2. Civilizational approach to history
Another concept that claims to cover social phenomena and processes universally is the civilizational approach to the history of mankind. The essence of this concept lies in general form is that human history is nothing but a collection of unrelated human civilizations. She has many followers, including such well-known names as O. Spengler (1880–1936), A. Toynbee (1889–1975).
At the origins of this concept, however, as well as the previous one, was the Russian thinker N. Ya. Danilevsky (1822–1885). In an essay published in 1869 “Russia and Europe. A look at the cultural and political relations of the Slavic world to the Germanic-Romance”, by the way, not yet fully appreciated, he expressed a new, original view of the history of mankind. According to Danilevsky, the natural system of history consists in distinguishing between cultural and historical types of development that took place in the past. It is the combination of these types, by the way, not always inheriting each other, that makes up the history of mankind. In chronological order, the following cultural and historical types are distinguished: “I) Egyptian, 2) Chinese, 3) Assyrian-Babylonian-Phoenician, Chaldean, or ancient Semitic, 4) Indian, 5) Iranian, 6) Jewish, 7) Greek, 8) Roman, 9) New Semitic, or Arabian, and 10) Germano-Romance, or European. Perhaps, two more American types can be reckoned among them: Mexican and Peruvian, who died a violent death and did not have time to complete their development. It was the peoples of these cultural-historical types who jointly made the history of mankind. Each of them developed independently, in its own way, in accordance with the peculiarities of its spiritual nature and the specifics of the external conditions of life. These types should be divided into two groups - the first includes those that had a certain continuity in their history, which in the future predetermined their outstanding role in the history of mankind. Such successive types were: Egyptian, Assyrian-Babylonian-Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Hebrew and Germano-Romance, or European. The second group should include the Chinese and Indian civilizations, which existed and developed completely secluded. It is for this reason that they differ significantly in the pace and quality of development from the European one.
For the development of cultural-historical types, or civilizations, certain conditions must be observed, which, however, Danilevsky calls laws historical development. He refers to them: 1) the presence of one or more languages, with the help of which a tribe or a family of peoples could communicate with each other; 2) political independence creating conditions for free and natural development; 3) the identity of each cultural-historical type, which is developed with a greater or lesser influence of alien, preceding or modern civilizations; 4) civilization, characteristic of each cultural-historical type, only then reaches fullness, diversity and richness when the ethnographic elements that make it up are diverse - when they, not being absorbed into one political whole, using independence, constitute a federation, or a political system of states; 5) the course of development of cultural-historical types is most similar to those perennial single-fruited plants, in which the period of growth is indefinitely long, but the period of flowering and fruiting is relatively short and depletes their vitality once and for all.
Subsequently, the civilizational approach was filled with new content, but its foundations, formulated by Danilevsky, essentially remained unchanged. In Spengler, this is presented as a set of independent cultures that underlie state formations, and their determinants. There is no single world culture and cannot be. In total, the German philosopher has 8 cultures: Egyptian, Indian, Babylonian, Chinese, Apollonian (Greco-Roman), magical (Byzantine-Arabic), Faustian (Western European) and Mayan culture. The emerging Russian-Siberian culture is on the way. The age of each culture depends on its internal life cycle and spans approximately a thousand years. Completing its cycle, culture dies and passes into the state of civilization. The fundamental difference between culture and civilization lies in the fact that the latter is synonymous with a soulless intellect, a dead "extension", while the former is life, creative activity and development.
Toynbee's civilizational approach is manifested in the comprehension of the socio-historical development of mankind in the spirit of the cycle of local civilizations. Following his predecessors, Toynbee denies the existence of a single history of mankind and recognizes only separate, unconnected closed civilizations. At first, he counted 21 civilizations, and then limited their number to 13, excluding minor ones that did not take place or did not receive proper development. All existing and existing civilizations in terms of their quantitative and value parameters are essentially equivalent and equivalent. Each of them goes through the same cycle of development - the emergence, growth, breakdown and decomposition, as a result of which it dies. Identical, in essence, are social and other processes occurring in each of the civilizations, which allows us to formulate some empirical laws community development, on the basis of which one can learn and even predict its course. Thus, according to Toynbee, the driving force of social development is the “creative minority”, or “thinking elite”, which, taking into account the prevailing conditions in society, makes appropriate decisions and forces the rest of the population, which is, in essence, inert and incapable of creative original activity, to carry out them by force of conviction and authority or by violence. The development and flourishing of civilization directly depends on the ability of the "creative minority" to serve as a kind of model for the inert majority and to carry it along with its intellectual, spiritual and administrative authority. If the “elite” is unable to optimally solve the next socio-economic problem posed by the course of historical development, it turns from a “creative minority” into a dominant minority that makes its decisions not by persuasion, but by force. This situation leads to the weakening of the foundations of civilization, and subsequently to its death. In the twentieth century, according to Toynbee, only five major civilizations survived - Chinese, Indian, Islamic, Russian and Western.
Change of the main paradigm in domestic science
For a long time in domestic science, the main approach to the study historical process was the theory of formations, formulated and scientifically designed by K. Marx. However, with the collapse Soviet Union the basic scientific paradigm has also undergone major changes. In history, the civilizational approach has taken the leading position. It will be discussed in our article.
N. Danilevsky and civilizational approach
It cannot be said that such a view of the history of mankind was absolutely new for our country. As early as the beginning of the last century, it was founded by the remarkable Russian scientist Danilevsky, who was one of the first to consider the development of a particular people from the point of view of revealing its cultural potential. Subsequently, he began to be attributed to the group of those scientists who promoted the so-called local-civilizational approach. Its essence is to consider each civilization as a separate cultural and historical unit.
The essence of the civilizational approach
Most scientists are used to the fact that one or another paradigm provides them with the necessary tools for studying a certain phenomenon. However, the civilizational approach, unlike the formational one, cannot boast of this. The thing is that at the present stage there is no single theory, and this approach itself is nothing more than a combination of similar methodological and methodological principles. In particular, at present this area is dominated by the views of such thinkers as Toynbee, Spengler, Sorokin, who considered the fundamental basis of their research to be the consideration world history as a total conglomerate of the development of individual peoples and states.
The civilizational approach, despite the huge difference in concepts, is united by the following principles. First, there has been a replacement of the descriptive nature of research by the so-called "understanding" of processes. Secondly, the optimism that was inherent in the works of previous periods was gradually replaced by disappointment and the imposition of rationalism. Thirdly, if for the supporters of the formational approach the unity of world history was not questioned, then their ideological opponents for the most part insist on a local consideration of certain peoples. Finally, fourthly, the civilizational approach to the study of history focuses on the cultural formation and development of territories, the formation of a single cultural space.
Characteristics of the main term of the paradigm
A special place in the historical constructions of these scientists is occupied by the concept of "civilization". It, of course, also has its own characteristics for different researchers. However, in the main they are practically the same: civilization is a complex of relations between people, interconnected common history and cultural traditions.
At the same time, almost everyone argues that special importance is attached not so much to individual individuals as to the social communities they form.
Prospects for the new concept
Thus, the civilizational approach to the study of history is a rather complex and even confusing set of methodological approaches based on the perception of society from the standpoint of its cultural development.
The civilizational approach to the study of history is one of the methods that scientific minds resort to in order to clarify important questions course of events in the historical process of different eras. This method was greatly influenced by the works of such historians as A. Toynbee, K. Jaspers, N.Ya. Danilevsky and many others.
Learning the move historical events on a global scale makes it possible to trace and understand how diverse this process is, and how many options for the formation of society, differing not only in advantages, but also in shortcomings.
The civilizational approach exists along with the formational approach, the main difference of which is that the basis of its study is socio-economic relations that are independent of the will of man. They exist due to objective circumstances. Civilization puts a person at the head of all ongoing processes, taking into account his norms of behavior, aesthetic and ethical views.
The concept of "civilization" appears in ancient times, but in the XVIII century it thoroughly became part of the historical vocabulary. Since that time, it has been actively used by representatives of science. In addition, the emergence of various theories of civilizations is also characteristic. I would like to note that the concept of "civilization" in ancient times was opposed to another Latin concept, meaning "savagery". Already in those distant times, people saw the difference between barbaric and civilized society and life in general.
Returning to the theories, the two main ones are stadial and local. In accordance with the first, civilization is a process of development in certain stages. Its initial moment can be considered the moment of the collapse of primitive society, as a result of which humanity passed into the stage of the civilized world. Such civilizations can be classified as primary, since they did not have the opportunity to use the civilizational traditions that developed at a later time. They created them on their own, giving fruits to subsequent formations. The local-civilizational approach studies the historical aspects of the emergence of a community in a certain territory, which is characterized by its own socio-economic, cultural, political features. Civilizations of a local nature can exist both within the framework of a certain state, and when several states are united.
Civilization of a local type is a system that consists of various interrelated components: political structure, economic situation, geographical location, religion, and many others. All these components perfectly reflect the uniqueness of a particular civilization.
The civilizational approach, as well as the stage approach, helps to look at the historical course of events from a different angle. The stage approach is characterized by considering the development of mankind in accordance with uniform and general laws. based on the individuality and diversity of historical processes. Therefore, it is very difficult to say which theory is better or worse. Both of them have the right to exist, as they are complementary to each other, having their own advantages. Figures of historical sciences have repeatedly attempted to combine both methods of study, but so far this has not happened, and a common system has not been developed that would combine both theories.
Summing up, it should be noted that the civilizational approach helps to understand the main patterns and directions of the formation and development of world civilization, the originality of individual civilizations, and also makes it possible to compare the development processes of various civilizations.
look at essays similar to "Civilization approach to history"
Introduction 2
Civilization. Essence of the civilizational approach 3
Features of Russian civilization 10
Multidimensional vision of history 13
Conclusion 18
Bibliography 20
Introduction
Running a little ahead, we note that the leitmotif of many speeches today is the desire to replace the formational approach to the large-scale division of the historical process with a civilizational one. In the most clear form, this position is stated by its supporters as follows: to turn the concept of civilization, which historiography has so far operated only as a descriptive tool, into the leading (highest) paradigm of historical knowledge.
So what is civilization?
The very term "civilization" (from Latin civilis - civil, state) still does not have an unambiguous interpretation. In world historical and philosophical (including futurological) literature, it is used in four senses:
1. As a synonym for culture - for example, A. Toynbee and other representatives of the Anglo-Saxon schools in historiography and philosophy.
2. As a certain stage in the development of local cultures, namely the stage of their degradation and decline. Let us recall the sensational book of O.
Spengler's "The Decline of Europe".
3. As the stages of the historical development of mankind following barbarism. We meet such an understanding of civilization in L. Morgan, after him in F. Engels, today in A. Toffler (USA).
4. As a level (stage) of development of a particular region or a separate ethnic group. In this sense, they speak of ancient civilization, the civilization of the Incas, etc.
We see that these understandings in some cases largely overlap and complement each other, in others they are mutually exclusive.
In order to define the concept of civilization, it is obviously necessary to first analyze its most essential features.
Civilization. The essence of the civilizational approach
Below we analyze the main features of civilization
First, civilization is actually social organization society. This means that the transitional era, the leap from the animal kingdom to society, is over; the organization of society according to the kinship principle was replaced by its organization according to the neighboring-territorial, macro-ethnic principle; biological laws receded into the background, submitting in their action to sociological laws.
Secondly, civilization from the very beginning is characterized by a progressive social division of labor and the development of information and transport infrastructure. Of course, this is not about the infrastructure characteristic of the modern wave of civilization, but by the end of barbarism, the leap from tribal isolation had already been completed. This makes it possible to characterize civilization as a social organization with a universal connection between individuals and primary communities.
Thirdly, the purpose of civilization is the reproduction and increase of social wealth. Strictly speaking, civilization itself was born on the basis of the surplus product that appeared (as a result of the Neolithic technical revolution and a sharp increase in labor productivity). Without the latter, it would be impossible to separate mental labor from physical labor, the emergence of science and philosophy, professional art, etc. Accordingly, social wealth should be understood not only as its material and material embodiment, but also as spiritual values, including free time, necessary for the individual and society as a whole for their comprehensive development. The structure of social wealth also includes the culture of social relations.
Summing up the highlighted features, we can agree with the definition according to which civilization is the actual social organization of society, characterized by a general connection between individuals and primary communities in order to reproduce and increase social wealth.
A few words about the foundations (bases) of formations and civilizations, about the watershed between them. This question is still debatable, but, obviously, we must proceed from the fact that in both cases the basis is undoubtedly a material formation, although they belong to different spheres of social life: the foundation of civilization as a whole and each of its stages is based on a technical and technological basis, in connection with which it is reasonable to talk about three stages (waves) in the development of civilization - agricultural, industrial and information-computer. At the heart of the formation is the economic basis, that is, the totality of production relations.
Emphasizing the role of the technical and technological basis of civilization, one should by no means directly and only from it derive everything that characterizes a given particular society. In the real historical process, everything is much more complicated, because in the foundation of society, along with the technical and technological basis, there are (and occupy a worthy place) also the natural (including demographic) conditions of the life of society and ethnic, in general, specific historical features of the life and development of this society. All this in its totality constitutes the real foundation of the life of society as a system. By omitting any of these components from the interpretation of the historical process, we either distort the picture or are forced to abandon the solution of a specific problem altogether.
How, for example, is it possible to explain why, given the same technical and technological basis in principle, we find variants of historical development that are seriously different from each other?
Why, say, in most regions the globe the emergence of the state was the result of a process of class formation that had already gone far, and in some it was noticeably ahead of this process? Obviously, other things being equal, and above all, with the same technical and technological basis, there is some additional factor that determines the specifics of the phenomenon under consideration. In this case, natural and climatic conditions acted as a differentiating factor, predetermining the need for centralized efforts to build and operate large irrigation systems. Here, the state initially acted primarily in its economic and organizational incarnation, while in other regions everything began with the function of class suppression.
Or - why do the historical paths of different socio-ethnic communities differ from each other? It would be reckless to discount the ethnic characteristics of peoples. In particular, with all the general rejection of the concept of ethnogenesis and understanding of the essence of the ethnos by L. N. Gumilyov, one cannot fail to notice the rational grain that is contained in his judgments about passionarity as a measure of energy filling, activity and resistance of the ethnos to external influences. It is no less reckless to discount the historical features of the development of the studied society. This remark is also true when solving the problems of the present, predicting the success or failure of the reforms being undertaken. Thus, optimism about the fate of the current political and economic reforms in our country it decreases significantly as soon as we begin to take into account even the slightest bit our own historical heritage. After all, the main thing, obviously, is not what kind of inheritance we can refuse in the course of reforms, the main thing is what kind of inheritance we cannot refuse. And in our heritage there are also centuries-old layers of the patriarchal-communist, communal mentality with its both negative and positive aspects; and mass conformism, which has become flesh and blood in the last few decades; and no less massive disobedience; the absence of any significant democratic traditions, and much more.
All three considered components of the foundation are reflected by social psychology, and this reflection turns out to be a necessary link between the foundation public life and the relations of production that are formed on this basis, the economic basis. Thus, the incompleteness of the traditional scheme of formation is found not only in the elimination of such important “building blocks” from the foundation as natural (including demographic) conditions and ethnic (in general, historical) features, but also in ignoring the socio-psychological component of social development: the base and the superstructure turn out to be directly connected.
Numerous philosophical schools of the 20th century have been very intensively engaged in the study of the phenomenon of civilization. In fact, it was at this time that the philosophy of civilization arose as an independent philosophical discipline. The followers of neo-Kantianism (Rikkert and M. Weber) considered it primarily as a specific system of values and ideas that differ in their role in the life and organization of a society of one type or another. The concept of the German idealist philosopher O. Spengler is interesting. Its essence lies in the consideration of culture as an organism that has unity and is isolated from other similar organisms. Each cultural organism, according to Spengler, is measured in advance by the limit, after which the culture, dying, is reborn into civilization. Thus, civilization is seen as the opposite of culture. This means that there is no single universal culture and cannot be.
From this point of view of culture, the theory of
"local" civilizations of the English historian A. Toynbee. Toynbee gives his definition of civilization - "the totality of spiritual, economic, political means with which man is armed in his struggle with the outside world." Toynbee created the theory of the historical circulation of culture, presenting world history as a collection of separate, closed and peculiar civilizations, the number of which varied from 14 to 21.
Each civilization, like an organism, goes through the stages of origin, growth, crisis (breakdown, decomposition). On this basis, he derived the empirical laws of the recurrence of social development, the driving force of which is the elite, the creative minority, the bearer of the "life impulse".
Toynbee saw a single line of progressive development of mankind in religious evolution from primitive animistic beliefs through a universal religion to a single syncretic religion of the future.
In the light of all that has been said, the general meaning of the civilizational approach becomes clear - to build a typology public systems coming from certain, qualitatively different technical and technological bases. Prolonged disregard for the civilizational approach seriously impoverished our historical science and social philosophy, and prevented us from understanding many processes and phenomena. The restoration of rights and the enrichment of the civilizational approach will make our vision of history more multidimensional.
The red line of the development of civilization is the build-up of integration tendencies in society - tendencies that cannot be derived directly and only from the laws of functioning and development of this or that formation. In particular, it is impossible to understand the essence and specifics of modern Western society outside the civilizational approach, just as it is impossible to give a true assessment of the disintegration processes that have unfolded on a scale former USSR And of Eastern Europe. This is all the more important because these processes are given out by many and taken as a movement towards civilization.
From the essence and structure of socio-economic formations, specific historical forms of organization of the social economy (natural, natural-commodity, commodity, commodity-planned) cannot be directly derived, since these forms are directly determined by the technical and technological basis underlying civilization. The conjugation of the forms of organization of the social economy with the waves (steps) of civilization makes it possible to understand that the naturalization of economic relations in any historical conditions is not a movement forward along the line of the development of civilization: we are facing a backward historical movement.
The civilizational approach allows us to understand the genesis, character traits and trends in the development of various socio-ethnic communities, which, again, are not directly related to the formational division of society.
With a civilizational approach, our ideas about the socio-psychological image of this particular society, its mentality are also enriched, and the active role of social consciousness appears more prominently, because many features of this image are a reflection of the technical and technological basis underlying this or that stage of civilization.
The civilizational approach is quite consistent with modern ideas about culture as an extra-biological, purely social way of human activity and society. Moreover, the civilizational approach allows us to consider culture in its entirety, without excluding a single structural element. On the other hand, the very transition to civilization can be understood only in view of the fact that it was the key point in the formation of culture.
Thus, the civilizational approach allows one to delve deeply into another very important section of the historical process - the civilizational one.
Concluding the consideration of the civilizational approach, it remains to answer one question: how to explain the chronic lag of Marxism in the development and use of the civilizational approach?
Obviously, there was a whole range of reasons at work.
A. Marxism was formed to a very large extent as a Eurocentric doctrine, about which its founders themselves warned.
The study of history in its civilizational context involves the use of the comparative method as the most important, that is, a comparative analysis of various, often dissimilar, local civilizations.
Since, in this case, the focus was on one region, which is a unity in origin and in its modern (meaning the 19th century) state, the civilizational aspect of the analysis was forced to be in the shadows.
B. On the other hand, F. Engels introduced the final limiter: civilization is what is before communism, it is a series of antagonistic formations. In terms of research, this meant that Marx and Engels were directly interested only in that stage of civilization from which communism was to arise. Torn out of the civilizational context, capitalism appeared to both the researcher and the reader exclusively (or primarily) in its formative guise.
C. Marxism is characterized by hypertrophied attention to the forces that disintegrate society, while at the same time a significant underestimation of the forces of integration, but civilization, in its original meaning, is a movement towards integration, towards curbing destructive forces. And if this is so, then the chronic lag of Marxism in the development of a civilizational concept becomes quite understandable.
D. It is easy to find a connection with the long "inattention" of Marxism to the problem of the active role of non-economic factors. Answering his opponents on this subject, Engels pointed out that the materialist understanding of history was formed in the struggle against idealism, due to which neither Marx nor he had for decades enough time, reasons, or strength to pay non-economic phenomena (the state, the spiritual superstructure, geographical conditions, etc.) the same attention as the economy. But after all, the technical and technological basis lying in the foundation of civilization is also a non-economic phenomenon.
Features of Russian civilization
Is Russia a special country or the same as everyone else? Both are true at the same time. Russia and a unique part of the world with features that are hypertrophied by its size and the specifics of its history, and an ordinary country, the exclusivity of which is no more than that of any of the other members of the human family. And no matter what they claim, masking their inferiority complex or simply guided by opportunistic considerations, interpreters of its “special” world fate and historical
"destiny", they will not be able to refute the obvious: Russia, that is, the people who inhabit it, are by no means inclined to once again fall out of world history just to emphasize its uniqueness. They understand that in modern era it's simply not possible.
The specifics of Russia must also be imagined by its Western partners, who should neither harbor unnecessary fears about her, nor experience illusions. And then they will not be surprised that this country is so reluctant, with visible difficulty, suspicion, and even irritation accepts even the most benevolent advice and does not fit into the political and social models offered to it from outside. And maybe, without prejudice and allergies, they will be able to perceive a new, although not in everything similar to the Western, look that she will take on leaving the fitting room of history, if she finally decides, after trying different clothes, to forever take off her Stalinist overcoat, which in the eyes of many Russians has become almost a national costume.
Arguing that Russia is a "special civilization", Andrei Sakharov, for example, simultaneously expressed another idea. It is about the fact that our country must go through, albeit with a significant delay, the same civilizational stages of evolution as other developed countries. You involuntarily ask yourself: what point of view is more in line with the true state of affairs? In my opinion, one should proceed from the fact that Russia is a special civilization that has absorbed a lot of Western and Eastern over the course of many centuries and has melted something completely special in its cauldron. So, judging by some remarks, Sakharov himself believes. Passing the path of modernization, he rightly notes, Russia followed its own unique path.
He saw very different from other countries not only the past, but also the future of our fatherland, which is already largely determined by its past.
The special nature of our path suggests, among other things, that the same civilizational stages of development that the West went through, associated, for example, with the transition to democracy, civil society and the rule of law, will have noticeable differences in Russia from their foreign counterparts.
Each earthly civilization has its own prologue, its own path of development and its own epilogue, its own essence and forms.
The peculiarity, uniqueness of each civilization does not exclude their interaction, mutual influence, interpenetration and, finally, even rapprochement, which is very characteristic of the 20th century. But along with this, one cannot exclude rejection, and confrontation, and a merciless struggle, waged not only in cold, but also in hot forms, and much more.
What are the features of Russian civilization? It seems that these features lie in the special organization of Russian public and state life; in the essence and structure of power, methods of its implementation; in the peculiarities of national psychology and worldview; in the organization of labor and life of the population; in the traditions, culture of numerous peoples of Russia, etc., etc. A very important feature (perhaps even the most important) of Russian civilization is a special relationship between the material and spiritual principles in favor of the latter. True, now this ratio is changing in favor of the first. And yet, from my point of view, the high role of spirituality in Russia will continue. And it will be for the benefit of both herself and the rest of the world.
This statement should not mean at all that the standard of living of Russians should remain low and be lower than in advanced countries. Vice versa.
It is highly desirable that it dynamically increase and eventually catch up with world standards. To achieve this goal, Russia has everything it needs. But, increasing the level of comfort of his life and work, a person must remain a highly spiritual and humane being.
Based on the foregoing, it is legitimate to question the statement
Sakharov that “Russia, due to a number of historical reasons... ended up on the sidelines of the European world.” A special civilization with its own path of development cannot be on the sidelines of another path. The foregoing does not at all exclude the possibility of comparing the levels of development of various civilizations, both past and present, their achievements and value for all mankind. But speaking about the levels of civilization of certain societies, one must take into account the specific stage of their development.
At the end of the 20th century, thanks to perestroika and post-perestroika, Russian society, in fact, for the first time in its history (1917 and the years of NEP were the first attempt to break through to freedom, but, unfortunately, unsuccessful) gained, albeit not quite complete and not completely guaranteed, but still freedoms: economic, spiritual, informational. Without these freedoms, interest will not be born.
- the most important engine of any progress, the nation will not take place, etc.
But it is one thing to have the right or the freedoms themselves, and quite another thing to be able to use them, combining freedom with self-restraints, rigidly obeying the law. Unfortunately, our society is not yet fully prepared to rationally and prudently practice the newly acquired freedoms in Everyday life for the benefit of yourself and others. But it learns quickly, and it is hoped that the results will be impressive.
The sustainable long-term use of freedoms should have as its final result that Russia, as a “special civilization”, will reveal to the world all its potential and all its power and finally turn the course of its history into an evolutionary direction. This is the main meaning and the highest goal of what is happening in our time.
Multidimensional vision of history
As already noted, in the course of modern discussions, there has clearly been a tendency to resolve the issue of the prospects for the application and the very fate of the formational and civilizational approaches on the basis of the “either-or” principle. In all such conceptions, historical science, in fact, is excluded from the scope of general scientific laws and, in particular, does not obey the principle of correspondence, according to which the old theory is not completely denied, since it necessarily corresponds to something in the new theory, represents its particular, limiting case.
Arising in historical science and social science as a whole, the problem can and must be solved on the principle of "and - and". It is necessary to purposefully study and find such a conjugation of formational and civilizational paradigms that can be fruitfully applied to solving the problem of large-scale division of the historical process, which will make the very vision of history more multidimensional.
Each of the paradigms under consideration is necessary and important, but not sufficient on its own. Thus, the civilizational approach by itself cannot explain the causes and mechanism of the transition from one stage of civilization to another. A similar insufficiency is revealed when trying to explain why the integration trends in past history for thousands of years, starting with a slave-owning society, made their way in disintegration forms.
Both "formationists" and "civilizationists" have extensive opportunities to overcome one-sidedness and enrich their concepts.
In particular, the “formationists”, along with the task of freeing their concept from what has not stood the test of time, will have to make up for the decades-long lag of Marxism in the development of problems related to civilization.
The relationship between formational (with its economic basis) and civilizational (with its technical and technological basis) is real and tangible.
We are convinced of this as soon as we begin to match two linear schematic representations: the process of civilizational development of mankind and the process of its formational development (see diagram). When resorting to schemes, it is appropriate to recall K. Jaspers: “An attempt to structure history, to divide it into a number of periods, always leads to gross simplifications, but these simplifications can serve as arrows pointing to significant points.”
socialization
| Formation | Primitive | Slavehold | Feudal | Capitalism |
| new | society | ion | change | |
| Development | | | | |
|Civilization|Savagery |Barbarian|Agricultural |Industrial|Information-com|
| Ionic | | | Tvo | | naya | pyuternaya |
| Development | | | | | |
Pre-civilization period Waves of civilization
In some cases, as we see, on the same technical and technological basis (agricultural wave of civilization) grow, successively replacing each other, or in parallel - at different peoples differently - two fundamentally different socio-economic formations. In the top line of the diagram, the socio-economic formation (capitalism) "does not fit" into the wave that would seem to be put on it.
(industrial) and “invades” the next, so far free from designation, cell. This cell has not been named because nowhere in the world has the formational system following capitalism been clearly and definitely identified, although in developed countries the processes of socialization have clearly loomed.
And yet, the scheme makes it possible to detect a significant superposition of two linear series of historical development on each other, although this connection is not rigid, much less automatic. It is mediated by a number of factors (natural, ethnic, and finally, socio-psychological). Not the last role among these mediating links is played by the form of organization of the social economy, determined by the technical and technological basis of this wave of civilization in conjunction with the corresponding degree of social division of labor and the degree of development of information and transport infrastructure.
An analysis of the historical process shows that despite the close interconnection of the technical and technological basis (and technical revolutions), this connection is very, very indirect, realized through a complex transmission mechanism.
The conjugation of the formational and civilizational has a dialectically contradictory character, which is already revealed in the analysis of the transition to civilization as a social upheaval.
Here the question immediately arises: is the mentioned upheaval identical with the social revolution that absorbed the main content of the transition from primitive society to the first class formation? It is hardly necessary to talk about complete identity (coincidence), if only because the beginning of the transition to civilization - and there was a certain logic in this - preceded the beginning of the transition to a class society.
But then the second question arises: if these two social upheavals are not identical, then to what extent do they still overlap in social space and how do they correlate in time? Obviously, the first upheaval precedes the second only to some extent, because, having arisen for integrative purposes, civilization in those concrete historical conditions could fulfill this main function only in a disintegrative
(antagonistic) form. Hence the inconsistency of social institutions, their functions and activities in a class-antagonistic society.
In order to better understand the relationship between the two analyzed upheavals and driving force their merging, it is advisable to at least dottedly indicate the essence of each of them.
The impetus for a radical social upheaval, called the transition to civilization, was technological revolution, which gave life to cultural and sedentary agriculture, that is, historically the first type of producing economy. Such was the starting position of the agricultural civilization.
The essence of the transition to civilization consisted in the displacement of blood-kinship ties and relations (production, territorial, etc.) purely and strictly social, supra-biological, and it was the transition to a productive economy that determined both the possibility and the need for such displacement.
As for the surplus product, it itself was also a consequence of the transition to a productive economy, a consequence of its increasing economic efficiency. The connections between the process of transition to civilization and the appearance of a surplus product can be defined as functional, derived from the same causal factor. Another thing is that, having come into being, the surplus product raised the question of that specific historical - and therefore the only possible - form in which the development of civilization will continue. Such a concrete historical form under those conditions could only be antagonistic, and one has to speak of antagonism here in two senses. Firstly, with all its further development, civilization consolidated the antagonism that arose in the depths of society, Secondly On the other hand, a certain antagonistic contradiction has developed between the integrating essence of civilization and the disintegrating form of its functioning within a whole series of socio-economic formations.
The emerging classes used the social institutions that had already taken shape in the process of the beginning transition to civilization to consolidate their dominance. This became possible because a) the social institutions themselves potentially contained the possibility of alienation; b) this possibility in those historical conditions could not be "muted". In order to
To "mute" it in the bud requires a mature political culture of society and, above all, of the masses. On the threshold of civilization, however, political culture (as well as the sphere of politics as a whole) was only just emerging.
The classes that took social institutions into their hands were thus able to leave a significant imprint on many other civilizational processes and subordinate them to their selfish class interests. (Since classes are phenomena of the formational order, their impact on civilizational processes expresses the essential side of the conjugation of formational and civilizational). So it happened with the separation process spiritual production from the material (the privilege of engaging in mental labor was assigned to the exploiters), with the process of urbanization (the differences between the city and the countryside turned into an opposite, characterized by the exploitation of the countryside by the ruling classes of the city), with the process of crystallization of the personal element in history (vegetation of the broad masses of the people for centuries served as a background for the activities of prominent personalities from the exploiting strata).
Thus, both historical processes - the transition to civilization and the transition to the first class formation - superimposed on each other in the most significant way and together constituted such a revolution, which, in its cardinality, can only be compared with the processes of socialization currently taking place in developed, civilized countries.
Conclusion
Connecting the civilizational component to the analysis allows us to make our vision of both the historical perspective and the historical retrospective more panoramic, to better understand those elements of society that, in fact, turn out to be more closely related to civilizational rather than formational.
Take, for example, the process of evolution of socio-ethnic communities.
When pairing the socio-ethnic series only with the formational series, the conclusion involuntarily suggests itself that the relationship between them is causal, fundamental. But this raises several questions. And the main one: if a specific form of a socio-ethnic community decisively depends on the economic mode of production, and on both sides of it - both on the level of productive forces and on the type of production relations, then how to explain that in some cases this community is preserved even with a fundamental change in the type of production relations
(nationality is characteristic of both slavery and feudalism), while in others - the type of community is preserved even during the transition to a new wave of civilization, to a new technical and technological basis (such is the nation that, apparently, will remain for the foreseeable future and in the conditions of the information and computer wave of civilization that is gaining strength)?
Obviously, in both cases there are factors that are more profound than formational, but less profound than civilizational, derived from the latter. Both in the case of a nationality and in the case of a nation, the final cause (causa finalis) is certain types of technical and technological basis underlying the successive agricultural, industrial and information-computer waves of civilization. Thus, the technical and technological basis of the agricultural wave, causing the preservation of the natural-commodity form of organization of production throughout the wave, does not allow the formation of a single economic
(economic) life, that is, it imposes a ban on the transformation of a nationality into a nation. In the second case, the guarantor of the preservation of the nation as a form of community adequate to the given socio-economic conditions is again, in the final analysis, the technical and technological basis, and directly - lying above it (but deeper than formational) and genetically related to it forms of organization of the social economy. Commodity in its classical form, commodity-planned and planned-commodity forms of organization of the social economy are united in the sense that they authorize the emergence, preservation, consolidation and development of the nation, because all three of these forms are characterized by the presence of marketability with an increase from zero to the optimum degree of its regulation (planning).
So, the conjugation of the formational and civilizational is clearly seen in the example of the genesis and development of socio-ethnic communities.
Bibliography
Krapivensky S.E. social philosophy. – Volgograd, Press Committee,
1996.
V.A. Kanke. Philosophy. M., Logos, 1996.
Fundamentals of philosophy. Ed. E.V. Popova, M., "Vlados", 1997
Philosophy. Tutorial. Ed. Kokhanovsky V.P., R / Don., "Phoenix",
1998.
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FEDERAL STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
« KALININGRAD STATE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY»
Abstract on the discipline ""
Subject: "Formational and civilizational approaches to history"
1. Formations or civilizations? ...................................................................................................
2. On the formational approach to history...................................................………………………….
3. On the essence of the civilizational approach to history...............................................................
4. On the correlation of formational and civilizational approaches to history ………..
5. About possible ways of modernization of the formational approach ………………………………
Formations or civilizations?
The experience accumulated by mankind in the spiritual assimilation of history, with all the difference in worldview and methodological positions, reveals some common features.
First, history is viewed as a process that unfolds in real space and time. It happens for certain reasons. These causes, wherever they are found (on earth or in heaven), are factors that determine the movement of history and its direction.
Secondly, already at the early stages of understanding the paths and destinies of various countries and peoples, civilizations and specific national societies, problems arise related to one or another understanding of the unity of the historical process, the uniqueness and originality of each people, each civilization. For some thinkers, the history of mankind has an internal unity, for others it is problematic.
Thirdly, in many teachings, history has an explicit or hidden teleological (goal-setting) character. In religion, this is chiliastic eschatology (the doctrine of the end of earthly history), in materialistic philosophy - a kind of automatism of the laws of social development, with the immutability of fate leading humanity to a brighter future or, on the contrary, to a world cataclysm.
Fourthly, the desire to penetrate into the nature of the movement of history. Here, too, a kind of dichotomy arose - linear or cyclic movement.
Fifth, history is comprehended as a process that has its own stages (stages, etc.) of development. Some thinkers start from the analogy with a living organism (childhood, adolescence, etc.), while others take as a basis for distinguishing stages the features of the development of any elements or aspects of people's existence (religion, culture, or, conversely, tools, property, etc.).
Finally, history has always been comprehended under the strong influence of sociocultural factors. The national-state, social-class and cultural-civilizational orientation of thinkers usually played a paramount role. As a rule, the universal beginning appeared in a specific (national, etc.) form. The personal characteristics of thinkers cannot be discounted. In general, two methodological approaches have been identified today. One is monistic, the other is civilizational or pluralistic. Within the framework of the first, two concepts are distinguished - Marxist and the theory of post-industrial society. The Marxist concept is associated with the recognition of the mode of production as the main determinant of social development and the allocation on this basis of certain stages or formations (hence its other name - formational); the concept of a post-industrial society puts forward the technical factor as the main determinant and distinguishes three types of societies in history: traditional, industrial, post-industrial (information and eoch.) society.
On the basis of the civilizational approach, many concepts are distinguished, built on different grounds, which is why it is called pluralistic. The root idea of the first approach is the unity of human history and its progress in the form of staged development. The root idea of the second is the denial of the unity of the history of mankind and its progressive development. According to the logic of this approach, there are many historical formations (civilizations) that are weakly or not at all connected with each other. All these formations are equal. The history of each of them is unique, as unique as they are.
But it is not superfluous to give a more detailed scheme of the main approaches: religious (theological), natural science (in Marxist literature it is often called naturalistic), cultural-historical, socio-economic (formational), technical-technological (technical, technical-deterministic). In the religious picture of the historical process, the idea of the creation of the world by God is taken as the starting point. Within the framework of the natural-scientific approach, any natural factor (geographical environment, population, biosphere, etc.) acts as the starting point for the study of human history. The cultural-historical approach most often appears in the form of a civilizational approach in the narrow sense of the word. Here, culture comes to the fore (in general or in some specific forms).
The listed approaches to history differ significantly in their place and role in social cognition, in their influence on social practice. The highest claim to the revolutionary change of the world shows the Marxist doctrine (formational approach). This predetermined broad opposition to it from other approaches and resulted in a kind of dichotomy - Marxist monism or Western pluralism in the understanding of history. Today, this dichotomy among Russian scientists (philosophers, historians, etc.) has acquired the form of a formation or civilization and, accordingly, a formational or civilizational approach.
About the formational approach to history
Marx's doctrine of society in its historical development is called the "materialistic understanding of history." The main concepts of this doctrine are social being and social consciousness, the method of material production, the basis and superstructure, the socio-economic formation, the social revolution. Society is complete system, all elements of which are interconnected and are in a strict hierarchy. The basis of social life or the foundation of society is the mode of production of material life. It determines "the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness"2. In the structure of the mode of production, the productive forces and, above all, the instruments of labor (technology) are of primary importance. Their influence on other spheres of social life (politics, law, morality, etc.) is mediated by production relations, the totality of which constitutes "the economic structure of society, the real basis on which the legal and political superstructure rises and to which certain forms of social consciousness correspond"3. In turn, the superstructure (politics, law, etc.) has a reverse active influence on the basis. The contradictions between the productive forces and production relations are the main source of development, sooner or later they cause special conditions in the life of society, which take the form of a social revolution. The history of mankind is natural, i.e. the process of changing socio-economic formations, independent of people's consciousness. It moves from simple, lower forms to more and more developed, complex, meaningful forms. “In general terms, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern, bourgeois, modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs of economic formation. Bourgeois production relations are the last antagonistic form of the social production process. Therefore, the prehistory of human society ends with the bourgeois social formation”1.
Particular attention should be paid to the concept of formation. For Marx, it denotes a logically generalized type (form) of the organization of the socio-economic life of society and is formed on the basis of the identification of common features and characteristics in various concrete historical societies, primarily in the mode of production. In other words, it is a historically defined type of society, representing a special stage in its development ("... a society at a certain stage of historical development, a society with a peculiar distinctive character"2. Thus, capitalism is a machine industry, private ownership of the means of production, commodity production, a market. Therefore, formation cannot be understood as some kind of empirical society (English, French, etc.) or some kind of aggregate geopolitical community (West, East). Formation in this sense is highly idealized At the same time, a formation is also a reality that acts as a commonality in the socio-economic organization of the life of various specific societies. modern society is in the representation of Marx " capitalist society which exists in all civilized countries, more or less free from the admixture of the Middle Ages, more or less modified by the peculiarities of the historical development of each country, more or less developed.
Marx, in general, remained within the framework of the global ideas of his time about history (how they develop, for example, in the philosophy of Hegel: world history is characterized by direct unity, general laws operate in it, it has a certain direction of development, etc.). It is clear that he rethought these ideas on a different methodological (materialistic in this case) basis, but in general, we repeat, he was and remained the son of his age. And, of course, he could not resist the temptation of global foresight: the communist formation will follow the capitalist formation (socialism is only its initial stage). Communism is thus the highest goal of history, the golden age of mankind. It makes sense to distinguish Marxism as scientific theory, addressed to the scientific community (community of scientists, specialists), and Marxism as an ideological doctrine, designed for the masses, to win their minds and hearts; a doctrine in which, unlike theory, faith occupies a large proportion. In the first case, Marx acts as a scientist, in the second as a passionate ideologue, a preacher.
