實證主義與政治理解的貧困－政治學方法論的反思

藉著引述現代性與全球化的相關議題，本文旨在對科學主義支配下「政治理解」的貧困窘境，進行方法論的反思。依照紀登斯(Giddens Anthony)的講法，全球化緊密聯繫著現代性，而構成現代性的三個顯著面向則是時空分離、抽離化與反思性。雖然全球化具有普遍化的趨向，但如一般所知，全球化亦激發在地化，因此，反思性同時意指：面對技術統治之高度理性化所造成的去人性化危機，行爲者對於地方價值與社群實踐的反思重構。順此，作者將試著揭露根植於科學主義的此一道德悖論：技術統治是構成現代性危機的重要部分，然而，在一個受到技術統治所主宰的社會中，「政治理解」卻僅只關注科學方法的普遍性，而甚少論及我們從事「在地反思」所不可或缺的知識型態，包括哲學、歷史、美學、道德與政治思想等。由於這種渴望科學確定性之思維的方法論基礎，主要來自實證主義或邏輯實證論，作者在重申道德與政治哲學之研究價值的過程中，將著手批判其核心假設：客觀效用、價值中立、進步史觀。最後，作者將指出，因受制於實證主義的科學觀，「實證政治科學」無法有效處理以下三項重要的民主課題：公民德行的價值、民主的審議轉向以及跨文化對話的意義。

關鍵字

現代性；全球化；政治理解；實證主義；科學主義；技術主義

並列摘要

This paper aims to examine the poverty of political understanding within the reach of scientism by bringing into focus the issues of modernity and globalization. Following Anthony Gidden,s words, globalization is closely bound up with modernity, which embraces three significant aspects, namely, time-space separation, disembedding, and reflexivity. Despite the universalizing tendencies, however, globalization simultaneously implies localization; and thus, the idea of reflexivity also denotes a reconstruction of local values and collective practices in the face of the dehumanizing implications of highly ”rationalizing”. As for political understanding, it follows that there is a moral paradox embedded in scientism: While technocracy is part of the crisis of modernity, in a technocratic society political understanding is often restricted to scientific methods alone and has little to do with the non-scientific forms of knowledge which are indispensible to ”local reflexivity”; the forms of knowledge at stake consist of philosophy, history, aesthetics, moral and political thought, etc. Since the methodological foundation which justifies the thirst for scientific certainty, as a matter of fact, comes from positivism or logical positivism, in the course of reviving moral and political philosophy, I will try to criticize its key assumptions: scientism, value-neutrality, and scientific progressivism. Finally, I will conclude this essay by arguing that the positivist conception of political science actually falls short of dealing with three crucial issues of democracy: the importance of civic virtues, the deliberative turn of democracy and the significance of cross-cultural dialogue.