The article responds to Richard Lauer’s (2019) “Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology?” The article concurs that “social ontology matters” for the conduct of research and theory in social science. It argues, however, that neither of the interpretations of the status of social ontology offered by Lauer is satisfactory (either apriori philosophical realism or pragmatist anti-realism). The article argues for a naturalized, fallibilist, and realist interpretation of the claims of social ontology and presents the field of social ontology as the most abstract edge of social-science theorizing, subject to broad empirical constraints. The approach taken is anti-foundationalist in both epistemology and metaphysics. Ontological theorizing is part of the extended scientific enterprise of understanding the social world. Claims about the nature of the social world are not different in kind from more specific sociological claims about social class or individual rationality, to be justified ultimately by the coherence and explanatory success of the theories they help to create. At the same time, it is justified to treat the claims of social ontology as provisionally true, which supports a realist interpretation of the findings of social ontology.

中文翻译：

---

社会本体论去了戏剧化

这篇文章回应了理查德·劳尔（Richard Lauer）（2019）“社会本体论先于社会科学方法论吗？”。本文同意“社会本体论”对于社会科学中的研究和理论行为至关重要。然而，它认为，劳尔所提供的关于社会本体论地位的解释都不能令人满意（先验哲学现实主义或实用主义反现实主义）。文章主张对社会本体论的主张进行自然，易辩和现实的解释，并提出社会本体论领域是社会科学理论化的最抽象边缘，受广泛的经验约束。所采用的方法在认识论和形而上学都是反基础主义的。本体论理论化是理解社会世界的扩展科学事业的一部分。关于社会世界的性质的主张与关于社会阶级或个人理性的更具体的社会学主张在种类上没有什么不同，它们最终通过其帮助创造的理论的连贯性和解释性成功而被证明是正确的。同时，有理由将社会本体论的主张暂时视为正确，这支持对社会本体论的发现进行现实主义的解释。