Civilization in the true sense of the word isnot in the multiplication of needs, but in free and gooddeliberate limitation of their desires.
1. The concept of society.
2. The problem of society in the history of philosophical thought.
3. Concepts of development and origin of society.
4. Society as a system.
5. The main areas of public life.
6. Formational and civilizational development of society.
7. Civilization approach to social development.
8. Conclusions and questions for self-control.
One of the forms of being is the being of society. The question of what society is, what is its place and role in human life, has always been of interest to philosophy. As inanimate and living nature, society is an integral system, the diverse elements of which are updated and are in changing relationships and interactions. Society is constantly and continuously evolving.
Consider what is a society? The term "society" is very ambiguous. It is used in the scientific (categorical) and everyday senses.
in philosophical and historical literature one can count at least several basic meanings of the concept "society":
Firstly, a separate concrete society, which is an independent unit of history, an integral self-sufficient social organism (for example, Russian, French, Japanese and other societies);
Secondly, it is the totality of the social organisms of the region (Middle Eastern, Western European, etc.);
Thirdly, all mankind as a whole;
Fourth, a certain type of society (antique, feudal, bourgeois);
Fifth, society is understood, regardless of its specific forms, as a kind of sociality that is opposite to nature: an ideal type, the bearer of the essential properties and characteristics of all social organisms. This value reflects the philosophical understanding of society to the greatest extent. It allows you to correlate society with other types of being.
Society - it a part of being isolated from nature, characterized by its own methods of self-organization, social norms, relationships and institutions, historically developing human life. This definition contains the essence of society. Its content is revealed by the elemental composition. More specifically, the essence of society is expressed in generic and specific characteristics.
The main ordinary sign of society is that it is a material substance that has common characteristics with nature, the cosmos. The species (specific) tributaries of society include: the presence of individuals with consciousness and abilities associated with it; special organization and management, norms and principles of life; relations of communication, behavior and activity, etc.
The species characteristics of society determine the special ways and content of people's lives, which distinguish them from the life of plants and animals. In general, this way and content of life of human communities on Earth is called culture,
In a broad sense, society as a social form of the movement of being, opposite, opposing nature and the natural, is called "society". The concept of "society" means an organized form of joint activity of people, one of the subsystems of the world, which occupies a specific place in it. Society in general, or society as a subsystem of the world, a form of joint life activity of people is the carrier, on the one hand, of the general properties and connections of the world as an integral system, and on the other hand, of specific social relations and forms.
Society is also a collective of people, a collection of individuals. This statement is true, but it contains only the obvious truth that one can speak about human society only when there is a joint life activity of people. Society is just the result, the product of human activity. This is one of the main differences of society from other types of being.
The problem of society has occupied a significant place in the history of philosophical thought. The reference line for understanding the phenomenon of society is ancient philosophy. Already Plato and Aristotle identified the problems public life. The state was the key to the analysis of society. From the standpoint of the state, a person and his life, morality, and art were considered. If the connection with the state of some social phenomena was not visible, they were not taken into account or explained in a different way.
In the theories of ancient thinkers, society was dissolved in the state as one of its definitions and expressions. Such absorption of society by the state is explained by the determining role of political institutions and the specific city-polis, the city-state as a mechanism for the self-organization of society at the early class levels. The position of identifying society and the state (albeit incomplete) was visible until the New Age.
K. Marx, having formulated the principles of a materialistic understanding of history, came to the conclusion that society does not simply consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of those connections and relations in which individuals are with each other. In other words, society is a system of social relations, the carriers and parties of which are social subjects: a person, social groups, social institutions (the state, political parties, religious, cultural and other associations).
In idealistic models of the development of society, its essence is seen in the complex of certain ideas, beliefs, myths, etc. First of all, we are talking about the religious concepts of society. World religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism), as well as national ones (Judaism, Hinduism, Confucianism), have their own models of the structure of society and the state. Their essence lies in the idea of divine predestination of the structure of society, which should provide a person with the conditions for a worthy meeting with God in this and the future life.
In the philosophical thought of the West it is difficult to single out any one dominant principle, although many of them are associated with a systematic approach to society, structural and functional analysis.
E. Durkheim argued that society is a special kind of reality, not reducible to others and affecting a person based on the idea of social solidarity based on the division of labor.
M. Weber created an "understanding sociology" and developed the concept of "ideal type", on the basis of which he analyzed the phenomenon of bureaucracy and Protestant ethics as the "spirit of capitalism".
K. Popper introduced the concepts of "social technology" and "social engineering", believing that the course of history is not subject to design. He substantiated the concept of "open society" and pointed out the dangers of totalitarianism.
In general, all these models of society cannot claim to be absolute truth, but express certain facets of that most complex reality, which is defined by the term "society".
One way or another, with any approach, for a philosophical understanding of society, it is necessary to solve a two-pronged task:
Understand the place of society as a system in the general structure of the world;
Understand the general invariants of the social structure throughout its historical development.
No less important is the structural analysis of this holistic phenomenon, the selection of its main elements, constituent parts and the understanding of the types of connection between them.
Society as a system . Social philosophy, analyzing human society, proceeds from understanding it as a complex system. This approach is generally accepted and does not require special argumentation.
Basic principles of consistency:
Qualitative certainty, isolation relative to the environment of its existence;
heterogeneity of its structure. The system is an object not only isolated from the environment, but also consisting of autonomous parts;
Integral properties of the system.
Thus, a system is a phenomenon isolated from other phenomena, consisting of interrelated parts and possessing integral properties that may be absent from parts taken separately.
However, social systems differ significantly from systems operating in nature. These differences are as follows:
1) society, unlike nature, is a system of not only material, but also spiritual relations that develop between people in the process of their joint activities;
2) the central element of any social system is a person with consciousness, acting in accordance with his desires and striving for certain goals, which gives the development of society a significant degree of uncertainty, and, consequently, unpredictability;
3) the development of society is subject to both universal laws and specific social laws that operate only in the social environment;
4) the person himself is a complex system and exists as a system within a system. Other elements of society are also systemic forms and form certain autonomous systems (state, economy, politics, law, etc.);
5) the social system is the consistency of elements and at the same time their inconsistency, the presence of harmonious tendencies and conflict interaction. Thus, society is a living, contradictory, self-developing system.
Society is a constantly evolving and a complex system. It carries out various types of social activities in their nature and content: production and economic, social, political, religious, aesthetic and others, which seem to have their own social space. The latter is outlined by the corresponding type of social relations within which this or that social activity takes place. As a result, various spheres of social life are formed. The main ones are economic, social, political and spiritual.
Economic sphere includes the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods, as well as the productive forces and relations of production. This is the sphere of the functioning of production, the direct implementation of the achievements of scientific and technological progress, the implementation of the entire set of production relations of people, including ownership of the means of production, the exchange of activities and the distribution of material wealth.
The economic sphere acts as an economic space in which the economic life of the country is organized, the interaction of all sectors of the economy, as well as international economic cooperation. Here, the economic consciousness of people, their material interest in the results of their production activities, as well as their creative abilities, are directly embodied in life. The activities of economic management institutions are also implemented here.
In the economic sphere, the interaction of all objective and subjective factors of economic development is carried out. Recognizing the important role of the sphere of material production in the life of society, modern social philosophy still believes that it cannot be absolute and reduce to it all the diversity of human activity.
The social sphere is the sphere of relations between social groups existing in society, including classes, professional and socio-demographic strata of the population (youth, the elderly, etc.), as well as national communities about the social conditions of their life and activities.
This is the sphere of social life in which the reproduction of human life, the satisfaction of the immediate needs and needs of people, social differentiation is carried out.
The special role of the social sphere in the system of society is determined by the following factors:
· The focus of the social sphere is a person with his needs and requests. And this is the main element of society, the subject of activity, the bearer of all social relations, the creator of social transformations.
Man is both the initial condition for the development of society and the ultimate goal of such development. In relation to society, a person is both his goal, and his means, and his result. Human development is the highest criterion for the progress of society. Recall the words of Andrei Voznesensky:
All progress is reactionary, If a person collapses.
The person is multidimensional. He is both a biological being, and a member of the family, and a professional worker, and a member of the collective: a social group, a party, a nation, a citizen of the state. Much has been given to man by God, but much he can achieve on his own. Social policy in society should be such that a person's potential is more fully revealed, his social needs and interests are satisfied. Note that the Constitution of the Russian Federation states that Russia is a welfare state.
The most general task of this subsystem is the reproduction of the social structure of society. In turn, a generalized social structure can be defined as a set of various social groups, their relationships and interactions. This area, for example, reflects the state and characteristics of the existence of ethnic, gender and age, regional, professional communities, their interaction with each other and with society as a whole. The social sphere in a certain sense is a continuation of the sphere of production, because it is in the social sphere that the cycle of distribution of material goods is completed, and individual material consumption is realized.
In the social sphere, the reproduction of the population is realized. Therefore, one of the most important cells of the social structure of society is the family in the totality of its social functions. Among the criteria by which it is customary to evaluate the development of the social sphere of a particular state, one can indicate: lifestyle, the state of medical care and social security, education and upbringing, demographic indicators. The integral criterion is the measure of harmonious perfection and self-expression of the personality.
The political sphere is space political activity classes, other social groups, national communities, political parties and movements, various public organizations. Their activity takes place on the basis of established political relations and is aimed at realizing their political interests. These interests concern, first of all, political power, as well as the realization of their political rights and freedoms. In the interests of some subjects - the strengthening of existing political power. Others - its elimination.
Still others seek to share power with other subjects. As a result, everyone in this or that farm wants to influence political processes in their own interests. Accordingly, the specific task of the political sphere is to maintain ties between people, regulate their activities and social relations. Such activities are aimed at ensuring consistency, orderliness of various spheres of public life. Without this, as without material and spiritual production, it is not possible.
The main elements of the political system are political organizations and institutions (state, political parties, public organizations, media), norms of political behavior and political culture, political ideologies.
In the context of the transformation of society, political processes significantly politicize the consciousness of many people and increase their political activity. This enhances the role and importance of the political sphere in the life of society.
The spiritual sphere is the sphere of people's relations about various kinds of spiritual values, their creation, distribution and assimilation by all sections of society. It is in this sphere that spiritual production takes place. At the same time, spiritual values mean not only, say, objects of painting, music or literary works, but also people's knowledge, science, moral standards of behavior, etc., in a word, everything that constitutes the spiritual content of social life or the spirituality of society.
The spiritual sphere of public life develops historically. It embodies the geographical, national and other features of the development of society, everything that has left its mark on the soul of the people, its national character.
The spiritual life of society is made up of the daily spiritual communication of people and from such areas of their activity as knowledge, including scientific, education and upbringing, from the manifestations of morality, art, and religion. All this makes up the content of the spiritual sphere, develops the spiritual world of people, their ideas about the meaning of life in society. This has a decisive influence on the formation of spiritual principles in their activities and behavior.
Of great importance in this regard is the activity of institutions that perform the functions of education and upbringing - from primary schools to universities, as well as the atmosphere of family education of a person, the circle of his peers and friends, all the richness of his spiritual communication with other people.
An important role in the formation of human spirituality is played by original folk art, as well as professional art - theater, music, cinema, painting, architecture. One of the fundamental problems of the development of modern society is how to form and enrich the spiritual world of people, introduce them to true spiritual values and turn them away from false ones that destroy the human soul and society.
Everything suggests that the importance of the spiritual sphere in the development of modern society, for its present and future, can hardly be overestimated. Scientists, philosophers, religious figures, and other representatives of spiritual culture are increasingly and persistently turning to the study of the processes taking place here.
The spheres of the life of society, acting as integral formations, are in close interconnection, influence each other, intertwine, complement each other, characterizing the unity of the entire social organism. The connections that exist between the spheres are diverse. The most characteristic are subordinate. The specificity of these connections lies in the fact that the spheres of life in society play a different role. For example, it is known that the basis of all types of social activities of people is the economic sphere. It, in turn, is the main determinant of other spheres: social, political, spiritual. For example, the social sphere determines the political and spiritual, and the political - the spiritual.
In the process of general dependence on the economy, the development of the spheres of society is carried out according to its own laws.
Each of them has the opposite effect:
Spiritual - on political, social and economic;
Political to social, spiritual and economic;
Social - on economic, political, spiritual.
The state of the spiritual sphere of society provides information to the political sphere, puts forward immediate tasks for it, determines those political values that need to be developed in the light of the specific conditions for the development of society.
Based on the ideas developed in the spiritual sphere of society, the efforts of people are aimed at solving the upcoming tasks and programs. And the political sphere affects the nature of social programs, relations, the quality of the implementation of the social needs and interests of nations and social groups, the extent to which the principles of social, justice, equality, human rights.
Formational and civilizational development of society. The methods and forms of development of society are very diverse, each specific social organism goes its own way, has its own history. Social philosophy, using the historical description of the diverse forms of social existence and development, offers two important approaches to the analysis of history. When analyzing it, some researchers pay attention to the moment of repetition, others - to the originality of history,
The first approach notes the unity of history. Conventionally, it can be called "linear". In accordance with the "linear" concept, the historical-progressive process takes place through the transition of society from one stage to another, from less perfect to more perfect.
The second approach - civilizational - emphasizes the diversity, multi-variant development of social units (countries, peoples, states) of history.
Supporters of the "linear" approach to history were K. Marx and F. Engels. Exploring the complex interweaving of many social, material and spiritual relations of capitalist society, K. Marx and F. Engels developed the concept and doctrine of society as a socio-economic formation. Analysis of the relationship, material and ideological relations led to the conclusion about the determining role of material relations, the core of which is production relations.
It was found that countries with the same type of production relations are at the same stage of historical development. And ancient, feudal and bourgeois societies represent a historical change, first of all, the totality of production relations and the system of all social relations growing on their basis. Thus the concept « socio-economic formation" allows you to see a fairly complete set of elements of any society.
Characteristics of the socio-economic formation:
Firstly, a socio-economic formation is a historically specific type of society, the specific features of which are determined by the production relations that form its basis. In accordance with these signs, it is legitimate to speak of the main types of formations: primitive, slave-owning, feudal, bourgeois, communist.
Secondly, the basis of the life of society as a formation is material production, which ultimately determines the formation and development of the entire set of social relations.
Thirdly, the main element of material production is the productive forces. Their level of development and character show the degree of man's mastery of the forces of nature, the use of nature for the development of human society. Productive forces include the means of production, man as the main productive force of society, objects and tools of labor, production infrastructure (buildings, roads, warehouses, pipelines, etc.).
The nature of the functioning and the level of development of the productive forces determine objectively the formation and development of production relations, which, in turn, have a decisive influence on the process of formation and development of all other social relations.
Fourthly, each formation has a certain type of production relations as relations that arise between people in the process of material and spiritual production. In this sense, production relations are the economic basis of society.
Fifthly, the economic basis of society is the basis for the formation of the superstructure of society, which is a set of social ideas, theories and views, relations and their respective institutions.
In general, the superstructure of society is formed by:
Political, legal, moral, aesthetic, philosophical, religious, atheistic and other ideas and views;
Political, legal, moral, aesthetic, religious, atheistic and other relations;
Organizations and institutions that are called upon to regulate public relations in accordance with public relations and public consciousness.
These are the main content and structure of the socio-economic formation. All its main elements are in dialectical unity and interconnection.
The economic basis of society is primary in relation to the superstructure and determines its content and structure. What is the basis (as a system of economic relations), such is the superstructure of the whole society. This is a general sociological law.
Thus, changes in the economic basis of society eventually lead to changes in the superstructure. And the change in the economic basis leads to transformations that form a new political and legal superstructure. At the same time, the superstructure itself actively, dynamically and powerfully influences the economic basis. This is the main content of the relationship between the elements of formation, the development of the main elements of the organization of any society.
Civilizational approach to social development. The civilizational approach complements the formational concept of social development. The concept of civilization is one of the most commonly used in philosophy, history and other humanities. It was born in France in the 17th century and denoted the ideal structure of human society. Etymologically, the term goes back to the Latin word "civilis" - urban, which indicates the close connection of civilization with the urban type of culture.
Civilization embodies the technological aspect of culture. The main thing in civilization is the continuous change of technologies to meet the equally continuously growing needs and opportunities of mankind with the legislative support of this process. This idea of civilization is based largely on the successes and achievements of the scientific and technological revolution in Western countries and on the postulates of liberal democracy.
Thus, in modern philosophy, civilization is considered as a socio-cultural community and its main criteria are the level of development of technology, socio-political institutions and spiritual culture, in their systemic formation. The generalized indicator is the technology of reproduction of social processes in the unity of their material and spiritual aspects, the way of implementing the laws of social life.
In the philosophical thought of the XIX-XX centuries. The concept of so-called “local civilizations”, created by the efforts of N.L. Danilevsky, O. Spengler and A. J. Toynbee. All peoples in this concept are divided into primitive and civilized, and the latter - into certain cultural and historical types (from 8 to 21). Of particular interest here is the phenomenon of "Challenge - and - Response", when a calm development is replaced by a critical situation. It, in turn, encourages civilization to grow, up to the “break” and “troubled times”. The authors of this concept tried to overcome Eurocentrism in the understanding of civilization, which was later developed by K. Jaspers.
At the end of the XX century. a special branch of knowledge has taken shape - "civilizational studies", the purpose of which is an attempt to cover everything that has been accumulated by science in previous years, to give a forecast of the foreseeable future of world civilization. Revealing the content of these studies, it must be said that some scientists adhere to the traditional idea of civilizations as local historical formations, which are based on a specific socio-cultural code. These scientists develop the ideas of M. Weber and A. Toynbee regarding the fact that for each civilization, first of all, the spiritual and religious code of activity is important.
If civilizations impose other values (for example, the lifestyle of people of Western civilization), a rejection reaction occurs, similar to what happens when a foreign tissue is transplanted. This partly explains the phenomenon of the low efficiency of applying the latest technologies in civilizations whose cultural archetype does not accept innovations.
It should also be noted the development of the ideas of modern globalistics, the background of which is the aggravation of global problems and the need to solve them on a global scale. On the one hand, it became obvious that not a single civilization of our time can escape from this, on the other hand, it is clear that one cannot look at these problems only from the positions of the Western world. The world remains diverse, and therefore it is necessary to understand that civilizations are polysemantic, and they themselves must go towards each other. The basis for such a "meeting of civilizations" can be the universal codes of the spiritual and material life of people on the planet.
Developing this idea, it must be said that there are two currents in understanding the phenomenon of the integrity of the world:
Supporters of one (N. Moiseev and others) believe that in the XXI century. there will be a single planetary civilization with the universal Reason, Memory and the Spiritual world;
Others believe that the future "metacivilization" will be a kind of "common denominator" of different cultures and civilizations, which will retain their originality for the foreseeable future. This opinion is based on the concept of "cultural pluralism", the idea of the irremovability of ethno-cultural differences and the recognition of the equality of each culture.
Thus, the concept of civilization is voluminous, used in different sciences, at different levels of abstraction.
Firstly, the term "civilization" is used in general philosophical terms as a social form of the movement of matter (society, society), is often used in hypothetical studies related to the search for extraterrestrial civilizations.
Secondly, as a socio-philosophical characteristic of qualitatively defined stages of the world-historical process (ancient civilization, the civilization of the medieval West, etc.).
Thirdly, as a cultural and historical type that characterizes the regional and traditional features of societies (Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.).
Fourthly, as the name of individual civilized societies that have maintained their integrity for a more or less long time (Sumerian, Akkadian, Inca civilization, etc.).
There are also different approaches to the relationship between the concepts of culture and civilization: some authors consider them synonyms, others argue that civilization is a stage in the development of culture, others consider civilization to be the last stage in the development of culture, others insist that culture is an expression of civilization (understanding culture only spirituality of society).
"Formation", "civilization" and "culture" are not mutually exclusive, but complementary concepts. They characterize society, society from different angles, from different positions, allowing a deeper and more complete understanding of the socio-historical process.
If the concept of a socio-economic formation reveals, first of all, the logic of history, its unity, patterns, repetition and features of each stage (formation), then the concepts of culture and civilization characterize the diversity and humanism of the historical process, the uniqueness and originality of the life of its subjects.
Thus, the formational, culturological and civilizational understanding of society constitutes the philosophical, sociological and sociocultural basis for explaining a person as a person, the necessary theoretical and methodological basis of philosophical and integral anthropology.
Conclusions:
1. In the philosophical understanding, society is a complex system that develops on the basis of objective social laws, a form of people's life, a way of their social organization. The source of its development is just as complex and represents a combination of different forces - natural, actually social and spiritual, the ratio of which changes in the course of history.
2. The modern historical epoch has represented and continues to represent the diversity of historical development. As part of the evolutionary path of improving society, new relations and processes are being formed, social contradictions and conflicts are growing, radical changes are taking place that open the way for a new civilization, a new formation, a new culture. This allows us to consider society as a continuously developing social system.
Questions for self-control:
1. What is a society?
2. What is the systemic nature of society expressed in?
3. Expand the dialectics of the main spheres of public life.
4. What is a formation and what is its structure?
5. What is civilization, what are the reasons for its emergence?
6. What theoretical models of society exist in social philosophy and how do they differ from each other?
7. What methodological principles of knowledge of society do you know?
8. Expand the originality of the main areas of public life?
9. Describe the main patterns of development of modern society?
2. The future of mankind
Bibliography
1. Society as a self-developing system. The meaning and direction of the historical process
Society is a historically developing system of relations between people, taking shape in the processes of their joint activities.
At the same time, changes in society do not mean the loss of the essence of man, as is sometimes believed. Nowadays, especially in connection with scientific and technological progress, they do not compose any kind of fiction. They even agree to the point of absurdity that intensive changes in the tools of labor and technology will eventually lead to the disappearance of the social essence of a person, since it will not be a person who will work, but “thinking”, “reasonable”, etc. machines that it is as if a person is already turning into a “subsystem”, etc., etc.
Society is that universal, which is not abstract, but concrete, one that contains the wealth of the separate, special, individual. This universal, with each new step of ascent, is enriched, filled with new content, becomes more concrete, more meaningful, because every time it absorbs the richness of the individual, special. Each human individual, being a manifestation of the universal, by his life activity transfers his last content to this, at the same time being a form, a way of his being, development, he himself is enriched by this universal.
The application of the principle of development, historicism in the study of society is a key issue in social philosophy. At the same time, in any attempt to comprehend the historical process, the question inevitably arises: does this process have any meaning at all and does it have any direction?
Society is a self-developing system.
Many philosophers and historians have paid great attention to this problem. In particular, the Russian philosopher N. A. Berdyaev in a special work, which is called “The Meaning of History”, wrote that “history only makes sense if there is an end to history, if there is a resurrection at the end, if the dead rise with cemeteries of world history and comprehend with all their being, why they decayed, why they suffered in life and what they deserved for eternity, if the entire chronological series of history stretches into one line and a final place is found for everything. As you can see, N. A. Berdyaev tries to consider history through the fate of each person, through his aspirations, suffering, actions in the chronological chain of events of the historical process. He believes that history is truly a drama that has its acts from the first to the last, has its beginning, its internal development, its end.
K. Marx also contributed to the theory of the beginning and end of the development of history. True, he did not speak of the end of history, but of prehistory, since he connected real history with the building of a communist society. At the same time, communism, in his opinion, is not a goal, not an ideal, not a state towards which mankind should strive, but a real movement forward, denying the existing state of society. According to K. Marx, first of all, and it is precisely the proletarians who must destroy the conditions of their own existence - exploited labor, and at the same time destroy such attributes of society as private property, civil society, and the state. The ideal of the communist movement - "the free development of everyone is a condition for the free development of all", seemed to the followers of Marx to be quite feasible in practice in the relatively near future and was associated by them with the state of disappearance of any internal conflicts generated by the development of individual components of the society of the future. Alas, this wonderful idea turned out to be one of the next utopias that so often carried people along. Life, practice, put everything in its place.
A philosophical analysis of history urgently demands an answer to the question of the forms of development of society. How is the development of people's social life carried out and how will it be carried out: through armed and unarmed conflicts (wars, opposition, splits, quarrels) or through solidarity (peace, harmony, integration, cohesion)? The question, as we see, is very important, because the strategy of people's actions in history largely depends on the correct answer to it.
Public conflict, as opposition to people's interests, manifests itself in various forms: ideological, economic, political struggle, war, competition, disintegration. Their scales are also different. They may cover the entire social system as a whole or refer to any one of the elements or one of the aspects of social life.
History, according to the ideas of the enlighteners, exists only when and insofar as true human nature has not yet been realized and people's lives do not yet correspond to their essence. The angle of divergence between the human essence to be realized and the historical existence of people that does not correspond to it constitutes the own space of history. When in the future the mode of existence of people becomes adequate to their essence, the goals of history will be realized and history will cease. The goals and ideals of historical progress, formulated by enlightening versions of the philosophy of history, turned out to be extra-historical and trans-historical, since everything that happened in history, in fact, turned out to be devoid of its own meaning. The content of history and everything that happens in it was evaluated, acquired meaning and meaning only in relation to the goals of historical progress, while it was assumed that the content of the goals themselves did not depend on actual history, on the measure, forms and methods of their implementation in it. Thus, the ideas about the integrity and direction of the historical process were explicitly or implicitly based on metaphysical or quasi-metaphysical premises that were used to explain history from the outside and, in this sense, transcendent in relation to the historical series of events.
It is this circumstance that has given rise to many commentators to interpret all secular (from the Enlightenment to positivism and Marxism) theories of historical progress in relation to the problematics of the meaning and goals of history as merely secularized versions of Christian eschatology. There is no need to deny the obvious and undoubted dependence of the entire tradition of European philosophizing about history - as well as all ideas about the historical process in European culture - from the original Judeo-Christian "historical setting", in order to fix their fundamental differences. As you know, Christian eschatology proceeded from the idea of the failure and collapse of history, since the true goals of human existence seemed to be achievable only as a result of the Second Coming, i.e. after the cessation of the worldly historical existence of mankind. Eschatology was a statement of the failure and collapse of history. The Enlightenment philosophy of history, like its subsequent secular variants, on the contrary, assumed that the goals of history could and should be realized within history and through history, and - in this sense - proclaimed the triumph of history.
This contrast is far from accidental. The possibility of philosophical comprehension of world history in the Christian tradition was the result of the fact that one-time unique events of sacred history were introduced into the fabric of worldly human history: the creation of man, the fall, the atoning sacrifice of Christ and the Second Coming. Only they, penetrating the profane earthly history from the outside, set the parameters and meaning of the historical existence of mankind and everything that was, is and will be in its history. Apart from these nodal points and without regard to them, history has neither independence nor meaning, and, strictly speaking, from a dogmatic point of view, everything that exists in history between these “points” could be different and whatever. Christian historicism was originally transcendent, "out of the world." In any religion of salvation, the value of worldly existence (including historical) in comparison with the transcendent, in the end, turned out to be insignificant.
Of the many teachings about society that have developed over the centuries-old history of philosophy, the most complete and objective is the materialistic understanding of social development, presented in classical Marxism.
The materialistic approach to history allowed Marx and Engels to conclude that the development of society is a natural historical process determined by objective laws.
Material production is the basis that gives human history integrity, connection and continuity, and ultimately, it is the mode of production that determines (causes) one or another level of development of society.
The mode of production, the dialectics of productive forces and production relations are the key concepts of the Marxist concept of the essence of society and the historical process. The dynamics of the mode of production is manifested in the fact that the productive forces at a certain stage outgrow the framework of production relations, which leads to an aggravation of the contradictions between them, growing to a conflict; the resolution of this conflict leads to revolutionary transformations of society, to a more developed socio-economic formation.
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that the analysis of material production made it possible to explain the systemic nature and integrity of society.
2. The future of humanity
Let's consider how modern philosophy approaches the concept of "future" and projects global problems onto it. Modern philosophy will be understood as a "fundamental ontology" that arose from the depths of the philosophy of existence or (which is the same) existentialism. The term "fundamental" means based on, emanating from itself, and the term "ontology" (the doctrine of being) emphasizes that we are talking about being itself, i.e. that which is independent of human subjectivity, but at the same time determines the being-of-man-in-the-world.
If we consider the future of a person from these positions, then it does not depend on some “objective” laws of development, but solely on certain ideas and concepts that dominate the consciousness of people about the future and its laws, according to which people act and thereby realize these concepts and ideas. Philosophical ontology is called upon to liberate people's consciousness from the domination of false and alienated concepts. In one of his earliest works “On the concept of time in the historical sciences” (1916), M. Heidegger (the founder of fundamental ontology) directly set the task of freeing the presentation of history from the ideas of objective time prevailing in the historical sciences, about the objective laws of the development of society in time .
In his seminal work Being and Time, Heidegger argues that the future of a person depends on the person himself, on the decisions he makes at every moment, on the actions corresponding to these decisions. But the activity and decision of each person depend on how he himself in this moment thinks of his being, his past, present, future. And only if a person understands his existence as developing according to objective laws, then he will act accordingly and implement his idea of the future. But the results of this activity will be determined not by the "objective laws of development", but by those possibilities that were hidden in being. The future will correspond to the ideas of a person only if he correctly interpreted being, i.e. took it as his own.
From the point of view of phenomenology (the forerunner of philosophical ontology), any social consciousness is “false”, and any objective content of consciousness is incompatible with the “freedom of existence”. Therefore, opposing individual and mass consciousness, the philosophy of existence calls on a person to free himself from the domination of objective consciousness and from objective truth, and thereby become a “free creator” of his future, outside of any objective laws of development.
The denial of the objective laws of development presupposes the absolutization of the subjectivity of consciousness, i.e. an appeal to its transcendental foundations. The subjective self-consciousness of a person is not just a passive-contemplative reflection of one's own existence, but there is always a certain relation of a person to himself. According to Heidegger, the difference between human existence and the existence of an inanimate object lies in the fact that a person is always aware of the inevitable possibility of death that threatens him, he is afraid of death, and from the fear of “passing into non-existence” creates an idea of an unceasing being in time, of a certain natural future. , about the possibility of postponing or even avoiding the “end of being”. Thus, “concern” or “concern” arises in consciousness about the extension of one’s being, that subjectivity specific to a person arises, which characterizes his self-consciousness. Such an idea of a regular future turns out to be only a product of the “alienated” mode of existence of initially free self-consciousness, when it fell under the domination of “usually” social consciousness and itself began to exist in the form of “phenomena” of this alienated consciousness.
“The future is what I should be, since I may not be,” says another representative of existentialism, J.-P. Sartre. In other words, for the French philosopher, the future is a “project” of subjective desire, arising from the fear of “nothing”, of the threat of transition into “non-being”. Consciousness interprets its subjective "project" of the future as the result of certain objective laws. However, the successful implementation of these "projects" is not yet proof of the objectivity of the laws of development, but is only the result of the fact that many people interpreted their future in the same way, created their "projects" on the basis of the same faith in some laws they themselves created and acted accordingly. It is enough to free the minds of people from this belief - and the "imaginary objectivity" of the laws will evaporate. The future in the light of philosophical ontology is not a product of rational calculus, as it appears to Marxism in the face of scientific communism. The future is the result of subjective "projects", a product of people's faith in the "imaginary" laws of development, it is the result of people's activities based on such "false" concepts and ideas about the natural development of society.
Without awareness of the future, there can be no philosophical awareness of history at all. But the future cannot become an object of scientific research, because only that which can be regarded as something real, i.e., is accessible to his research. something that has already happened and therefore became available to the researcher. The future is not explored, but only forebodingly realized, and only the soul of a poet or philosopher, shocked and in a special mood, becomes clairvoyant.
Man does not know his future. Moreover, such knowledge would be "spiritual death" for him. Trying to comprehend the future, we experience a feeling that supports our existence, because, not knowing the future, we participate in it, seeing it in its integrity and unforeseenness. At the same time, it is always necessary to distinguish the forecast of an event from the declaration of one's will.
The life of a modern person is far from ideal. Technogenic civilization mediated the achievement of human well-being, forcing him to find himself in a vicious circle of empty goals. Man has ceased to think and care directly about himself - he has forgotten about himself. He entrusted himself to soulless technology, turning into one big demand that generates offers. Their unaccountable satisfaction created an illusion, creating a new type of human activity - earning. This illusion has turned earning into an undoubted condition for the very possibility of well-being today. But can a person who devotes himself to something that has nothing to do with himself achieve well-being? Can he buy it with what he earns in this way? The events of September 11 in the United States have shown that this is becoming a risky business. Today, a person has found himself in a double trap of civilization: he has become alien to himself and deprived of the very possibility of any well-being, since it can only be individual, man-made, and the user's ideology is incompatible with the creator's worldview.
Favorite work is a rarity, a happy family is an unbelievable thing. A person today is placed in conditions where immorality becomes the only available degree of freedom for him, and there is no longer even a question of well-being. You can spend the earned money only on something that is identical in terms of value to the way in which these funds were received - this law of value adequacy is unshakable and does not have retroactive effect. The "life-giving" aspect of human life rightfully establishes the value qualification, the upper limit of values available to human consciousness - a person is worth what he does, what he chooses as a source for the opportunity to live. And that means attempts to improve life at the state level, or seek a better life in any anti-state activity, are equally unpromising, since they proceed from the values characteristic of a given society. The idea of the state, nurtured for centuries by great minds, today, in the heyday of technology and information integration, when conditions can finally be created for the full realization of human, creative potential, when each person can become the creator of his own well-being, has become impregnably dominant in the mind everyone. The centuries-old idea of an effective state, which today gave us technological freedom, threatens to bury society under it, since it is focused primarily on the outdated task of protecting against a specific external enemy and is absolutely unsuitable for the latest threats to humanity, since it is simply incompatible with the idea of the spiritual development of man. The ideological reliance on confrontation exhausts society in the absence of an object of confrontation, which simply cannot exist all the time. The absence of a real enemy in the context of globalization turns any ideology that does not contain the concept of a single humanity, not based on noospheric principles, into a rapidly manifesting utopia. Today, all obstacles to the spiritual development of man have been eliminated, which means that the lack of unity of mankind, its competitive disunity is maintained artificially.
The future of a person is very difficult to predict. There are many different theories from complete cyborgization to total destruction. But, despite such prospects, there is already a need for some of the missing capabilities. This need has always existed among disabled people, but in recent times, given the modern growth of the information flow, almost everyone can be considered disabled in some way. It is possible that in the near future artificial analogues of human organs will completely surpass their prototypes. Then the question "to implant or not to implant" will be even more relevant.
It is possible that the first implants (some similarities already exist) will very much resemble microcomputers. But there is another possibility, they can be completely similar to the "device of nature" but be artificial.
Such implants will ensure the advancement of the digital revolution of the 20th century to a higher level. Instead of a large number of fairly bulky devices: digital peripherals, TVs, computers, video recorders, telephones... one small implant will be used that will perform all the functions of modern "assistants" of a person and many others that will allow a person to rise to a higher level, to gain new opportunities. After all, what we use, in its essence, remains advanced stone axes, with which a person has been draped especially heavily lately, trying to expand his capabilities. And, perhaps, it is the appearance of implants that is the logical conclusion of the current technological revolution and the beginning of a new round of development...
You can fantasize about the future long enough. Perhaps the interaction of implants directly with the nervous system will allow you to fall asleep on the seashore, to the pleasant sounds of the waves, without being physically there. The concept of "virtual reality" will no longer describe a crude substitution of visual images, but will become a truly second world, even more incredible and very interesting.
It is likely that in the near future a common person will look like this:
The evolutionary process for man ended a very long time ago. We are practically no different from our ancestors who lived in the 5th century or earlier. Only education and modern society make us people of the 21st century. Obviously, the capabilities of the average person are rather mediocre, and in the modern information sea, not everyone feels normal, far from everyone. Humanity has only one way to cope with emerging problems - to change, to adapt to the necessary conditions. But the lack of help from nature forces a person to improve himself, to change himself on his own. It is implants that can become the tool that will allow a person to overcome their natural limitations.
Bibliography
1. Barulin V.S. Social philosophy: A textbook for universities: in 2 parts. – M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University, 1993.
2. Introduction to Philosophy / Ed. I.S. Bazhenov. Moscow: INFRA-M. 2001.
3. Kurbatov V.I. History of Philosophy. Abstract. Rostov-on-Don, Phoenix Publishing House, 1997.
4. Minasyan A.M. Dialectics as logic. M.: Education, 1991.
5. Saveliev P.D. Philosophy. M.: UNITI-DANA, 2004.
6. Philosophy / Ed. S.S. Budzhanova. M.: Nauka, 1991.
7. Philosophy / Ed. V.D. Gubin. M.: UNITI-DANA, 2002.
Minasyan A.M. Dialectics as logic. M.: Education, 1991. S. 121.
Philosophy / Ed. S.S. Budzhanova. M.: Nauka, 1991. S. 201-203.
Saveliev P.D. Philosophy. M.: UNITI-DANA, 2004. S. 502.
Philosophy / Ed. V.D. Gubin. M.: UNITI-DANA, 2002. S. 78.
Barulin V.S. Social philosophy: A textbook for universities: in 2 parts. - M .: Publishing house of Moscow State University, 1993. S. 112.
Introduction to Philosophy / Ed. I.S. Bazhenov. Moscow: INFRA-M. 2001. S. 201-205.
Kurbatov V.I. History of Philosophy. Abstract. Rostov-on-Don, Phoenix Publishing House, 1997. P. 277.
Recurring connections and relationships. So, there are both similarities and differences between the real society and its theoretical model. The model of society should characterize society as a set of parties, elements, i.e. as a "thing", and at the same time as an evolving process. In the Hegelian-Marxist approach, contradictions act as a source of development for every being. In the textbook "Introduction to Philosophy" (Frolov ...
Activities, especially labor The third world is human subjectivity, spiritual essences, ideas that are relatively independent of the outside world and have the maximum degree of freedom. The first source of development of society is in the world of nature, which is the basis of its existence, more precisely, in the interaction of society and nature. It is noteworthy that the largest civilizations ...
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Society as a self-developing system
1. Characterization of society as a complex self-developing system. The main spheres of society.
2. The social structure of society.
3. Sources and factors of social dynamics.
4. The problem of unity and diversity of the historical process.
1. Characteristics of society as a complex self-developing system
Regardless of the orientation towards one or another research program, it is necessary to recognize that society is both people, and their activities, and its results. The life and activity of people cannot even be imagined without nature and outside of it. Therefore, nature acts as a necessary natural prerequisite for the existence of society. But the relationship of society to nature is not direct, they are mediated by tools and results of activity, that is, by culture. At the same time, an important feature that distinguishes nature from society is that nature exists and evolves in accordance with objective laws, which manifest themselves in the form of blind elemental forces. Society exists and develops in interaction with nature as a result of the conscious and purposeful activity of people.
From the above definition of society, it follows that it is not just a collection of people, but, first of all, connections, interactions, associations that form a complex system of social relations between individuals, social groups and communities of people. This means that society exists and develops as an organized systemic integrity that creates within itself the conditions and mechanisms for its own development. From this systemic point of view, society is a complex and self-developing system, all elements of which are interconnected and interdependent.
Thus, society is not a mechanical collection of people, but a dynamically developing integral system social interactions, which includes individuals and their communities - family, professional, territorial, etc., which is in the process of constant change and development. The term "society" is also used in a narrow sense, as a designation of a certain stage in the development of society or a characteristic of one or another of its types ("ancient society", "feudal society", "agrarian society", industrial society, etc.).
Signs of society as a system:
1) Human society is distinguished by a wide variety of social structures, systems and subsystems. This is not a mechanical sum of individuals, but a complex system in which various communities and groups are formed and function; subsystems are connected by subordinate relations and at the same time have a certain degree of autonomy and independence.
2) Society is not reducible to its constituent people. This is a system of extra- and supra-individual forms, connections and relationships that a person creates through his active activity with other people. In this regard, society has an integrative quality that is inherent in it as a whole and not characteristic of its individual components (a person living in a society most often acts “as it should”, as is customary in accordance with the norms of a particular culture).
3) Self-sufficiency - the ability of society to create and reproduce the necessary conditions for its own existence through its active joint activities. Society is characterized in this case as an integral unity, in which various social groups are closely intertwined and do not function in isolation from each other, a wide variety of activities that provide the vital conditions for existence through joint efforts. Society as a self-sufficient social system is a product of the joint activity of people, where none of its types can function without interaction with other types of activities, groups, which creates the prerequisites and conditions for the life of society.
4) Dynamism, non-linearity and alternative development. Moreover, if in nature the problem of choosing development options is carried out naturally in the process of self-organization, then in society the choice is consciously made by a person.
The most important concept in social philosophy, which makes it possible to reveal the specifics of social reality, is the concept of activity.
Activity is a specifically human form of an active relationship to the surrounding world, associated with a purposeful change and transformation of both the external world and the person himself.
The most important elements of activity:
The subject is the carrier of object-practical activity with his inherent self-awareness and assimilated forms of culture.
An object is that part of objective reality that is in interaction with the subject.
The product of an activity is what is created as a result of an activity.
The purpose of the activity is the alleged prototype of the future product (result).
There are various classifications of activities according to their objects and results:
Material (practical) activity is associated with the creation of things, material values necessary to meet the needs of people.
Social transformational activity - its goal is the transformation of society (political and legal activity).
Spiritual activity - the formation of scientific, religious, moral, artistic ideas and images. Includes educational activities.
Communicative activity - activity in the process of communication.
Subsystems of society:
1) Social subsystem - a historically changing form of people's life, which is realized in the functioning and development of social institutions, communities, groups and individuals, and integrating all other structural components of society (social, ethnic, territorial, professional, demographic structure, life expectancy, dynamics birth and death rates + social institutions, communities, groups, their social statuses and roles.
2) The economic subsystem is a historically changing form of people's life, including the production, distribution, movement, exchange of goods and services, the interaction of people about all this, financial, credit, banking institutions.
3) Political subsystem - a set of socio-political interactions between individuals and groups, the political structure of society, the state, the political regime of power, the structural organization of power, the activities of government agencies, political parties, organizations and movements, the presence of political values, norms and rules.
4) Spiritual subsystem: education, morality, art, science, philosophy, religion, media, cinema, etc.
In a complex systemic formation that develops as a result of the interaction of the four subsystems described, there are and function structural components of the second level, which, by their interactions crossing the boundaries of these four subsystems, form a kind of “nodes” that concentrate around themselves the totality of processes occurring in the social system of society. Among them:
1) a set of individuals, each of which lives, develops and interacts in a society of their own kind as unique individuals;
2) social statuses (social positions);
3) social roles;
4) social structure;
5) social interactions;
6) social institutions and organizations.
2. Social structure of society
Society as an integral system is structured, has a certain structure, mutual arrangement and connection of its constituent parts. It consists of various social groups and communities.
The social structure of society is an integral set of different social groups and communities, taken in their interaction.
The social structure consists of elements that are social groups. A social group is a collection of people who interact in a certain way with each other, are aware of their belonging to this group and are considered members of this group from the point of view of others.
From the point of view of the historical-genetic approach, which describes individual subsystems of society in accordance with their emergence in a real historical process, the following substructures can be distinguished:
1. Socio-ethnic structure; includes: clan as an association of blood relatives with a common origin, a common place of settlement, a common language, customs and beliefs;
Tribe - an association of clans that came out of the same root, but subsequently separated from each other;
Nationality - a historically formed community of people, which was based not on blood relations, but on neighborly ties between people with a common language, culture, the beginnings of economic ties;
A nation is a community of people, the formation of which is associated with the development of capitalism and which is distinguished by such features as a common territory, language, economic life, common features of a mental warehouse, the presence of national self-consciousness, and a specific culture.
2. Socio-demographic structure. Population as a continuously reproducing aggregate of people acts as a fundamental community. Its main characteristics are the size of the population, the density of its settlement, growth rates, sex and age structure, migration mobility.
3. Socio-spatial structure. Expresses the relationship between people in connection with their belonging to different types of settlements (intra-land, intra-city, inter-settlement). Depending on the type of settlement, urban and rural populations are distinguished.
4. Vocational and educational structure; within its framework, society is characterized in terms of professional and educational parameters.
5. Social class structure (classes are large groups of people who differ in place in a historically defined system of social production, in relation to the means of production, in their role in the social organization of labor and in the method of obtaining a share of social wealth).
When describing the social structure of society, researchers rely on the theory of social stratification as an alternative and supplement to class theory. Stratification denotes a system of signs and criteria of social stratification, inequality in society. Within its framework, social differentiation is characterized by a number of features (education, employment, income, living conditions, qualifications, etc.).
The class and stratification models are not mutually exclusive. Based on the isolation in scientific analysis of really existing classes, strata, various social groups, a multidimensional model of social structure can be built.
3. Sources and factors of social dynamics
From the very beginning of its emergence, society has not only constant characteristics, but is also in a state of constant change, in dynamics. Social dynamics characterizes the diverse changes that take place over time in society as an integral system, in the social structure, in social communities, groups, institutions, in the social statuses and roles of individuals, in their interactions with each other and with any structural elements of society.
The complexity of society, the diversity of its elements and, at the same time, its integrity pose the problem of identifying and interpreting the system-forming factors of social dynamics for researchers. The basis of the life of society is the joint activity of people and social relations between them. It is activity that is the basis for the classification of spheres of social life and the condition for the unity of society. Social relations are various forms and methods of connections and interactions of large social groups that arise in the process of joint activities in various spheres of public life.
Different authors differently assess the role of certain factors in the life of society. Marx, for example, considered the method of material production and the objective economic relations characteristic of it to be the basis for the formation of society and the condition for its existence. They determine the types of activity and the nature of social ties. Weber singled out as the main factor the normative-value bases of social actions characteristic of different historical epochs: traditional and affective actions of traditional society, value-rational actions of the era of transition from traditional to industrial society, and goal-oriented actions of industrial society.
It follows that all the causes that determine social dynamics can be divided into objective and subjective. The objective reasons include socio-economic (the level of development of the economy, its nature, needs, the level of development of science and technology, and others), natural and geographical (climate, landscape, the presence or absence of natural resources), demographic (the number and quality of the population, the ratio generations). Subjective reasons include people's consciousness, their spiritual world, social experience, mentality, traditions, customs, spiritual values, goals, interests. Objective causes are formed independently of the consciousness and will of both individuals and communities of people, while subjective ones are the result of the conscious activity of subjects. Close relationship of objective and subjective factors: So, people, realizing their objective life circumstances, their needs and the best ways to meet them, do not act spontaneously, but consciously.
It should be noted that the process of development of society, that is, the historical process, although carried out through the conscious activity of people, is objective in nature and does not depend on the will and desires of the human community. But this does not mean that the history of society is fatally predetermined, and that a person in history is only a puppet. Interrelation of conscious activity of people and objective factors. Ignoring the subjective factor leads to fatalism, which excludes freedom, and turns a person into a slave of events. The underestimation of the objective factor is the basis of voluntarism, which considers the will as the highest and determining factor of the historical process. In real history, however, the objective course of events is complemented by the conscious purposeful activity of people.
The subjects of social development are all people, since they are included in the process of material production, political and spiritual life, but they become subjects only to the extent that they are aware of the social significance of their activities and the direction of the historical process. These are the masses, social groups, public associations, historical figures who, through their activities, contribute to social progress. A people is a social community, which, at specific stages of history, includes social strata and groups capable of solving the problems of the progressive development of society according to their real position. Thanks to its organization and awareness of the unity of the people and acts as a decisive force in the historical process. Estates, classes, nations, uniting large masses of people, solve the most significant problems of social life in the course of their activities. Some researchers assign a decisive role in social development to individuals. But as for historical personalities, their role in the social process is the higher, the more fully, consistently and adequately they express, protect and put into practice the interests of people.
Driving forces of social development:
Needs - a lack of something, everything that is necessary for the existence of people. Awareness of needs leads to the formation of interests.
Interests - perceived needs; optimal ways and means of satisfying needs under the given conditions.
Goals are anticipated outcomes of activities. The most significant goals can act as ideals. Each person creates his own goals and ideals, based on his own interests.
Main types of social dynamics:
Linear;
Cyclical;
Spiral.
The problem of social dynamics is closely connected with the question of the direction of social processes. This question in social science was solved ambiguously. Social progress - the direction of change, in which the transition from more low level development of the social system to a higher one, in which the social system has a more complex structure and more efficient functions. The opposite of progress is social regression.
Different attitudes of different researchers to the problem of social progress and social regression. Social optimism and social pessimism. Saint-Simon, Comte, Hegel, Marx stood on the positions of social optimism. In the XX century. this idea was embodied in the ideology of technocracy, based on the belief in the unlimited possibilities of science and technology and the effectiveness of the management of technical specialists. The problem of criteria for progressive development was also solved in different ways. Enlighteners, for example, considered a free mind a condition for progressive development. Marxism considered the level of economic development to be the criterion of social progress. In modern social science, the opinion has been established that the criterion of social progress is a complex indicator that includes a person's position in society, his level of freedom, the degree of social and environmental security, and a measure of spirituality.
On the other hand, the ambiguity of social processes and the inconsistency of the ways of their development gives rise to the idea of historical pessimism. Supporters of this idea either completely reject the ability of people to progressive development (Fukuyama's concept of the "end of history"), or limit progressive tendencies to the sphere of local civilizations.
The main forms of social dynamics are evolution and revolution. Social evolution provides for gradual quantitative changes, mostly of an irreversible nature, occurring in various social systems and communities (economy, politics, culture, social relations). Their main feature is that they are a cumulative process, i.e., the process of gradual accumulation of new elements, properties, functions, ultimately leading to a change in the system. Evolutionary change can be socially organized and regulated.
In the first case, they take on the character of social reforms - the transformation of some aspect of the social system in order to improve its structure or functions without destroying the very foundations of this system. In the second case, evolutionary social changes can be spontaneous, unorganized (urbanization, development of market relations, TAR).
Social revolution, unlike evolution, provides for:
First of all, changes are not quantitative, but qualitative, aimed at a radical transformation of the social system (economy, political sphere, science);
Changes are inextricably linked with a social crisis and, as a rule, they do not occur without an increase in crisis phenomena;
Changes capture the main structures and functions of the social system, and not the secondary ones.
Relationship between social evolution and social revolution.
4. The problem of unity and diversity of the historical process
society development social
The concept of society is combined with ideas about countries and peoples that existed in different eras in different regions of the planet. And the first thing that catches your eye when comparing them is the dissimilarity, the uniqueness of these countries, the uniqueness of their historical paths. This gives rise to the idea of the history of mankind as the coexistence of separate, unique, unique and diverse forms of life together.
But no matter how different these countries are from each other, in their organization we find elements common to all: material production, social structure, political institutions, morality, law. This circumstance forms the idea of the existence of general, universal forms of organization of human society, of the unity and integrity of its history.
These features of the historical process give rise to various approaches to its interpretation: linear, or stage-progressive, and non-linear, or civilizational. The linear approach focuses on the understanding of history as a single process of progressive development, in accordance with which the main stages in the development of mankind are distinguished. Development can be viewed as a process of ascent to the steps of ever greater perfection (progressism), or a gradual return to simple forms of organization (regressism).
The stadial approach took root in European social science in modern times and found its manifestation in the isolation of such basic stages of human development as savagery, barbarism and civilization. Generally accepted within the framework of the new European tradition, the division of history into four progressive stages: antiquity, the Middle Ages, Modern times, Modern times.
The progressive version of the concept of linear development is most consistently embodied in the Marxist doctrine of the socio-economic formation. The concept of formation captures the universal, regular features of the historical process, its unity. The doctrine of formation is based on the following provisions: 1) the totality of the material conditions for the existence of people, that is, social being, is primary in relation to their social consciousness; 2) the basis of society is the method of production of material goods with its inherent productive forces and production relations; 3) relations of production constitute the economic basis of society, generating and determining all other social spheres; 4) on the basis of the basis, the superstructure arises and develops as a system of spiritual relations, ideas, as well as organizations and institutions that manage society; 5) the reason for the transition from one formation to another is the contradiction between the developing productive forces and the obsolete production relations, and the form of such a transition is the social revolution; 6) the history of society is a natural-historical process of progressive transition from one formation to another in the direction of communism as the highest form of social organization. Formation is a specific historical type of society, which is at a certain stage of historical development, which is characterized by its inherent connections, relations and forms of organization of people and functions and develops according to its own specific laws on the basis of a certain mode of production.
The most significant shortcomings of the formation theory are: the reduction of the entire diversity of social life to economic relations, ignoring the local (regional) features of the historical process, underestimating the non-economic factors of social life, and exaggerating the role of violence in history.
To overcome these shortcomings, a non-linear approach is aimed, implemented in two forms: civilizational and culturological. For the first time, the concept of civilization is used in the works of French philosophers of the Enlightenment to refer to a society based on the principles of reason and justice. Later, the content of the concept of civilization changes. It is used either to indicate the level of development of a region or ethnic group (ancient civilization, Chinese civilization), or to highlight the stage of decline of culture (Spengler), or as a synonym for culture (Toynbee). But no matter how important one attaches to the concept of civilization, it is generally recognized that civilization means a proper social form of human organization, which differs significantly from the period of savagery and barbarism. Signs of civilization are: 1) the presence of production as a means of satisfying human needs; 2) social division of labor; 3) singling out the family as an independent element of society; 4) the social way of organizing people; 5) a set of traditions, customs and religious beliefs that determine the attitude towards man and nature; 6) the presence of a constantly developing and expanding system of positive knowledge about the world.
The concept of civilization captures the diversity of forms of the historical process, the uniqueness of the historical destinies of countries and peoples, the uniqueness of the system of social and spiritual values, and the peculiarities of the geopolitical situation. Any civilization is characterized by a specific way of life, a system of values, a worldview.
Civilization is a stable cultural and historical community of people, characterized by a common spiritual values and cultural traditions, lifestyle and personality type, the presence of common ethnic characteristics and corresponding geographical boundaries.
The understanding of civilization as a stage in the development of society (such positions were taken by Bell, Toffler, Brzezinski) is supplemented by the idea of civilization as a set distinctive features culture, economy, traditions, customs of individual countries and peoples, or as a cultural and historical type of society. This understanding of civilization is the basis of the culturological approach to assessing the historical process as a change of unique local cultures. For example, the founder of this concept, Danilevsky, singled out the Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Jewish, German-Roman, Russian civilizations.
Obviously, the concept of civilization is intended to distinguish a society that satisfies its needs by appropriating a natural product from a society based on production. Civilized society in its history is represented by two types: traditional and technogenic. In its development, it goes through such stages as agrarian-technical, industrial and post-industrial. Industrial civilization is characterized by a high level of industrial development, widespread production of consumer goods, dynamism and a focus on everything new. These features are complemented in the post-industrial society by the predominance of the service sector, the leading role of science and information, the individualization of production and consumption, and the growth in the proportion of the “middle class”.
The high level of technologization and technologization of modern society on the basis of science opens up essentially unlimited possibilities for man in transforming the world and satisfying his needs. At the same time, differences in the economy, culture, traditions of different peoples are overcome, and they are brought together with the help of the latest technologies, international institutions and universal values. Globalization and integration lead to the erasure of the national and cultural specificity of peoples, the destruction of national values. At the same time, the noted factors also give rise to numerous negative phenomena, which, growing, begin to threaten the very existence of a person and are called the global problems of our time. Among these problems, the main ones are the problem of preventing a new world war, the ecological and demographic problem, the problem of uneven social development, and others.
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The two main components of the social structure of society
Structure is a general scientific concept that reflects the fact that the world consists of separate objects with their properties and relationships. The world is not only divided, but united. It is these features of the world that reflect the concept of structure and the concepts of organization, system, and order close to it.
The structure of society includes not only individual objects, individuals, their associations, but also their properties, connections, relationships. Society is something more. Than the simple sum of its constituent individuals, since it includes those real relationships that unite people into clans, tribes, families, nations, states, communities.
If the first component - individual people are easy to see, then the second - connections and relationships is much more difficult to see, because. they are hidden, insubstantial.
Of course, these two components do not express the entire content of the structure of society, they are only the essence, its main, bearing foundations.
In fact, the structure of society is multidimensional and complex.
2. Society as a highly complex system
The structure of society is a collection of many different parts and elements. A real living society appears before us in a bright variety of its constituent elements and parts. These parts are fastened, merged with each other thanks to a multitude of connections, which turn the totality of the elements of the social structure into a single social system.
However, society differs significantly from other natural systems in its particular complexity.
Under the element or part of society is understood the smallest particle of the system or their combination; certain social subjects, institutions, relations can act as elements and parts.
Relations are understood as a certain connection between the subjects that make up society. Relationships are a kind of cementing material that holds people together in society.
The social system is a generalizing concept of this topic. It covers the totality of social subjects and objects, their properties and relations, forming an integral social organism.
These differences are:
The multiplicity of elements, subsystems, levels and relationships that make up society;
The heterogeneity of social elements, among which, along with a variety of material, there are more colorful ideal, spiritual phenomena;
The uniqueness of its main element - a person with ample opportunities free choice forms and methods of their activity, behavior.
As philosophical thought revealed the special complexity and diversity of social life, the desire of philosophers to find some common basis, a common denominator, to which all this diversity could be reduced, began to intensify. Moreover, philosophy in this respect only followed other sciences, each of which discovered one or another "first brick" in its field of knowledge: physics - in elementary particles, chemistry - in atoms. Biology - in living cells, psychology - in the phenomena of irritability.
3. The system of categories, concepts from which social philosophy is formed
When characterizing social life, the concepts of "subject" and "object" are also often used. They are opposite in meaning. The subject is understood as a phenomenon that acts as a carrier of activity directed at an object, acting in this case as a more passive phenomenon. Thus, the object is understood as a phenomenon to which the activity of the subject is directed - cognitive or object-practical.
And, finally, the social system is a generalizing concept of this topic. It covers the totality of social objects and subjects, their properties and relations that form an integral social status.
Fundamental social action. as the foundation of society.
All externally diverse phenomena of social life represent, in essence. This or that type of joint activity of people.
It is human activity that is, as it were, a hidden, secret essence, the fundamental principle, the substance of everything social. Modern social philosophy sees in social action the starting point of the entire system of social relations. A means of integrating various areas of social knowledge.
the social activity itself. Activity often generates and is determined by various material and spiritual needs and interests rooted in its basis. Motives, values, orientations of people. Active human activity often gives rise as its unexpected result to a whole world of social relations and institutions alien to man or even hostile to him, political and ideological phenomena.
So. Recognizing that social activity is the basis of social life, it should be seen that it is not limited to it. Recognition of the presence in the social system of a fundamental basis, supporting structures, does not exclude, as already indicated, the idea of multidimensionality. The complexities of social life. It can be understood not only as a set of individual social groups, as a certain structure of various social organizations, or as a complex network of relationships that bind people, groups of organizations.
Activity is defined as a specifically human form of active attitude to the surrounding world, the content of which is the expedient comprehension, change and transformation of this world.
Man, individual, people. Without man, no activity is possible. He is the active side of this activity, its subject. But because people are subjects, that their activity is directed to certain objects.
Activity objects. It is not only things, but also love. As it takes place in the activities of a doctor, a teacher. But more often these are things that are divided into two subgroups: 1) tools and means of material production, as well as tools of spiritual production. In other words, this group of objects includes all things with the help of which a person changes the environment in order to adapt it to his abilities.
Sign language, sound and written speech, information contained in various media. These are symbols, signs. They, like things, are a necessary condition for any human activity.
Connections, relations between the indicated main factors of social action.
Thus, there are four elements of human activity - people, physical things, symbols and connections between them. The need for their constant reproduction gives rise to the main types of social activity that form the basic structure in a multifaceted social system.
There are four areas of social activity:
Material;
Spiritual;
Regulatory or managerial;
Service activities, sometimes referred to as humanitarian, or social in the narrow sense of the word.
5. The main areas of social life.
material sphere. Its originality lies in the fact that it is designed to create certain things necessary to meet the material needs of people. The main figure is the manual worker. The labor of workers extracts raw materials, creates machines and mechanisms, everything necessary to meet production needs. It creates what people need in everyday life.
Spiritual realm. Here not things are produced, but ideas, images, scientific and artistic values. However, they somehow materialize in physical things (books, paintings, etc.), although the main thing is the spiritual content.
Regulatory or managerial activity. This is the activity of politicians, managers. The specific task of the sphere is to maintain ties between people, regulate their activities and social relations. Ensuring coherence The highest form of managerial activity is political activity. the fate of millions of people is decided here.
The social sphere or the activity of serving people. This is the activity of a doctor, teacher, artist. The service sector is the most dynamic in modern society.
All types of activity identified in the course of the analysis, social. Groups and institutions, their relationships in reality exist together. Interconnected.
6. Society as a self-sufficient system.
Society as an integral organism is characterized by the following properties:
1) amateur performance;
2) self-organization;
3) self-development;
4) self-sufficiency.
The first three properties are inherent not only to society as a whole, but also to its constituent areas, while the property of self-sufficiency is characteristic only of society as a whole.
Self-sufficiency is the ability of a system by its own activity to create and recreate all the necessary conditions for its own existence, to produce everything necessary for collective life. Self-sufficiency is the main difference between society and its constituent parts. Only the totality of all types of activity, all interconnected groups and their institutions together create society as a whole as a self-sufficient social system - a product of the joint activity of people who are able to create everything necessary for their existence by their own efforts.
7. The dynamics of society, its development
Society is constantly changing, and this has been noticed since ancient times.
A process is a single series of changes in social systems, i.e. in groups, institutions, etc. Processes are possible that bring people together or separate them, giving rise to rivalry, conflicts.
The process of functioning is understood as the processes occurring in it, changes associated with its daily activities.
Change means First stage internal rebirth in society or its individual parts and their properties.
Development - special case changes that occur when quantitative changes lead to profound irreversible shifts.
Progress is one of the varieties of development. It manifests itself in the changing conditions of its existence and is associated with the process of complication of the system organization. The opposite is regression.
Consideration of society from the point of view of its change and development includes the following main problems:
the direction of the changes taking place in society
sources or factors of development
the forms in which any development takes place.
Social movements are expressed in the collective actions of people, carried out in a more or less organized manner to achieve certain goals, changing the social position of the participants in the movements (reform movements, revolutionary).
Introduction
1. Society
3. Truth and error. Knowledge and Faith
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
What is a society?
At first glance, this question seems to be easy to answer. Indeed, the concept of "society" has long and firmly entered our scientific and everyday vocabulary. But as soon as we attempt to give it a definition, we are immediately convinced that there can be many such definitions.
Let's try to remember the stable phrases familiar to us, which would include this word. For example, a society of book lovers, a noble society, a pedagogical society.
In this case, by society we mean a certain group of people united for communication, joint activities, mutual assistance and support to each other.
But here is another series of related concepts: primitive society, feudal society, French society. Here, already using the concept of "society", we mean a certain stage in the development of mankind or a specific country. If we continue to move in accordance with this logic of reasoning (from the particular to the general), then humanity as a whole is also called society - in its historical and prospective development. This is the entire population of the Earth, the totality of all peoples.
In other words, it is a part of the world isolated from nature, but closely connected with it, which includes the ways of interaction between people and the forms of their unification.
1. Society
Modern society is more than 5 billion earthlings, thousands of large and small peoples, more than one and a half hundred states; it is a variety of economic structures, forms of socio-political and cultural life.
One of the reasons for this diversity is the difference in natural conditions, the physical environment of people. These conditions affect many aspects of social life, but primarily on human economic activity.
In ancient times, climate, soil fertility, vegetation predetermined the methods of cultivating the land and raising livestock, stimulated the creation of certain tools and the production of various products. Natural conditions affect not only the nature of the dwelling, styles of clothing, household utensils and military weapons.
The natural habitat influenced both the political structure of states, and relations between people, and the emerging forms of property.
Along with natural conditions, the diversity of social life is associated with the historical environment for the existence of societies, which develops as a result of their interaction with other tribes, peoples, and states.
Here is what G. Plekhanov wrote about this: "Since almost every society is influenced by its neighbors, we can say that for each society there is, in turn, a well-known, historical environment that affects its development. The sum of the influences experienced by each given society from of its neighbors, can never be equal to the sum of the same influences experienced at the same time by another society.Therefore, every society lives in its own special historical environment, which can be - and indeed often happens - very similar to the historical environment surrounding other peoples, but it can never be and never is identical with it. This introduces an extremely strong element of diversity ... into the process of social development. "
However, if we ignore some of the unique features inherent in each particular society, then it can be argued that today, as many centuries ago, humanity is represented by two main types of civilizations, rooted in the distant past.
The first type of civilizations are traditional societies. They originate in the ancient Eastern civilization, where the land, the irrigation system was the property of the community. Each family had its own specific piece of land, which was given to it for temporary use. dominated extensive technology aimed mainly at mastering external natural processes.
This type of society, called traditional, has survived to this day. It is represented by many states of the "third world": the countries of Asia and Africa, relatively recently freed from colonial oppression. And today, among the spiritual values in them, one of the leading places is occupied by the orientation towards adaptation to natural conditions, the desire for their purposeful transformation is not encouraged. Valuable activity is directed inside a person, to self-contemplation. Special meaning have traditions and customs passed down from generation to generation. In general, the value-spiritual sphere of human existence is placed above the economic one.
However, the extensive technologies that prevailed in the economic activity of the Eastern peoples, which in the early period of the existence of traditional societies contributed to their economic progress (favorable natural conditions, the simplicity of man-made means of labor), later began to slow it down, causing not only the gradual depletion of natural resources, but also stagnation. in the development of technology. These factors explain the economic backwardness characteristic of a number of Third World countries today.
Religion plays an important role in the social life of these countries. In those of them where the dominant religion is Islam, the idea of the revival of Islamic civilization is put forward, the basis of which can be the moral and spiritual values preached by this creed.
Western civilization has existed for just over 300 years. The intensive production that developed in the European region, with its more severe natural environment compared to the countries of the East, required the utmost exertion of the physical and intellectual forces of society, the constant improvement of labor tools. ways of influencing nature.
In connection with this, a new system values. Gradually, active, creative, transformative human activity came to the fore. The ideals of civilization were constant renewal, the mighty pace of progress. Acquired unconditional value scientific knowledge, significantly expanding the intellectual powers, inventive abilities of man, his ability to transform the world.
Thus, the "contemplation" of traditional societies was opposed by the active principle of Western societies.
By the middle of our century, industrial civilization had become a society of mass production and consumption.
However, by the mid-70s, the system of production and the social way of life that had developed on these principles began to fail. Numerous restrictions have appeared for movement along the already laid path. The first of these was the energy crisis: a further increase in the consumption of ever more expensive oil threatened to undermine the national economies of those countries that lived off its imports. More and more scarce reserves and other resources of the planet, necessary for the development of production and society, including natural resources (coal, ores of various metals, etc.)
There were also environmental restrictions. Mass production was cheap not only because of its scale, but also because manufacturers did not spend money on environmental protection, on the elimination of harmful emissions into the atmosphere, etc.
The decline in the level of spiritual and moral values of Western society, the moral and moral "permissiveness" all this led to the kind of society we now live in.
The idea of the diversity of society does not contradict the idea of the unity of mankind.
Increasingly strengthening and expanding economic, political, cultural ties, helping to overcome disunity, form in earthlings a sense of belonging to a single human family.
The French thinker of the first half of our century, Teilhard de Chardin, expressed this feeling in this way: "... for man there is no future expected as a result of evolution, outside of his association with other people."
But this is not only the interaction of people on a personal, individual level - there is a dialogue of cultures, civilizations. And today we understand that we need to learn how to conduct this dialogue, which will help make the achievements of different cultures and civilizations the property of all mankind.
"We are entering a period where culture will matter more than ever. Culture is not something petrified in amber, it is something we create anew every day. A post-industrial society will contain many cultures, and this is the basis for morality. Perhaps this is the true basis for mutual understanding of people, for the formation of new moral values in relations between people "O. Toffler.
2. Society as a self-developing system
Society is a complex social system. Like any system, society can be characterized by:
1. From the point of view of the mode of existence - society as a part of the world, formed by people acting together, consciously transforming it;
2. From the point of view of functional characteristics - society as an organized activity of human groups capable of creating the necessary conditions for existence by their own efforts. Society is formed only by such a team that is able to act as a single whole, has common needs, is aware of them and seeks to satisfy them in organized joint activities. In this regard, human society is a real social group, within which not just many, but all the functions necessary for the existence of people are carried out, from the production of things to the upbringing of the younger generation, from political regulation to spiritual creativity, i.e. society is formed by a social group capable of providing all the necessary conditions for life by its own activity;
3. From the point of view of its structure - society as a set of elements, subsystems, as well as their relationship with each other. The final indivisible element of the social system is a separate person - an individual, and the common denominator to which all the diversity of parts of society can be reduced is the process of human activity. It is activity as a way of existence of society that determines its structure and outlines its boundaries.