Modern approaches to understanding society. The concept of society. The main approaches to its definition
Basic approaches to the study of society
Basic approaches to the study of society
In the process of developing scientific knowledge, several basic approaches to the study and explanation of society have developed. First approach- naturalistic. It is associated with the development of natural science in the XVII-XVIII centuries. Based on natural science views, many thinkers of the past argued that society is a kind of continuation of nature. The type of social structure was considered the result of the influence of the geographical environment and other natural factors on people's lives. In the XVIII century. This point of view was defended by the French thinker C. Montesquieu (1689-1755).
IN Newest time such views were held by the Russian historian L.N. Gumilyov(1912-1992). This approach is also manifested in the understanding of society as a special living organism. The cultural-historical approach to the study of society is characteristic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its formation is connected with the development of such sciences as history, cultural studies, anthropology. Within the framework of this approach, differences in natural and social processes are revealed. The life of society is considered here as an area of influence of moral, aesthetic and other spiritual values that form the basis of culture. Creator of the theory of cultural-historical types public life was a Russian scientist N.Ya. Danilevsky(1822-1885). Of particular importance is the question of the integrity of society. Some thinkers believed that society is a simple sum of people living in it and is formed as a result of the addition of abilities, behavior, and actions of many individual atoms. This approach originated in the philosophy of modern times. So thought, for example, the English philosophers of the XVII century. T. Hobbes and J. Locke. Other scientists considered society as a whole and argued that it cannot be reduced simply to the sum of individuals. This view is more fruitful because people are never really isolated "atoms". But this approach gave rise to another difficult question: what is this unity of people, what is the basis of the integrity of society?
Many thinkers (German philosopher of the XIX century. G. Hegeletc.), in response to this question, were looking for the foundation of the integrity and unity of society in its spiritual life. Such an approach to understanding society can be called idealistic. History is often viewed here as a process of movement towards the achievement of some ideal, a higher spiritual goal.
There is also a materialistic approach to understanding social life. For example, German thinkers of the XIX century. TO. Marx(1818-1883) and F. Engels(1820-1895) believed that its basis is the activity of people to satisfy their material needs. Such activity is material production. Without denying the existence of ideological or spiritual motives in social life, the materialistic approach is based on the fact that the real material life of people determines their consciousness. The materialistic and idealistic approaches to understanding the basis of social life largely complement each other, since in our life there are indeed both material and spiritual aspects, motivating causes of activity, and they are closely interconnected.
society naturalistic materialistic synergetic
The source of the driving force of personality
Freud believed that human behavior is governed by instincts and desires - that is, a reflection of physical needs in the psyche. Each force must have a source of energy, and the state of excitement has become such a source for these factors. Freud said that human energy is not infinite, any manifestation of emotions, any action is aimed at releasing accumulated energy. All human motives converge to the energy of excitation, to its release. Sigmund Freud distinguished two types of instincts: the instincts of Life and Death. Life instincts or Eros - all the instincts of self-preservation, maintaining the life of the organism, prolonging the life of the species. The sexual instinct, according to Freud, was the main driving force of human behavior, this instinct was called libido. Libido energy can only be released in sexual behavior and carries the energy of all vital instincts. Freud divided all the numerous sexual instincts into three, associating each of them with a specific erogenous zone: mouth, anus, genitals. Death instincts or Thonatos - are responsible for aggressive behavior: cruelty, murder, suicide. Freud explained wars and revolutions by the death instinct. It is precisely because of the existence of these driving forces, he considered impossible the complete absence of wars and violence.
The driving forces of the personality, based on the desire for death, are considered in modern science little, since there is an opinion that this theory was born in Freud under the impression of the death of his daughter, and therefore cannot be considered as a well-founded theory. Freud characterized instinct in four ways:
The source of the driving force is the need or state of the individual
The purpose of instinct is to release or restore energy
Object - the driving force is always directed to some object: it can be another person, or the body of the personality itself. The choice of an object is quite diverse, moreover, a person can postpone the release of energy on this object for quite a long time. Any behavioral act of behavior can either direct energy towards a certain object (cathexis), or vice versa, hinder the achievement of the goal (anticathexis).
Stimulus - the amount of energy required to meet needs. Freud also developed the concept of activity displacement, which stated that if it is impossible to achieve the set goal, energy is released due to a change in activity. It was this displaced activity that Freud explained creativity, arguing that it contains the repressed needs of the individual. Freud explained many behavioral phenomena as a shift in sexual or aggressive driving forces. Energy is shifted to another activity when it cannot find an outlet through what it needs.
The use of synergetic methodology in various sciences disciplines scientific thought, since when modeling the dynamics of a system passing a bifurcation point, it is important to define a rational program of control actions in such a way as to turn the evolution vector of the system in the direction desired by the researcher, because if you make a mistake, it will be impossible to return to the original phase, or move on to another, more favorable attractor. And here the responsibility for choosing the scenario for the development of the system lies entirely with the initiator of the choice.
Undoubtedly, our conceptual representations correlate with the social and cultural conditions in which they are created. The matrix of social being implicitly prepostulates the matrix of knowledge of the world. While this consistency is not rigid and unambiguous at the individual level, it is clear at the social level. Therefore, the idea of history, no matter what form it takes (from monism to pluralism), is an ideology-methodology of the changing life of people (from authoritarianism to democracy).
From Cartesian - "cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore, I exist), through Fichte's - "I am", to the Hegelian "philosophy of identity" - such is the way of substantiation classical philosophy, the fundamental possibility of knowing the world. The development of concepts (growth of knowledge) was substantiated by the identity of epistemology and ontology, the identity of the logical and the real "within" the cogito. Hegelian dialectics claimed a dual role: a) a universal logical (rational, discursive) theory historical development concept, thinking (the growth of knowledge as progress), which makes it possible to predict the future dynamics of thinking; b) the universal ontological doctrine - the general theory of the world.
Indeed, formal classical (Aristotelian) logic, as general theory the conclusion, which guarantees the truth of the conclusions when the premises are true, applicable only to continuous (chronological) change, could not cope with the logical justification for the growth of knowledge, consisting of formal-logical breaks (new knowledge is not deducible from the old, the former). This fact was noted, in particular, by F. Schelling, who substantiated the growth of knowledge by irrational mental activity - intellectual intuition.
The Hegelian concept, within the framework of a speculative conceptual framework, seems to be holistic, complete and reasonably substantiating (through dialectical removal) the growth of knowledge, having as its prepostulation a linear, continuous, ever-increasing chronology of the mind, which as a result led to the image of the world-as-one, continuous, purposeful story.
Hegelian pandialectism, panlogism, also permeates Marxism, in which it acts as economic determinism. However, the return of a person's own generic essence (the production of human life through labor) through the overcoming of alienated labor is regarded today only as a trend due to the metanarratives of the New Age. The very definition of "value" as an objective category, which is central to Marx's economic theory, is called into question.
It's about about the concept of a "post-market (post-economic) social order", which justifies the loss of "calculation of value" - the main category of the economy - by a trend modern man receive satisfaction of their needs outside the sphere of growth of material consumption. In economically developed countries, the growth of employment in the service sector is increasing, while in the production sector it is falling - the "proletariat" is replaced by the "cognitariat".
Not the level of income or social status, but the ability to generalize, memory - all that is usually called intelligence that really allows only a limited number of people to use the information available to everyone, becoming its true owners. For the first time in history, the condition of property is not the right to dispose of the good, but the ability to use it. The growth of knowledge (expansion of information) is regarded by economists as the main factor in overcoming value relations in modern society, and capital - alienated labor - as an epifactor. However, this is just a trend.
One tendency is replaced by another, calling into question the previous ideas about the foundations of exchange, about the essence of man as "homo economicus". Without the status of universality, tendencies (temporal regularities) cannot claim the status of universal laws of social life that could characterize any synchronous and diachronic societies. Social philosophy in this sense is not quite a science, but a collection of weakly verified "historical interpretations".
Assuming that the growth (evolution) of knowledge "tracks" the evolution of society, it is easy to fall into error when analyzing the growth of knowledge (its trends) as the logic of a developing concept, when the future (new) concept is present in the past (former), folded in it - strict determinism ; that a reliable prediction of the further evolution of knowledge, hence the evolution of society, is possible. This line of thought leads to the conclusion that historical forecasts are the solution to the problem of the method of social science. However, can this method be trusted?
The objective property of the growth of any knowledge is such that historical predictions based on it influence the predicted events, distorting their actual course, and sometimes completely eliminating them. Karl Popper believed that the idea of the movement of society as such - the idea that society, like a physical body, can move as a whole, along a certain path and in a certain direction - is a holistic misunderstanding.
The inability of teleological social concepts to realize their quintessence (large-scale historical prophecies) justifies criticism against them, undermining their epistemological and logical truth. According to Popper, if there is an increase in human knowledge, then we cannot anticipate today what we will know only tomorrow. Calling Marxism the "moral theory of historicism," Popper emphasizes that there is no predestination: history is open to the future, and does not take place according to the laws of "iron necessity" that exist beyond the will of man. Explaining the difference between law and trend, the philosopher argued that the historicist firmly believes in his favorite trend, and the conditions under which it could disappear are unthinkable for him. It can be said that the poverty of historicism is the poverty of the imagination.
Popper considered Hegel one of the inventors of the historical method, the essence of which is that the description of the history of the object of study is its causal explanation, and that certain social institutions can be explained by showing how they were slowly developed by mankind. Marxian sociology borrowed from Hegel not only the idea that the method of sociology must be historical and that sociology, like history, must become a theory of social development, but also the thesis that this development must be explained in dialectical terms.
Criticizing the dialectical "triad" and considering it, when justifying the growth of knowledge, as meaningless formalism, Popper believes that history, and consequently the growth of knowledge, is carried out by the "trial and error" method, which is broader than the dialectical method. Popper is right when he thinks that "synthesis" always embodies new idea, which cannot be reduced to more early stage development. And in this sense, the problem of obtaining new knowledge (not form, but content) remains behind the "frame" of the dialectical method. And all from the fact that the Hegelian dialectic is prepostulated by the idea of a linear, continuous, ever-increasing chronology of the mind.
The abstract philosophical interpretation of social reality only with the help of dialectical categories does not provide a solution to practical problems. real life. The ascent from the abstract to the concrete in the process of cognizing the essence of social phenomena presupposes the unity of the historical and logical, the reproduction in the logic of the movement of concepts of the necessary historical connection between the sides of a social phenomenon (including the phenomenon of conceptual changes). In this sense, the synergetic methodology with its system of general scientific categories (indeterminism, order, dynamic chaos, attractor, bifurcation, etc.) makes it possible to most adequately implement the principle of the unity of the historical and the logical in the subject of our study.
On the shift of researchers' interest towards the analysis of the phenomena of "chaotic" undirected repetition, "blind" oscillations, fluctuations and cycles of social life - phenomena that attracted the attention of thinkers of the past (Ecclesiastes, Confucius, Plato, Seneca, Machiavelli, Vico, etc.) - wrote the famous social philosopher and sociologist P. Sorokin. According to Sorokin, the theories of the adherents of the undirected course of history were more scientific and grasped reality much better than many of the speculative theories of modern "tendentious legislators."
Based on the study of sociocultural statics and dynamics, the scientist argued that, contrary to his desire to see stages of progressive, progressive development in history, he inevitably fails, trying to somehow support such a theory with facts. Under these circumstances, he is compelled to content himself with a less glamorous, though perhaps more correct, conception of purposeless historical fluctuations. Probably, in history there is a certain transcendental goal and invisible ways of moving towards it, but they have not yet been established by anyone.
It is known that the selection of facts and their evaluation will be such as the philosophy of history chosen by the researcher. Today, the most adequate description of the development of complex social systems is the idea of the wave-like nature of their evolution. The wave and cyclic approaches (see above) to the study of the behavior of social systems do not oppose each other, but have many common features, and in this sense we can speak of a cyclic-wave approach.
The cyclic-wave approach to the study of the movement of social systems proceeds from the fact that the end of the previous round, the previous wave of historical development is the beginning of a new round, a new wave, and the past era does not disappear without a trace, does not go "nowhere", it continues to live in a new era in the form of technology and technology, culture, worldview of people, in the form of a choice made in the past, which determined the further movement of society. It is important to emphasize that the wave approach to the analysis of the development of man and society allows for significantly more opportunities, alternatives and options for development than linear-progressive and purely cyclical approaches. Moreover, the wave approach proceeds from the existence of a number of critical, turning points, "bifurcation points", in which the course and trajectory of the development of man and society are not predetermined in principle.
Speaking from the standpoint of the sociology of knowledge (heuristics - sociological realism), as the most adequate, in our opinion, in the explication of the process of changing fundamental concepts, we have necessarily entered the limits of the problem of the central issue of the philosophy of history - the possible formation of the world history of mankind.
Comparative analysis the possibility of a varied solution of the central issue of the philosophy of history by key socio-philosophical directions is shown by the shift of interest of social philosophers from the concepts of a world-progressive progressive, purposeful type of movement of society to theories of non-directional, pluralistic socio-cultural development.
This became possible due to the dominance of applied research in the analysis of historical practice by positive social sciences, which was the realization of the principle of the unity of the historical and the logical, with the methodological primacy of the historical. The main requirement of positivism is to base the reliability of one's conclusions on observations, facts; to study real laws, and not to look for transcendental causes and the meaning of history - in these studies it was realized completely.
Today, the paradigm of the cyclic-wave nature of social evolution is recognized as more preferable, assuming a certain temporal orientation (tendency) to the complication of social ties and relations as a result of a change in different-scale waves (phases) of historical development. The transition from one phase of the development of society to another is actualized by "bifurcation points" in which social predetermination is violated.
Tutoring
Need help learning a topic?
Our experts will advise or provide tutoring services on topics of interest to you.
Submit an application indicating the topic right now to find out about the possibility of obtaining a consultation.
Approaches to the definition of society?
Today, there are two approaches to understanding society. In the broad sense of the word, society is a set of historically established forms of joint life and activity of people on earth. In the narrow sense of the word, society is a specific type of social and state system, a specific national-theoretical formation. However, these interpretations of the concept under consideration cannot be considered sufficiently complete, since the problem of society has occupied the minds of many thinkers, and in the process of developing sociological knowledge, various approaches to its definition have been formed.
Thus, E. Durkheim defined society as a supra-individual spiritual reality based on collective ideas. From the point of view of M. Weber, society is the interaction of people who are the product of social, i.e., focused on other actions. K. Marx presents society as a historically developing set of relations between people that develop in the process of their joint actions. Another theorist of sociological thought, T. Parsons, believed that society is a system of relations between people based on norms and values that form culture.
Thus, it is easy to see that society is a complex category characterized by a combination of various features. Each of the above definitions reflects some specific features characteristic of this phenomenon. Only taking into account all these characteristics allows us to give the most complete and precise definitions concepts of society. The most complete list characteristic features society was identified by an American sociologist E. Shiels. He developed the following features characteristic of any society:
1) it is not an organic part of any larger system;
2) marriages are concluded between representatives of this community;
3) it is replenished at the expense of the children of those people who are members of this community;
4) it has its own territory;
5) it has a self-name and its own history;
6) it has its own control system;
7) it exists longer than the average life span of an individual;
8) unites him general system values, norms, laws, rules.
Considering all these features, we can give the following definition of society: it is a historically formed and self-reproducing community of people.
Aspects of reproduction are biological, economic and cultural reproduction.
This definition makes it possible to distinguish the concept of society from the concept of "state" (an institution for managing social processes that arose historically later than society) and "country" (a territorial-political entity that has developed on the basis of society and the state).
The study of society within sociology is based on a systematic approach. The use of this particular method is also due to characteristic features society, which is characterized as: social system higher order; complex system education; complete system; self-developing system, because the source is within society.
Thus, it is not difficult to see that society is a complex system.
A system is a set of elements ordered in a certain way, interconnected and forming a certain integral unity. Undoubtedly, society is a social system, which is characterized as a holistic formation, the elements of which are people, their interaction and relationships, which are stable and reproduced in the historical process, passing from generation to generation.
Thus, the following can be distinguished as the main elements of society as a social system:
2) social connections and interactions;
3) social institutions, social strata;
4) social norms and values.
As with any system, society is characterized by close interaction of its elements. Given this feature, within the framework of the system approach, society can be defined as a large ordered set of social processes and phenomena more or less connected and interacting with each other and forming a single social whole. Society as a system is characterized by such features as coordination and subordination of its elements.
Coordination is the consistency of elements, their mutual functioning. Subordination is subordination and subordination, indicating the place of elements in an integral system.
social system independent in relation to its constituent elements and has the ability of self-development.
On the basis of a systematic approach to the analysis of society, functionalism was developed. The functional approach was formulated by G. Spencer and developed in the works of R. Merton and T. Parsons. In modern sociology, it is complemented by determinism and an individualistic approach (interactionism).
There are various approaches to the study of society, among the main ones - idealistic, materialistic, naturalistic. The dispute between them arises on the question of the role that spiritual, material-productive and natural factors play in society.
Representatives of the idealistic approach explain social life by the influence of factors that are spiritual in nature. They consider the ideas that are born in the minds of people to be the reason for the events taking place in society. And since all people are unique, they act arbitrarily, there are no regularities in social life, it is a collection of random and unique events. Some idealist philosophers believe that there are still patterns in public life, as people realize the plan, the plan of any supernatural spiritual forces - God, the World Mind, etc. This point of view was held, for example, by G. W. F. Hegel.
Representatives of the oppositematerialistic approachthink that the same objective laws operate in society as in nature. These laws do not depend on the will and desire of people. The development of society is not a supernatural, but a natural-historical process, which can be studied in the same way as the laws of nature. Knowledge of objective social patterns makes it possible to reform and improve society.
Philosophers-materialists emphasize the importance of the material factors of social life. In their opinion, the basis of social life is material production, and it is there that it is necessary to look for the causes of the events taking place in society, since the material interests of people decisively influence their consciousness, the ideas that they adhere to in life. K. Marx adhered to a similar point of view.
A variation of the materialistic approach to explaining social lifeis a naturalistic approach. Its representativeslaws of development of society are explained by natural factors. Various natural factors significantly affect the way of life, human production activities, determine the economic specialization of various regions, the mental make-up of nations, their spiritual culture, and thereby predetermine the forms and rates of historical development of different societies. One of the most significant factors is the climate. It has been established that local climate deterioration - cooling, drying - always coincided with the emergence of great empires, the rise of human intelligence, and during periods of warming, the collapse of empires, the stagnation of spiritual life took place. Social development is also greatly influenced by cosmic factors, for example, 11-year cycles of solar activity. The peaks of solar activity account for the growth of social tension, social conflicts, crime, mental disorders, the emergence of epidemics and other negative phenomena.
Topic 18. Interpretations of the historical process
1. Problems of social dynamics
2. Linear model of society development
3. Nonlinear model of society development
1. Problems of social dynamics
The activities of people move history, but how do people act: freely or out of necessity? Can they realize any of their plans?
In public life there is a combination of freedom and necessity. Necessities to be reckoned with are, for example, those circumstances of life that the new generation inherits from the previous one. Freedom is manifested in the ability of the last generation to create their own history in accordance with their own, already new needs and interests. But each generation cannot immediately, arbitrarily change what was achieved by its predecessors, the existing conditions and circumstances (the level of production achieved, the mentality of people, the level of cultural development, etc.) determine the real possibilities for changing society.
People have to reckon with both the objective laws governing the development of the natural environment and the objective laws governing the development of various spheres of society. For example, the Russian economist N.D. Kondratiev (1892-1938) discovered 50-60 year cycles in the development of the economy, which significantly affect events in other areas of public life. An attempt by various political forces to act, ignoring objective laws, ends in failure, a waste of time and money.
Another interesting question: why is the end result of actions almost always different from the intended plans? The point is that the goals different people And social groups, as a rule, do not coincide, the action meets the reaction. In the end, the will and actions of people are mixed and give a certain general average result, a certain “resultant” of all forces and actions, which no longer depends on anyone in particular. Therefore, there is a discrepancy between the intended goal and the achieved result, up to the opposite (G. W. F. Hegel called this circumstance “the irony of history”). For the same reason The development of society is unpredictable and multivariate.
History is created by all members of society, but who makes the greatest contribution and determines the direction of society? For a long time, historians wrote mainly about the activities of monarchs, generals, religious authorities, outstanding artists and philosophers. It was believed that these prominent figures move history with their ideas and activities.
However, not a single great personality can accomplish anything in history alone; she needs a circle of like-minded people and associates who are also outstanding people, able to understand and support major undertakings. The best representatives of society - the most educated, intelligent, strong-willed, who have real power due to wealth or nobility - form the elite. Great personalities may or may not be born, realize their talents or remain unknown, but elite groups capable of nominating major figures exist among all peoples and at all times. Therefore, there is a point of view that it is the elites that make the greatest contribution to the development of society.
Proponents of the third point of view believe that the masses are the creator of history, since it is they who create the material goods and spiritual culture necessary for life, carry out political transformations, supporting or, conversely, fighting the authorities. Not a single outstanding person or elite will be able to play his historical role if their ideas do not meet the needs and interests of the masses, the requirements of the time.
Despite theoretical differences, in reality history moves in the interaction of the masses, elites and outstanding personalities.
1. The concept of society. Society as a system
The section of philosophy that studies society, the patterns of its emergence and development, is called social philosophy ( from lat. "socio" - to connect, unite). Society studies not only social philosophy, but also whole line social sciences and humanities: sociology, history, political science, archeology, etc. However, these sciences study certain specific aspects of social life, while social philosophy helps to form a holistic view of society as a complex social organism.
Society- this is a combination of all forms of association of people (for example, a family, a team, a class, a state, etc.) and relations between them.
Despite the apparent randomness, society is a system with ordered connections and relationships, patterns of functioning and development. The elements of society are the spheres of public life; various social groups; states, etc.
Spheres of public life:
1. material and production sphere- this is the sphere of production, exchange and distribution of material goods (industrial and agricultural production, trade, financial and credit institutions, etc.);
2. political and administrative sphere regulates the activities of people and relations between them (the state, political parties, law enforcement agencies, etc.);
3. social sphere is the sphere of reproduction of a person as a member of society. It creates conditions for childbearing, socialization of people, recreation and restoration of legal capacity. It includes health care, education, the social security system, housing and communal services and consumer services, family life and etc.;
4. spiritual realm is the sphere of production of knowledge, ideas, artistic values. It includes science, philosophy, religion, morality, art.
All spheres are closely interconnected; they can be considered separately only in theory, which helps to isolate and study certain areas of a truly holistic society, their role in the overall system.
2. The social structure of society
Entering into relations with each other, people form various social groups. The combination of these groups forms social structure of society. Groups are distinguished according to various criteria, for example:
1. social class groups are estates (for example, the nobility, the clergy, the third estate), classes (the working class, the bourgeois class), layers (are allocated depending on the level of well-being), etc.;
2. socio-ethnic groups are clan, tribe, nationality, nation, etc.;
3. demographic groups - age and sex groups, able-bodied and disabled population, etc.;
4. vocational and educational groups - workers of mental and physical labor, professional groups, etc.;
5. social and settlement groups - urban and rural population, etc.
All social groups are closely intertwined and do not function in isolation from each other; by joint efforts they provide society with the necessary conditions existence, their activities are the driving force behind the development of society. Each group has a certain status in society, its place in the social hierarchy, which predetermine the needs, interests, goals of its members. Since the needs, interests and goals of the activities of representatives of different social groups may or may not coincide, there are observed in society different forms social relations - both social consent (consensus), cooperation, harmony, and social conflict. Society constantly has to look for mechanisms to harmonize the interests of various social groups, to prevent acute social conflicts (wars, revolutions, etc.), leading to the destabilization of society, bearing serious trials and hardships. It is preferable to develop on the basis of constructive reforms, using which it is possible to systematically and progressively carry out a qualitative transformation of society in its own interests.
3. Basic approaches to the study of society
There are various approaches to the study of society, among the main ones - idealistic, materialistic, naturalistic. The dispute between them arises on the question of the role that spiritual, material-productive and natural factors play in society.
Representatives of the idealistic approach explain social life by the influence of factors that are spiritual in nature. They consider the ideas that are born in the minds of people to be the reason for the events taking place in society. And since all people are unique, they act arbitrarily, there are no regularities in social life, it is a collection of random and unique events. Some idealist philosophers believe that there are still patterns in public life, as people realize the plan, the plan of any supernatural spiritual forces - God, the World Mind, etc. This point of view was held, for example, by G. W. F. Hegel.
Representatives of the opposite, materialistic approach believe that the same objective laws operate in society as in nature. These laws do not depend on the will and desire of people. The development of society is not a supernatural, but a natural-historical process, which can be studied in the same way as the laws of nature. Knowledge of objective social patterns makes it possible to reform and improve society.
Philosophers-materialists emphasize the importance of the material factors of social life. In their opinion, the basis of social life is material production, and it is there that it is necessary to look for the causes of the events taking place in society, since the material interests of people decisively influence their consciousness, the ideas that they adhere to in life. K. Marx adhered to a similar point of view.
A variation of the materialistic approach to explaining social life is the naturalistic approach. Its representatives explain the patterns of development of society by natural factors. Various natural factors significantly affect the way of life, human production activities, determine the economic specialization of various regions, the mental make-up of nations, their spiritual culture, and thereby predetermine the forms and rates of historical development of different societies. One of the most significant factors is the climate. It has been established that local climate deterioration - cooling, drying - always coincided with the emergence of great empires, the rise of human intelligence, and during periods of warming, the collapse of empires, the stagnation of spiritual life took place. Social development is also greatly influenced by cosmic factors, for example, 11-year cycles of solar activity. The peaks of solar activity account for the growth of social tension, social conflicts, crime, mental disorders, the emergence of epidemics and other negative phenomena.
Topic 18. Interpretations historical process
Nature and its specific conditions determine the general structure of social life - the form of ownership and the type of relationship between necessary and surplus labor, the form of organization of man in society. Either a given society is a collection of individuals, or it is a system that determines the relationship between different groups. Nature is included in the productive forces of society, is the content of the objects of our spiritual life, nature is the basis and condition for the emergence of the world of culture.
Nature and society are identical in some aspects or coincide in their content. Man is a person, a social individual + integral part living world, obeys the fundamental laws of life. The presence of these grounds led to the existence different approaches to explain the content and essence of social. human organization.
The main approaches to understanding the nature of society at the present time:
1. Naturalistic approach
First formulated in Ancient Greece, continued to develop in the era of modern times in French materialism (Spinoza, Rousseau, Feuerbach + sociobiology -> Arrent, Ogassi)
Feuerbach: Society arises at a certain level of development of nature and does not go beyond the sphere natural organization. Society became the highest form of development of natural organization when it managed to rise to the satisfaction of the spiritual or ideal interest of man.
Therefore, society is absolutely subject to natural laws and cannot exist outside of nature. Everything that is produced by society exists in the form of natural material.
The main drawback of the approach is that it does not take into account the level of development of socialization, when the social the laws of relationships between people dominate the natural ones. Dukhovn. the moment of human development is not taken into account: a person can exist only in the sphere of culture, the main content of which is spiritual interest and spiritual need, which determine the very process of our existence.
Grigory Skovoroda: “A person lives not to eat, but to live.”
2. An ideal approach to understanding society.
Society is a form of spiritual education and spiritual interaction man, and spiritual foundations are understood as God, an idea, a spiritual need, spiritual knowledge.
Helvetius (XVIII century): "Opinions govern the world."
The society was created by God and the connection between people is based on love, duty and other valuable foundations.
Berdyaev: Society is a form of people's organization that presupposes the existence of a certain historical tradition or past, and the past exists only in the ideal form. A person lives in a society -> he constantly has a dominant need to make a career, achieve a social position. A person sets a goal for himself, this suggests that the ideal is the basis public organization.
Why do some ideas work and others don't? There is only one answer: the embodiment and realization of an idea depends on the conditions of social existence, the level of development of these ideas. -> Social communication is based on material production, which creates the basis for the emergence of relevant ideas and their implementation. This moment was first formed by Sension and received further development in the writings of Marx, who is the founder of the 3rd approach - social.
3. Social approach.
The essence of Marxism in the understanding of society: Marx identified the fundamental basis of social life.
Society is a form of human existence, -> the understanding of society must be based on the social individual. The first necessary human need and the first historical fact is the physical individuals themselves - people who must eat, have clothes and housing, satisfy their needs. Consequently, the first step in social organization is the organization of material production, which creates the means of human existence. The second need is the need to create conditions for the security of its existence and development. Man needs social organization, which is the condition of his being. Only after that does a person have a need for culture, art, etc. This determines the level spiritual development both the individual and society.
Marx: The basis of social life is material production, the main elements of which are:
Subsistence production (food, clothing, shelter)
Production of living conditions ( social communications)
The production of the person himself (in his physical and cultural type)
material production becomes the basis for the emergence and development of spiritual production, which creates the creative individuality of a person.
Marx first defined: a feature of human development is that for its formation it requires the presence of a historically defined collective labor. A person is formed under the influence of the whole society as historical form the existence of the individual.
Sagatovsky: “Society is a set of social relations, in which individuals interacting with each other enter, collectively producing themselves and the conditions of their existence.”
1. History is a natural historical process of the development of society, its basis is a social pattern.
2. At the heart of the historical process is the process of development of the mode of production, determined by the relationship of productive forces and production relations.
3. The development of the mode of production determines the formation of socio-economic formations.
4. The driving force of the historical process is the class struggle; the goal is to conquer political power, creation of the state.
5. The basis of the historical process is not a person, but populace, whose movement determines the content of the historical process.
Having determined this, Marx proceeds to determine the content of spiritual production, which is based on the interaction of the development of forms public consciousness, which are based on the ideal factor/idea. The idea is the basis of social significance and acts as a source of social development.
The social idea is realized in the form:
The law of human production activity
Aesthetic ideal, giving an understanding of beauty / ugliness
Norms of morality, morality and law
A generally significant social idea that embodies the basic principles of social organization (freedom, equality, justice, etc.)
Sagatovsky believes that the social idea acts in the form of a religious norm - it is defined by the concept of "holy", denoting a measure of either the cultural development of a person, or a measure of the social permissibility of his behavior, for the violation of which a person is expelled from society.
The second form of development of spiritual production is the development inner world human, it is carried out in two aspects:
· Development cognitive activity a person who is based on the desire to reflect the truth, to create an adequate model of reality or a scientific picture of the world;
to formulate the necessary knowledge for orientation in the existing space,
the highest form of activity of which is scientific activity in natural science, mathematics and philosophy.
· The development of the values of the paradigm (= foundation) of a person, when he forms a system of values / ideals, on the basis of which he is included in the world of society.
Now this approach dominates in socio-philosophical literature, based on the classical analysis of the works of Marx and Engels.
In our time, shortcomings of this understanding of society are revealed:
1. Marx claims that social organization is based on a social connection that determines the spiritual and moral worldview of a person, but Marx does not explore the reverse process of their interaction.
Dostoevsky: "To reduce a person to his social foundations means to distort their content."
2. Marx reduces sociality itself to economic foundations; the economy becomes a determining factor in social development, although it shows that exceptions are possible.
In the history of Russia, the economic, and not the political, factor was decisive, because. economic resources were not enough for reforms and transformations, we are always forced to supplement them on the basis of political will and social violence.
3. The level approach (modern) to understanding the nature of society is expressed in the works of Sagatovsky.
