。它不教你操作手册，而是逼你承认：任何方法论背后都站着未被言说的理论预设。适合那些不愿被'标准方法'收编、却仍想为社会研究找到时间性根基的人。
作者简介
Andrew Abbott is the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Sociology and the College at the University of Chciago. Abbott took his BA (in history and literature) at Harvard in 1970 and his PhD (in sociology) from Chicago in 1982. Prior to his return to Chicago in 1991, he taught for thirteen years at Rutgers University.
Known for his ecological theories of occupations, Abbott has also pioneered algorithmic analysis of social sequence data. He has written on the foundations of social science methodology and on the history of the social sciences and the academic system. He is the author of four books and fifty articles and chapters.
His major work includes The System of Professions (Chicago 1988), a theoretical analysis of the professions and their development that won the ASA's Sorokin Award in 1991. His recent books include an extensive historical study of academic disciplines and publication (Department and Discipline [Chicago, 1999]) and a theoretical analysis of fractal patterns in social and cultural structures (Chaos of Disciplines [Chicago 2001]). He has also published a collection of theoretical and methodological essays in the Chicago pragmatist and ecological tradition (Time Matters [Chicago 2001]). He is currently writing a short textbook of social science heuristics (Methods of Discovery, for W. W. Norton) and a book of general social theory, Time and Social Structure. He is also developing a major theoretical and empirical project on the life course.
An active teacher, Abbott has served on or chaired 53 dissertation committees. He served from 1993 to 1996 as Master of Chicago's Social Science Collegiate Division, and Chair of the Department of Sociology from 1999-2002. He has also edited Work and Occupations (1991-1994) and the American Journal of Sociology (2000- ). He is the incoming President of the Social Science History Association (2002/3).
AI导读
核心看点
- 本书深入批判社会科学中忽视时间维度的方法论缺陷，揭示变量分析无法捕捉事件序列与过程本质。作者指出，标准统计方法隐含的静态假设与社会现实的动态性根本冲突，强调必须将时间、序列和过程纳入核心分析框架，否则无法理解社会结构的生成与变迁。
- 阿伯特系统解构了因果推理的误区，论证从‘原因’转向‘事件’分析的必要性。他反对将社会现象简化为孤立变量的线性关系，主张通过叙事逻辑和过程追踪来理解复杂社会互动。书中详细剖析了时间概念在方法论中的误用，呼吁研究者放弃对确定性的执念，转向对过程机制的严谨考察。
- 全书探讨了转折点、边界及非事件的社会学意义，挑战传统研究对‘发生之事’的过度关注。作者指出，未发生的事件同样具有解释力，且社会结构的稳定性往往源于对特定路径的依赖。这种对时间伦理和叙事建构的反思，为理解宏观历史变迁与微观个体生命历程提供了全新的理论视角。
读者共识
- 读者普遍认为本书是社会科学方法论领域的里程碑式著作，尽管阅读难度极大，但其对时间、过程和因果关系的深刻洞察具有不可替代的价值。许多读者表示，虽然书中部分观点在当下看来仍具争议或难以落地，但其对传统研究范式的批判极具启发性，迫使研究者重新审视自身研究的伦理与逻辑基础。
- 尽管部分读者指出书中某些具体技术讨论已过时，或认为其理论过于抽象难以直接应用，但绝大多数读者高度赞赏阿伯特对研究假设的彻底清算。读者共识认为，本书不提供捷径，而是提供了一面镜子，让研究者看清自身方法论盲点。对于致力于过程性研究、历史社会学或批判性方法论的学者而言，本书是必读的经典。
- 读者普遍反映本书需要反复研读，且需具备极高的理论素养才能完全领会。许多评论提到，阅读过程痛苦但收获巨大，它彻底改变了读者对社会科学研究合法性的理解。尽管存在语言晦涩、论证跳跃的问题，但其对‘非事件’、‘转折点’等概念的探讨被认为具有深远的理论意义，是提升研究格局的关键读物。
精彩摘录
- "...Like many would-be intellectuals of the Sputnik era, I wanted to be a scientist through high school and to that end buried myself in calculus, modern algebra, and the like. On the side I read Camus and Dostoyevsky like other would-be intellectuals. But a splendid English teacher ( a poet and tran"
- "Another chance contact, a purely social phone call to graduate school friend Patricia Cox, a specialist in early Christian literature, led me to deconstructionism. ( I suppose you need deconstructionism if you study patristics; the number of texts is fixed, but the need for dissertation topics goes "
- "I felt a little guilty publishing "Transcending" in Sociological Theory. This was preaching to the converted, as I well knew. But I had a sneaking sense-true enough as the sequel would show - that Max Planck was right when he said that "old theories are never disproved; their adherents die." Given m"
目录
Acknowledgments
Prologue An Autobiographical Introduction
Part One Methods and Assumptions
1 Transcending General Linear Reality
2 Seven Types of Ambiguity
显示全部
用户评论
good but a bit of outdated, and its still unknown how this work be applied to methodology nowadays. 阿博特问了一些很大的问题，但有时候比起结果，更应该想一下问题到底是什么。
一刷用了大半年…
A must read book. Wonderful
1. from methodological critiques to theory. 2. diachronic, narrative side of temporality in processual sociology.
读了intro和七、八两章。总是感觉他老人家在搞一些很有野心的东西，想弄一套能同时适用于宏观政治和个人生命历程的时间理论，从而解释社会结构持续的时间长短、静态与变迁。第七章对话Bergson和Mead等人处理时态，强调建构叙述时的主观性（无论是宏观书写历史还是个人生命历程）。一是强调叙述时对事件的筛选，二是强调当我们讲present时叙述的好像是一个点但其实是duration，因此可以从社会互动角度看对the duration of present感知的差异。第八章处理转折点turning point的概念，point在实质上仍旧是一个duration。Abbott论述时仍强调既要注意到narrative的主观性又要试图将之看作研究对象。…写不完了，希望不偷懒长评见！
选读。我实在是太喜欢阿伯特这种举重若轻的风格了。
救命。
三刷。阿伯特确实很会读“文本”。
University of Chicago Press的其他书籍查看全部
The Fruits of Opportunism
Wordcraft
Authoritarian Apprehensions
Materials of the Mind
On Descartes' Passive Thought
Palmyra
求书
收藏