China Social Science Review

No.1, 2025

 

 

Wang Shuixiong

 

The “Coase Theorem” and the confusion it has caused have shown that academic concepts in the social sciences cannot be properly understood simply in isolation from their theoretical or intellectual systems and their relationship to reality. On the basis of the importance of academic concepts for theory, their relation to reality and figuration, two types of concepts with a relativistic connotation can be distinguished: “figurative reference” and “realistic approximation,” and its sources can be distinguished into two: “established linguistic culture” and “living practices still to be examined.” There is a clear tendency to move from the identification and dissection of figurative reference concepts to the construction of realistic approximation concepts. This points to the construction of more fundamental, general theories or bodies of knowledge that incorporate new ways of thinking and new approaches.