Giddens clearly and systematically summarized the deep-rooted binary opposition between action and structure in modern western social theory, established the theoretical dimension of looking at society from human practical activities, and regarded structure and action as two sides of human practical activities. This is the most innovative and distinctive feature of his structural theory, which marks the "practical" turn of contemporary western social theory. Marx once said: "People create their own history, but not at will, not under the conditions of their own choice, but under the conditions of their direct encounter, establishment and inheritance from the past." Giddens' structural theory is a profound reflection on Marx's famous words. He absorbed some thoughts of Marx's view of practice and made creative thinking and exertion, but exaggerated the initiative and knowability of the subject of practice and denied the important position and role of material production practice in social composition, so Giddens' view of practice has fundamental defects. In this sense, Giddens did not completely solve the binary opposition between action and structure, but in any case, Giddens' theoretical efforts are undoubtedly commendable and enlightening.
Two categories of modern social theory
The relationship between subject and structure, society and individual (that is, the relationship between action and structure) has always been the most intractable old problem in the general theory of social science. On this issue, modern western social theorists have long formed two obviously opposite theoretical schools: (1) various structuralism and functionalism that emphasize structure; (2) Emphasize the tradition of individual hermeneutics. In fact, in some classical social theorists, this binary opposition in methodology has existed implicitly, but this basic difference in methodology is not as irreconcilable as in some modern social theories. This "actually shows that there is no general theory in the social science system, so it is immature."
Giddens, through extensive investigation of modern western social theory, systematically summarized two long-standing theoretical differences in western social theory: objectivism from the perspective of structure and subjectivism from the perspective of action, revealed the deep-rooted binary opposition between action and structure, and attributed it to the ontological problem of social theory.
Objectivism refers to functionalism (including system theory) and structuralism. Trying to establish a certain "hegemony" status of social objects is the mainstream consensus for most of the time after World War II, with a distinct color of mechanical determinism. Although there are some obvious differences between functionalism and structuralism, there are still some obvious similarities, that is, they both tend to naturalism and objectivism. In structuralism and functionalism, social facts are objective, universal and mandatory for human behavior, and the whole society cannot be reduced to the sum of its components. Compared with its individual components (that is, those human actors who constitute it), the whole society has supreme status, so it is of primary importance and significance to analyze the substantive structure of society.
Subjectivism mainly includes hermeneutics and various forms of "hermeneutic sociology", which has a great influence in contemporary times and is a voluntarism that tries to establish a hegemonic position of the subject. In the tradition of hermeneutics, there is a huge difference between social science and natural science, and hermeneutics embodies the kind of "humanism" that structuralists have been strongly opposed to. In the ideology of hermeneutics (as Dilthey showed), the gap between subject and social object has been strengthened to the extreme. Subjectivity is the structural core of cultural and historical experience, so it becomes the foundation of social science or humanities. Beyond the subject's experience, it is a different material world, dominated by causality that has nothing to do with people. In all kinds of explanatory sociology, action and meaning are the most important to clarify human behavior, but the concept of structure is not so obvious, and there is not much talk about constraints. On the contrary, in the view of functionalism and structuralism, structure is above action, with special emphasis on its restrictive characteristics.
Objectivism and subjectivism have fundamental defects:
(1) lacks sufficient explanation for actors with cognitive ability. In objectivism, human actors are basically negligible, while subjectivists exaggerate human subjectivity, so neither of them correctly reveals the characteristics of actors.
(2) Lack of correct understanding of social structure. In objectivism, structure is a kind of substantive existence similar to natural things, while subjectivism denies the existence of structure, so neither of them treats the characteristics of structure correctly.
(3) Lack of correct explanation of the relationship between actors and social structure. In subjectivism and objectivism, individual and society, action and structure, micro and macro are two completely separated established phenomena, which reflect the deep-rooted binary opposition, so there is no need to explain their relationship reasonably.
Therefore, Giddens believes that objectivism and subjectivism, two opposing viewpoints, are both epistemological and ontological issues. This is undoubtedly significant. As Turner said, "I think one of Giddens' most powerful criticisms of sociology is the refutation of dualism in social theory, such as micro and macro theory, subject (person) and object (structure), individual and society, subjectivism and objectivism, and similar dichotomy that has caused great controversy. "In modern western social theory, many social thinkers are also aware of the two major divisions and a series of binary opposition problems in social theory, and try to integrate these theoretical differences to eliminate a series of binary opposition problems. However, many thinkers have not clearly and systematically summarized this problem, nor have they explicitly raised it to the level of ontology, so they have not made outstanding progress and remarkable achievements on this issue. Giddens tried to solve this problem from ontology and rebuild the starting point of social theory, which undoubtedly found the direction to solve the problem. As Giddens said, this will "create a brand-new concept of social science research and open up a new road that is essentially different from the existing social ideological tradition." "
Practical basis of human society
According to Giddens, human society contains countless concrete practical activities, which are organized by structure and embodied in a patterned relationship network. The structural characteristics of social system are not only the conditions of human practical activities, but also the results of human practical activities. Objectivism and subjectivism "have not found a proper starting point for theoretical reflection." In fact, we should focus on the practice of copying. " Giddens abandoned the two perspectives of looking at society from subject or object, and established the research idea of looking at society from human social practice, thus realizing a major turning point in contemporary western social theory.
Human society contains countless concrete practical activities, and practical activities themselves are based on human practical activities. Human society is "not an object world, but a world constructed or created by the positive behavior of the subject". "The production and reproduction of society must be regarded as the skilled realization of social members, not just a series of mechanical processes." Human actors are individuals who have certain knowledge and can use resources to carry out actions. Practice is an action process in which knowledgeable and dynamic actors use rules and resources to constantly transform the outside world in a certain time and space, and actors occupy a dominant position and role in the production and reproduction of human society. Actors carry out regional and routine activities in daily contact, which constitutes daily life practice; The repetition of such activities in certain areas and places constitutes institutional practice, thus forming a social system (a modular social relationship system composed of various rules and resources repeatedly used in the structure). Social system (including political, economic, legal and symbolic systems) itself is also the intermediary between regionalization and daily life practices. Social system is embodied in the modeling of social relations in time and space, which is realized through countless specific practical activities in a certain time and space; The structure of rules and resources is the virtual order of various social relations divorced from time and space, and it is the "red line" embodied in countless concrete practical activities and running through them. Practice itself contains four patterned social relations, namely, political system, economic system, legal system and symbolic order. Among them, the political system and the economic system belong to the dominant level in the social structure, and play an important role in the social system.
Social system is a relationship network spanning a certain time and space, which is based on countless concrete practical activities and organized by structures. As a virtual relationship in the vertical direction of social system, structure promotes countless concrete practical activities (including the interaction between presence and absence) to be carried out continuously across time and space, which is reflected in the modeling of social relations in the horizontal direction (that is, the integration of presence and absence), that is, various systems of social system. Society is neither an organism similar to natural animals and plants, nor an internal entity structure. Society is always interrelated and intertwined, and exists in the practice of human society. The structure of society is just a virtual order, which is embodied in individual practical activities. At the same time, society is not just a collection of individuals, and social things cannot be attributed to the logical accumulation of individuals. The social system itself has structural characteristics, which transcends the existence of individual life and has a restrictive effect on individuals. In this sense, subject and object, action and structure, micro and macro are not fixed and diametrically opposite established phenomena. "Social practice closely permeating time and space is precisely the basis for the simultaneous construction of subject and social object".
It can be seen that in human society, simple actions or structures are not the only content of social life, and both actions and structures play an important role in social life; Action and structure are not two completely different established phenomena, but two aspects that permeate each other in practical activities. Only from the practice of human society can we make a reasonable explanation of social life itself. "The main field of social science research is neither the experience of individual actors nor the existence of any form of social totality, but various social practices arranged in an orderly manner in time and space." Therefore, the structural theory itself is a social theory based on human social practice. Giddens pieced together the words "structure" and "action" to construct a new English word "structure", emphasizing that there is action in the structure and action also produces structure. The concept of structure first appeared in his book Class Structure in Developed Society. 〕
In this sense, practice undoubtedly occupies a primary position in Giddens' structural theory. Human society itself is based on practical activities, and practice is not only the way of existence of human actors, but also the basis of social system; Action and structure are two sides of practical activities, and they have achieved dynamic unity in human practical activities. Giddens tried to look at society by establishing the theoretical dimension of human social practice and overcome the binary opposition between subjectivism and objectivism, which not only highlighted the initiative of actors, but also affirmed the binding nature of social structure objects. This is the most innovative and distinctive feature of Giddens' structural theory. Lang Youxing pointed out that "Giddens concentrated his theory on the analysis of practice, thus making himself what some western scholars call a theorist on practice".
Contemporary interpretation of social practice
In the theory of structure, the action process that the actors who have knowledge and initiative use rules and resources to constantly transform the outside world in a certain time and space is practiced. Giddens critically absorbed the achievements of modern theory and constructed a new concept of social practice. First of all, the concept of human actors with cognitive ability is restored, the characteristics of human actors' knowability and initiative are revealed, and the main position and role of actors in practical activities are established. Secondly, it introduces the perspective of time-space relationship, regards time-space as the internal component of practical activities, and expounds the time-space characteristics of practical activities. Finally, the concepts of rules and resources are reconstructed into methodological means and tools of practical activities, which makes it possible to clarify the basic forms of practice and their relations.
First of all, Giddens thinks that many social theorists ignore the actors of cognitive ability. On the one hand, objectivism "forgets that most of what we do as human actors is our intentional action, and we understand why we do it." On the other hand, most British and American scholars do not pay attention to the actions at the discourse level, nor discuss the actions in connection with the body, depriving people of the contextual relevance of actions in time and space. Therefore, "we must restore the concept of human actors with cognitive ability in social theory".
Giddens synthesized the results of psychoanalysis and reformed it, revealing the cognitive characteristics of actors by clarifying their consciousness schema. On the level of consciousness, the actor has unconscious motivation, practical consciousness and discourse consciousness. Unconscious motivation comes from the actor's sense of security (trusting others and eliminating anxiety), which is the driving force to stimulate action motivation. Practical consciousness is the consciousness that actors can only understand but cannot express, and discourse consciousness is the consciousness that actors can express. Practice consciousness and discourse consciousness constitute the reflection of action (that is, the continuous monitoring process of action rooted in people's display and expecting others to do the same). The reflective ability of human actors always runs through the daily behavior process, only at the discourse level to a certain extent, and in most cases in the practical consciousness. Action motivation, practical consciousness and discourse consciousness constitute and run through the intentional action process of actors. Although the actor can't fully understand the various conditions of the action, and many consequences of the action exceed expectations and become the conditions for follow-up, the actor still has a considerable understanding of the various conditions of the action and becomes the constituent elements of the action.
On the action level, action is reflective, uncertain and social. Action is not the sum of unrelated individual behaviors, but human actions are a continuous flow of behaviors; Action is not composed of a bunch or a series of individual intentions, reasons or motives, but a process that we constantly monitor and "rationalize". In this sense, "reflection" is a very obvious and important feature of human action. At any time, the actor "could have acted in other ways", that is, the action is not decisive, which reflects the dynamic role of action. Giddens' exposition of the dynamic role of action is related to the reconstruction of the concept of power. In Giddens' view, the traditional concept of power has great defects, which truly embodies the dualism of subject and object. Power is the ability to achieve a certain result, that is, the ability to act positively. Individuals have the ability to "change" the established state of affairs or the course of events, which is the basis of action; Resources (i.e., authoritative resources for people-to-people control and configurable resources for people-to-things control) are the source of power and provide realistic tools and means for the implementation of power. Actors will always master and use some kind of resources more or less, so the ability of the subject to exercise power to achieve some kind of result is realistic, and the world composed of constant events therefore has no definite future. Action is not only dynamic, but also normative and communicative, because action involves observing rules and rules, and because it implies rules, all actions are social, that is, actions are social actions.
It can be seen that Giddens, by revealing the cognitive and dynamic characteristics of the actors, has promoted the subjective characteristics of the actors and highlighted their subjective position and role in human society. This really broke the narrow and wrong understanding of the actors in most objectivism and subjectivism, and established the main position of the actors in practical activities. Practical consciousness is indeed an aspect that many social theorists ignore when analyzing subjective consciousness. Giddens borrowed and reformed the academic achievements of Shu Ci and others, and emphasized the important position and role of practical consciousness in the subject consciousness, thus changing the wrong concept of "ignorance" of ordinary actors. At the same time, Giddens transformed the old view of power, highlighted the uncertainty of the subject's action, and thus emphasized the dynamic characteristics of the subject, which is undoubtedly a powerful counterattack against most objectivism views that ignore the dynamic characteristics of people, and also a criticism of most Anglo-American action analysis philosophies that ignore the relationship between action and people. The problem is that although Giddens emphasizes that "the field of human active behavior is limited", he still exaggerates the subjectivity of the actor, so his concept of subjectivity is strongly subjective. Hong pointed out that Giddens "can't equally emphasize the importance of structure because of the overestimation of subjective ability by preference philosophy (hermeneutics), which shows that his theory is unbalanced." From the perspective of the whole structure theory, Giddens' exaggerated understanding of human subjectivity led to a series of wrong consequences and theoretical deviations, which finally cast a bright color of voluntarism on the structure theory.
Secondly, Giddens introduced an improved concept of time and space, taking time and space as the intrinsic elements of practice, thus deepening the understanding of practice itself and opening up a new research perspective. According to Giddens, the fundamental problem of social theory is "order problem", that is, how the social system "binds" time and space, including presence and absence, which is closely related to the extension of time and space (that is, the "extension" of social system along time and space). Space-time is an integral part of social practice and a basic factor to maintain social system.
Social system is always organized by daily practical activities in a certain space-time system, and intertwined with presence and absence. The degree of space-time extension of each social system is different. Time in social life has three dimensions: reversible time in daily life has certain continuity and repetition, and time can only be formed in repetition; The one-way time of individual life, individual life is not only limited, but also irreversible, that is, the so-called "birth to death"; Institutional time, a kind of "super-personal", or a long institutional time. From the space-time form of practical activities, it can be divided into routine practice and institutional practice: routine practice (that is, daily activities) is a social activity that occurs repeatedly in a fixed space-time, and some psychological mechanisms in social daily activities maintain a sense of trust or ontological security. Through the completion of various routine activities, actors maintain a sense of ontological security; Institutional practice is an activity that actors extend to the greatest extent and have the most far-reaching influence in exact time and space, and it happens repeatedly. System practice can't be divorced from daily activities, it is not only a condition that restricts daily activities, but also included in daily activities and embodied as the product of daily activities. Therefore, social life is organized by daily practical activities. Although the situations of various interactions are always rich and varied, the forms of various interactions are also very different. However, daily behavior tends to be routine and regional, forming a stable interactive relationship between dependence and autonomy. Those human practical activities that span the most profound time and space (that is, modeled social relations) constitute the social system. Social system is a continuous human practice that spans the most profound time and space. It has the characteristics of horizontal growth, and the degree of time and space extension is reflected in various systems of the social system, and the institutional form of the social system also reflects the degree of time and space extension.
It can be seen that Giddens system explicitly introduces the relationship between time and space into practice, specifically analyzes and inspects the two basic forms of practical activities and the institutional generation of social system from time and space, reveals the internal relationship between human psychological mechanism and the regularization, regionalization and institutionalization of activities, and endows time and space with a constructive position and role in practical activities and social system, which is undoubtedly the innovative feature of Giddens' structural theory. As Ping Huang said, Giddens's "exposition of the core position of the relationship between time and space in social sciences, so far, apart from human geography, Heidegger's philosophical exposition of time and Foucault's historical investigation of space, no social scientist has done such a deep and innovative excavation." In fact, it is indeed a brand-new perspective and an effective method to systematically analyze practice and social life in time and space. This is exactly what many social theorists (including researchers of Marx's historical materialism) ignore.
Thirdly, Giddens reconstructed the meaning of rules and resources, and regarded them as practical means, methodological means and tools for implementing actions.
In structural theory, rules and resources belong to the structural characteristics of social system, which are both the conditions and the results of human practical activities. Rules include two levels: supervision level and composition level. They are "techniques or procedures that can be summarized in the implementation and reproduction of social practice", practical knowledge (that is, practical consciousness) used in human social practice, which constitutes the core of human cognitive ability and is embodied in "methodological procedures" in social communication. Rules are the methodological means and characteristics of practice, which provide actors with the ability to use consciousness to realize communication and sanctions in practical activities, thus embodying the conscious relationship between people. Using consciousness to realize communication and sanctions is an important form of human social practice. There are two kinds of resources: configuration and permissions. They are all kinds of "transformation abilities" to control all kinds of material phenomena and actors, the media to implement power, and the conventional elements to realize social reproduction through specific behaviors. Configurable resources refer to the ability to control objects, commodities or material phenomena, or more precisely, to refer to various forms of conversion ability; The second is authoritative resources, which refer to the various transformation abilities of controllers or actors. Configurable resources are practical tools and means, which provide people with the ability to control and dominate the material world, so it embodies the economic relationship between people; Authoritative resources are also tools and means of practice, which provide people with the ability to control and dominate people, so it embodies the political relationship between people; Disposable resources and authoritative resources, as the media to implement power, are the main means and basic tools for actors to expand their control and domination over nature and human beings, so they have an important position and role in practical activities and are also two levers for human social change.
Practice, as a knowable and dynamic actor, uses rules and resources to constantly transform the external world in a certain time and space. It is mainly composed of rules, authoritative resources and material resources, and internally includes the triple relations of economic relations, political relations and consciousness relations. Economic activities and political activities are quite important levels in practical activities because they are of great significance to the generation of power.
It can be seen that Giddens' reconstruction of rules and resources is not only a criticism of ignoring the means of action from the perspective of subjectivism, but also a criticism of objectivism that only emphasizes the allocation of resources and the important position and role of authoritative resources. This is essentially the basic point that Giddens' structural theory (especially his view of practice) tries to show. "Configurable resources and authoritative resources are combined in different ways in different types of societies ... In non-capitalist societies, the coordination of authoritative resources constitutes the decisive axis of social integration and change. On the contrary, in capitalist society, the allocation of resources is of very special importance. " Giddens' attempt to deny the priority of allocating resources is not conducive to scientifically revealing the material production basis of the formation and development of authoritative resources, nor can it correctly clarify the position and role of authoritative resources in the history of human society, which leads Giddens to exaggerate the theoretical defects of plasticity and randomness of social life.
Giddens pointed out many times that structural theory is a profound reflection on Marx's famous words. "If historical materialism is considered to contain more abstract theoretical principles about human practice and can collect fragments from Marx's works, it will make an indispensable contribution to today's social theory." Hong believes that Marx's famous saying "... influenced Ji's career, including the exhibitions of Social Practice and Structure and Action (Structure Theory-Author's Note). Giddens vaguely realized that Marx's historical materialism contained valuable and enlightening views on practice, but failed to understand the profound connotation of Marx's view on practice and its important position in the history of social theory development.
Giddens established the perspective of looking at society from human practical activities, found the scientific dimension to solve the problems of action and structure and their relationship, and realized the "practical" turn of contemporary western social theory. However, Giddens overemphasized "cognitive actors", secretly dispelled the objectivity of social objects, and showed a distinct "Weber doctrine" color, which did not completely solve the problems of action and structure and their relationship. From the perspective of holistic structure theory, Giddens overemphasized "cognitive actor", thus belittling the important position and role of material production practice in human society and exaggerating the plasticity of human society; It denies the inevitability of the development of human society, emphasizes the randomness of human social changes, and finally casts a bright color of "voluntarism" on Giddens' structural theory.
Although Giddens did not fully understand and profoundly grasp the core content of Marx's practice view, his practice view is of great significance for us to correctly grasp and develop Marx's practice view.
(1) Giddens reveals the long-term opposition between the two major perspectives in contemporary western social theory and establishes the theoretical dimension of looking at society from human social practice, which is very profound and enlightening. It highlights the important position and role of Marx's view of practice in the history of social theory development, which is beyond the reach of other social thoughts (including various modern social thoughts). By criticizing traditional philosophy (especially Hegel's philosophy and Feuerbach's philosophy), Marx revealed the practical essence of social life and attributed the changes between man and the environment to revolutionary practice, thus laying a scientific foundation for solving the binary opposition between subject and object.
(2) Giddens introduced the space-time factor into practice as a component of practice, which is the characteristic and inspiration of Giddens' practice theory. This is exactly what many scholars, including many researchers of Marx's thought, ignore. Marx's view of practice undoubtedly contains rich space-time connotation. In Marx's view, time and space are essentially the components of human practical activities, the intermediary of human social practical activities, and the subjective existence with rich connotation and reality based on its result activities. Time and space have social historicity; Time is not only the measure of human life, but also the space for human development. At present, the problem of time and space has gradually become an important hot issue in social theory circles at home and abroad. We must vigorously explore and develop Marx's view of time and space.