The Significance and Limitation of Case Study: Based on the perspective of knowledge growth

本文将个案研究的“代表性”问题替换为“超越性”问题,从部分与整体之关系和经验事实与理论之关系两个维度探讨了它的意义和限度。在分析和比较了费孝通的“类型比较法”、格尔茨的“深描说”和布洛维的“扩展个案法”三种研究取向的基础上,本文指出:由于“异质性问题”的存在,个案研究不可能获得对“实体性整体”的认识,因此提出以对“关系性整体”的追求取代之；个案研究的理论定位可以多样化:或是对其所属社会的一般性概括,或是提供一种全新的概念洞察力,或是对既有理论的重建,或是构建情境性理论。因此,对于知识的增长,个案研究的超越既可能是“突发式的”,也可能是“累积性的”,但都需经过学术共同体的认同。

This paper shifts the focus of case study from representativeness to transcendence， and discusses the significance and limitations of case study from two dimensions-the relationship between the whole and the part and the relationship between empirical facts and theory． By analyzing and comparing Fei Xiaotong's approach of classification comparison，Geertz's thick description and Burawoy's extended case method，the author points out that case study can't achieve the goal of under- standing the “substantial whole” due to the existence of heterogeneity，so we should take “relational whole” as the aim of case study． The theoretical orientation of case study should be diversified: to generalize the characteristics of native society，to provide some new conceptual insights，to reconstruct the existing theory，to construct situational theory，and so on． For knowledge growth，going beyond case study may be revolutionary or accumulative，but all the progress need the confirmation of the academic community．

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