北京师范大学
教育研究中的比较―历史方法
Lecture 2
The Theoretical Foundations of
Comparative-Historical Method in the Social Sciences
A. Legacies of the Grand Masters: Marx, Durkheim, and Weber
a. Comprehending Changes in Big Structures, Large Process in the nineteenth century
Europe with Big Comparisons: Charles Tilly at the beginning of his book Big Structure,
Large Process, Hugh Comparison underlines
"Nineteenth-century Europe's great shift in organization set the frame for this book in two
complementary ways. First, those shifts formed the context in which our current standard
ideas for the analysis of big social structures, large social processes, and huge comparisons
among social experiences crystallized. Second, they marked critical moments in changes
that are continuing on a world scale today. …We must look at them comparatively over
substantial blocks of space and time, in order to see whence we have come, where we are
going, and what alternatives to our present condition exist." (Tilly, 1984, Pp. 10-11)
b. Legacy of the Grand masters
a. Emile Durkheim’s theory of industrialism
b. Karl Marx’s historical materialism
c. Max Weber’s theory of Occidental rationalism
B. Emile Durkheim’s Theory of Industrialism
1. Durkhiem’s orientation to history: To Durkheim, historical processes are part of the “social
facts” that take the forms of externals constraints exerting over individuals and
independent manifestation over the society as a whole. (Durkhiem, 1982, p. 59)
2. Durkheim has theorized the tremendous changes confronting him in the nineteenth century
as a process of structural differentiation of industrialism, which entails specialization of
production and complex division of labor. More specifically, he conceives these changes
would bring the mechanical solidarity, which holds the preindustrial society together, to an
end.
3. However, “Durkhiem seems undecided” in how comes next. “On the one hand he observes
that in practice nothing seems to have taken its place; that the actual condition of industrial
society is one of unfettered egoism, confusion, disintegration and chronic anomie. On the
other hand he argues that in principle the division of labour does in itself generate a new
basis for solidarity,” namely organic solidarity. (Abrams, 1982, P. 26)
C. Karl Marx’s Historical Materialism
1. Marx’s orientation to history: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as
they please, they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past." (Marx, 1962, P.
252; Quoted in Abrams, 1982, P. 34)
2. The materialist conception of history:
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3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
a. "The whole of what is called world history is nothing but the creation of man by human
labour." (Marx,; Quoted in Abrams, 1982, P. 35)
b. The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of
means to support human life - and the basis of all social exchange of things produced is the basis of all structure." (Engels, 1962; Quoted in Abrams, 1982, P. 35)
The basic components of historical materialism (Cohen, 1978; Wright Levine and Sober,
1992)
a. The Primary Thesis on the relationship between force of production and relation of
production of a society
b. The Base/Superstructure Thesis on the relationship between the economic structure of a
society and its legal and political structures and forms of consciousness.
Analytical Marxists' reconstructing the Base/Superstructure Thesis: (Wright Levine and
Sober, 1992)
a. Structural determinism: Inclusive historical materialism
b. Functional explanation: Restrictive historical materialism
Analytical Marxists' reformulating the Primacy Thesis: (Wright Levine and Sober, 1992)
a. The compatibility thesis (1): use-compatibility or development-compatibility
b. The development thesis (2)
c. The contradiction thesis (3)
d. The capacity thesis (4)
e. The transformation thesis (5)
f. The optimality thesis (6)
Reorganizing the Six Theses into Four Components of the Theory of Change
a. The necessary conditions for change, i.e. Thesis (1)
b. The direction of change: Thesis (2) & (3)
c. The means through which change is achieved: Thesis (4)
d. Sufficient conditions for change: Thesis (5) & (6)
Reconstructing the Primary Thesis
a. Strong historical materialism: Maintaining all four components, i.e. six theses
b. Weak historical materialism: Maintaining only theses (1) to (4) only
c. Quasi-historical materialism: Maintaining only (a) & (b).
Analytical Marxist’s Typology of Historical Materialism
Base/Superstructure Thesis
Inclusive
Restricted
Primacy
Strong
Thesis
Weak
Quasi
8. Two methodological orientation of Marx's historical materialism
1. Orthodox Marxism conceives historical materialism as scientific method discovering
universal law of social change
2. Western and analytical Marxism conceives the development of capitalism in selective
economies in Europe in the nineteenth century as but an episode in the genealogy of
capitalism in human history
9. Two definitive natures of capitalism:
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a. As perceived by orthodox Marxists, the nature of capitalism is of the exploitative
nature of class structure, which will subsequent leads to inevitable class struggle and
class revolution.
b. As perceived by humanist Marxian’s’, the nature of capitalism is it its alienating
imperatives on human existence, which demands liberation subsequently
transformation into autonomous and meaningful lifeworld
D. Max Weber's Theory of Occidental Rationalism
1. Weber's conception of historical and social realities and cultural science: Paradox between
finite human minds and infinite realities
a. "Life confronts us in immediate concrete situations, it presents an infinite multiplicity
of successively and coexistingly emerging and disappearing events, both 'within' and
'outside' ourselves. The absolute infinitude of this multiplicity is seen to remain
undiminished even when our attention is a single 'object', for instance, a concrete act of
exchange, as soon as we seriously attempt an exhaustive description of all the
individual components of this 'individual phenomenon', to say nothing of explaining it
causally." (Weber, 1949, P.72).
b. "All the analysis of infinite reality which the finite human mind can conduct rest on the
tacit assumption that only a finite portion of this reality constitutes the object of
scientific investigation, and that only it is 'important' in the sense of being worthy of
being known." (Weber, 1949, P. 72)
c. "We have designated as 'cultural sciences' those disciplines which analyze the
phenomena of life in terms of their cultural significance. …The significance of cultural
events presupposes a value-orientation towards these events. The concept of culture is a
value-concept. Empirical reality becomes 'culture' to us because and insofar as we relate
it to value ideas." (Weber, 1949, P. 76) "Culture is finite segment of the meaningless
infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and
significance." (Weber, 1949, P. 81)
2. Weber's materialistic-spiritualistic approach to history and culture
In the concluding sentence of his famous empirical study The Protestant Ethics and Spirit
of Capitalism. Weber writes
"It is, of course, not my aim to substitute for one-sided materialistic an equally one-sided
spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and of history. Each is equally possible, but
each, if it does not serve as the preparation, but as the conclusion of an investigation,
accomplishes equally little in the interest of historical truth." (Weber, 1958, P. 183)
3. Weber agrees with Marx that the definitive nature of their epoch (i.e. nineteenth-century
Europe) is the rise of capitalism. However, Weber differs substantively from Marx in
discerning the essence of capitalism. According to Randell Collins, one the prominent
Weberian in the US, these essences are (Collins, 1980)
a. Rational accounting and methodical enterprising and production
b. Calculability
c. Predictability
4. Institutional components of rational capitalism
a. Private appropriation of means of production and entrepreneurial organization of capital
b. Rational technology
c. Free labor
d. Unrestricted market
e. Calculable law
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f. Public administration of bureaucratic state
5. Weber's causal explaining the institutionalization of Capitalism
6. Comparison of Protestant ethics and Occidental rationalism with the religion of China
(Confucianism and Taoism) and the religion of India (Hinduism and Buddhism)
7. The iron cage of the Occidental Industrialism
E. Contemporary Paradigm in Comparative-Historical Method in the Social Sciences
1. Vision and Method in Historical Sociology (1984)
a. Marc Bloch
b. Karl Polanyi
c. S.N. Eisenstadt
d. Reinhard Bendix
e. Perry Anderson
f. E.P. Thompson
g. Barrington Moore
h. Immanuel Wallerstein
i. Charles Tilly
2 Theda Skocpol and Margaret Somers’s codification (1980)
a. Typology of comparison
i. Parallel demonstration of theory
ii. Contrast of context
iii. Macro-causal analysis
b. The Triangle of Comparative History
c. A Cycle of Transitions
3 Charles Tilly’s Codification (1983)
a. Levels of analysis in comparative-historical method
i. World-historical level
ii. World-system level
iii. Marcohistorical level
iv. Microhistorical level
Tilly advocates that the marcohistorical level should be the attainable and fruitful level
for social scientists to work on (Tilly 1984, P. 64)
b. Tilly’s typology of Comparative-historical studies
i. Individualizing comparison
ii Universalizing comparison
iii. Variation-finding comparison
iv. Encompassing comparison
c. Ontological and epistemological assumptions on mircohistorical comparison
4. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer’s codification (2003)
Mahoney and Rueschemeyer characterize “comparative historical analysis as defined by
three emphases – a concern with causal analysis, the exploration of temporal processes,
and the use systematic and contextualized comparison typically limited to a small number
of cases.” (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003, p. 14)
Additional References
Weber, Max (1958) The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons.
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