法律與現代性

Law and Modernity

當代的法律與社會研究中，「現代性」（modernity）之討論搖擺在兩種樣態之間：歷史性或概念性的研究，或者，當代的、經驗的研究。對此，本文嘗試梳理出四種不同理論視角與它們各自延伸的經驗取徑，並且提供評述，希望依此架構來推進臺灣本土的法律與社會研究。首先，本文從臺灣社會學界的研究成果作為出發點，以「主體為促因╱主體為結果」、「現代為必然╱現代為偶然」的區分，依序安置J. Habermas、N. Luhmann、M. Foucault、B. Latour的理論立場。接著，本文將整理此四個理論立場之下，英語學術文獻之中法律與社會研究的主要研究取徑與其中的關鍵論題，同時檢視臺灣本土研究的重要成果與其貢獻。最後，本文以此分析架構，對中英關鍵之學術文獻提出相關評述與釐清，希望縮短此主題在理論研究與個案研究之間的距離，有利於未來研究之進展。

Considering the fact that the scholarship on modernity in the field of law and society studies (hereafter LSS) was presented in terms of either historical-conceptual research or contemporary-empirical research, this study attempts to propose a third way of conducting modernity studies in LSS: establishing a four-fold topology of distinct theoretical viewpoints and their respective implementations in empirical studies in order to draw contributions and implications to Taiwanese LSS. Composed of three parts, this study first starts from the modernity studies in Taiwanese sociology and sets a typology in terms of two dimensions: the human subject as agency or consequence, and the modern as necessary or contingency. Among the four-fold typology, this study locates respectively the theoretical paradigms of J. Habermas, N. Luhmann, M. Foucault, and B. Latour. Secondly, this study reviews the main scholarships based on the four different paradigms in LSS, analyzes the approaches they conducted, their empirical studies, and their contributions to applying or developing the theoretical themes, and draws some implications from English-based LSS to Taiwanese LSS. Lastly, this study concludes with an observation of the changing faces of the ‘legal’ (or the ‘law’) and ‘the social’ (or the ‘society’) projected from these four theoretical paradigms. In order to shorten the distance between the theoretical studies and empirical studies in LSS, both in English and Taiwanese academia, this comparison-oriented typology would enrich the scholarship on modernity in the field of LSS in the future.