Social Sciences in China, 2022

Vol. 43, No. 3, 2022

The Substantive Entity and Conceptual Ontology of the Object of Social Science Research and the Future of Anthropology

Cai Hua

Abstract：In this dialogue, Cai Hua and Maurice Godelier ask whether there has been a change in the research entity. This question concerns the representation of the “world of the other” and its impact on the intellectual world since the advent of postmodernism. Cai Hua states that when he was an overseas student in France in the 1980s, he could not see any traces of colonization. The postmodern movement is simply a kind of emotional catharsis and cannot be called “scientific research” in a rigorous sense. As a scientist, if your position is neutral, you cannot see the other in a dichotomous way; the other is simply what you research, and you are not part of the other.

Keywords: substantive entity, conceptual ontology, anthropology