Civilizational approach to history. Civilizational approach: a new paradigm in the study of history Who formulated the civilizational approach to the study of history

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2. Civilizational approach to history

Another concept that claims to cover social phenomena and processes universally is civilizational approach to the history of mankind. The essence of this concept in its most 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 the laws of 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, previous or modern civilizations; 4) civilization, characteristic of each cultural-historical type, then only 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 growth period is indefinitely long, but the period of flowering and fruiting is relatively short and exhausts 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 in the form of a multitude of cultures independent of each other that underlie state formations and determine them. 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 the social and other processes taking place in each of the civilizations, which allows us to formulate some empirical laws of social development, on the basis of which one can learn and even predict its course. Thus, according to Toynbee, the driving force behind 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, according to inherently inert and incapable of creative original activity. 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 not able 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 carries out 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.

Philosophy: lecture notes Shevchuk Denis Aleksandrovich

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 in its most 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).

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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, one speaks of ancient civilization, Inca civilizations, 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 the proper social organization of 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: in the foundation of civilization as a whole and each from its stages lies the technical and technological basis, in connection with which it is reasonable to speak of 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 of the globe, the emergence of the state was the result of a process of class formation that had already gone far, and in some regions 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. accounts and 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 is significantly reduced 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 of social life and the relations of production, the economic basis that are formed on this basis. Thus, the incompleteness of the traditional scheme of formation is found not only in the elimination of such important “bricks” as natural (including demographic) conditions and ethnic (generally historical) features from the foundation, but also in ignoring the socio-psychological component of social development: the basis and the add-in are found to be linked directly.

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 of social systems based on 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 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, characteristics and development trends 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 one or another 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 devote to non-economic phenomena (the state, 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 universal 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 again drop out of world history only to emphasize its uniqueness. They understand that in the modern age it is simply impossible.

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 the 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 the Stalinist overcoat, which has become in the eyes of many Russians 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 the question: what point of view is more consistent 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 rule of law, will have noticeable differences in Russia from foreign analogues.
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 ... was on the sidelines 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 essence, for the first time in its history (1917 and the NEP years were the first attempt to break through to freedom, but, unfortunately, unsuccessful) acquired, albeit not quite complete and not quite guaranteed , but still freedom: 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 acquired freedoms in everyday life for the benefit of ourselves 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 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 science laws and, in particular, does not obey the correspondence principle, according to which the old theory is not completely denied, since it necessarily corresponds to something in the new theory, represents its particular, extreme case.

The problem that has arisen in historical science and social science as a whole can and must be solved according to 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

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 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 specific 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 the driving force behind their merger, it is advisable to at least dottedly indicate the essence of each of them.

The impetus for a cardinal social upheaval, called the transition to civilization, was the technical revolution that gave life to cultural and sedentary agriculture, that is, the historically first type of productive economy. Such was the starting position of the agricultural civilization.
The essence of the transition to civilization consisted in the displacement of kinship ties and relations (production, territorial, etc.) by purely and strictly social, suprabiological ones, 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, and secondly, a certain antagonistic contradiction developed between the integrating essence of civilization and the disintegrating form of its functioning within a whole series of socio-economic formations.

To consolidate their dominance, the emerging classes used the already established in the process of the transition to civilization that had begun. social institutions. 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". 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). This happened with the process of separating spiritual production from material production (the privilege of engaging in mental labor was assigned to the exploiters), with the process of urbanization (the differences between town and country 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 the civilizational than to the 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 is decisively dependent 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 and 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 a nation that, apparently, will remain for the foreseeable future and in the conditions of a growing force of the information-computer wave of civilization)?

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 that underlie 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 systematic-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 its controllability (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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Is " civilization". It is most often used in modern science and journalism and comes from Latin word"civilis", which means "state, civil, political".

In modern scientific literature civilization interpreted:

as a synonym for the concept;
a type of society that differs from savagery and barbarism by the social division of labor, writing, and a developed system of state-legal relations;
type of society with characteristic only for him and.

Modern social science prefers the latter interpretation, although it does not oppose it to the other two. Thus, the concept of "civilization" has two main meanings: how separate society And How stage originated in antiquity and the ongoing development of mankind. The study of the history of society based on this concept is called civilizational approach to the analysis of human history.

Within the framework of the civilizational approach, there are several theories, among which two main ones stand out:

local civilizations;
world, universal civilization.

Theory of local civilizations

Theory of local civilizations studies historically established communities that occupy a certain territory and have their own characteristics of socio-economic and cultural development. Local civilizations may coincide with the borders of states, but there are exceptions, for example, Western Europe, consisting of many large and small completely independent states, is considered to be one civilization, since, for all the originality of each state, they all represent one cultural and historical type.

The theory of the cyclical development of local civilizations was studied in the 20th century. sociologist P. A. Sorokin, historian A. Toynbee and others.

So, A. Toynbee singled out more than 10 closed civilizations. Each of them passed in the development of the stage of emergence, growth, breakdown, decomposition. A young civilization is energetic, full of strength, contributes to a more complete satisfaction of the needs of the population, has a high rate of economic growth, and progressive spiritual values. But then these possibilities are exhausted. Economic, socio-political mechanisms, scientific, technical, educational and cultural potentials are becoming obsolete. The process of fracture and disintegration begins, which manifests itself, in particular, in the escalation of internal civil wars. The existence of civilization ends with death, with the change of the dominant type of culture. As a result, civilization completely disappears. Thus, there is no common history for mankind. No existing civilization can be proud of what it represents highest point development compared to its predecessors.

The main civilizations are:

western;
Orthodox Christian in Russia;
Iranian and Arabic (Islamic);
Hindu;
Far East.

This also includes such ancient civilizations as the Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Hellenic and Mayan civilizations. In addition, there are minor civilizations. Unlike more early life modern civilizations, according to Toynbee, are longer, they occupy vast territories, and the number of people covered by civilizations is usually large. They tend to spread through the subjugation and assimilation of other societies.

Theory of human civilization

AT theories of world, universal civilization its separate stages (stages) are distinguished. Well-known American scientists D. Bell, O. Toffler, Z. Brzezinski and others name three main stages in the global civilizational process:

(agrarian);
, the beginning of which was laid by the first industrial revolution in Europe;
(information society), which arises with the transformation of information technology into a determining factor in the development of society.

Character traits pre-industrial (agrarian) civilization:

the predominance of agricultural production and natural exchange of products;
the overwhelming role of the state in social processes;
rigid class division of society, low social mobility citizens;
the predominance of customs and traditions in the spiritual sphere of society.

Character traits industrial civilization:

the predominance of industrial production with the growing role of science in it;
development ;
high social mobility;
the growing role of individualism and the initiative of the individual in the struggle to weaken the role of the state, to increase the role of civil society in the political and spiritual sphere of society.

post-industrial civilization(information society) has the following characteristics:

automation of production of consumer goods, development of the service sector;
development information technology and resource-saving technologies;
development of legal regulation of social relations, the desire for harmonious relations between society, the state and the individual;
the beginning of attempts at reasonable interaction with the environment, solving global diverse problems of mankind.

Formational approach to historical phenomena

Analysis from the standpoint of the theory of global civilization is close to formational approach formed within the framework of Marxism. Under formation is understood as a historically defined type of society that arises on the basis of a certain method of material production. Plays a leading role basis - a set of economic relations that develop between people in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods. The totality of political, legal, religious and other views, relations and institutions is superstructure.

public consciousness

One of the elements of the superstructure is, i.e., the totality of the views of a given society on various aspects of the structure of the world and social life.

This set of views has a certain structure. Views are divided into two levels. The first the level consists of empirical (experimental) views of people on the world and their own lives, accumulated throughout the history of a given society, second- theoretical systems of ideas developed by professional researchers.

In addition, the views are divided into groups depending on the area of the issues being addressed. These groups of ideas are called . These forms include: knowledge about the world as a whole, about nature, about social life, legal knowledge, morality, religion, ideas about beauty, and so on. These ideas for theoretical level act as scientific disciplines: philosophy, political science, legal sciences, ethics, religious studies, aesthetics, physics, chemistry, etc. The state and development of social consciousness are determined by the state of social life, i.e., the level of development of society and the nature of its economic basis.

social revolution

The source of the development of society are considered contradictions between productive forces and production relations resolved in the course of the social revolution.

According to this theory, humanity in development passes a series of stages (formations), each of which has its own basis and corresponding superstructure. Each formation is characterized by a certain basic form of ownership and a leading class that dominates both the economy and politics. The stages of primitive society, slave society and feudal society correspond to the agrarian civilization. The capitalist formation corresponds to the industrial civilization. The highest formation—communist—with its best principles of social organization from the point of view of Marxism, is built on the most developed economic basis.

The following are commonly referred to shortcomings of the formational approach:

predetermination, the rigid inevitability of the development of the historical process;
exaggeration of the role of the economic factor in public life;
underestimation of the role of spiritual and other superstructural factors.

Currently, the formational theory is in crisis, the civilizational approach to the study of the historical process is becoming more common. The civilizational approach has a more specific historical character, taking into account not only the material and technical aspects of social development, but also the influence of factors arising in other spheres of society.

Generally formational and civilizational approaches do not exclude, but complement, enrich each other.

In the social sciences, discussions have been going on for a long time on a fundamental question: is the world moving towards a single civilization with universal values, or is a trend towards cultural and historical diversity realized and humanity will be a collection of locally developing civilizations? Proponents of the first point of view refer to the indisputable facts of the spread of values that originated in European civilization: ideological pluralism, humanization, democracy, modern technologies and others. Supporters of the second position emphasize that the development of any viable organism, including a social one, is based on the interaction of opposite sides, diversity. The spread of common values common to all peoples, cultural ways of life, the globalization of the world community supposedly entail the end of human development.

Different theories make it possible to see history in different ways. In the formational and general civilizational theories, the laws of development common to all mankind come to the fore, in the theory of local civilizations, the individual diversity of the historical process. Thus, different approaches have their own advantages and complement each other.

* this work is not a scientific work, is not a final qualifying work and is the result of processing, structuring and formatting the collected information, intended to be used as a source of material for self-preparation of educational work.

Introduction

Formative approach

Civilization approach

Comparative characteristics of approaches

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

To form an objective picture of the historical process, historical science must be based on general concepts that would help to structure all the accumulated material of researchers and create models understandable to everyone.

For many years, historical science was dominated by an objective-idealistic or subjectivist methodology. The historical process from the standpoint of subjectivism was explained by the action of great people. In this approach, smart calculations or mistakes led to some historical event, the totality and interconnection of which determined the course and outcome of the historical process.

The objective-idealistic concept assigned the main role in the historical process to the action of superhuman forces: the Absolute Idea, World Will, Divine Will, Providence. Under the influence of all this, society was constantly moving towards a predetermined goal. Great people: leaders, kings, Caesars, emperors and others, acted only as an instrument of superhuman forces.

The periodization of history was carried out in accordance with the solution of the question of the driving forces of the historical process. The division according to historical eras had the greatest expansion: Ancient world, Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, New and Modern times. In this division, although the time factor was expressed, there were no detailed suitable signs for distinguishing these epochs.

Put history, like other humanities, on scientific basis, to overcome the shortcomings of the methodology of historical research, K. Marx tried in the middle of the 19th century. Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, sociologist, and economist. He formulated a system of views of the materialistic explanation of history, based on four principles.

1. The unity of mankind, as well as the similarity of the historical process.

2. Historical regularity. Marx proceeds from the recognition in the historical process of recurring, stable, common connections and relationships between people, as well as the results of their activities.

3. Causal relationships and dependencies (the principle of determinism). According to K. Marx, the main determining factor in the historical process is the method of production of material goods.

4. Progress (the gradual development of society, which rises to higher levels).

Formative approach

The materialistic interpretation of history is based on the formational approach. In the teachings of Marx, the main position in explaining the driving forces of the historical process and the periodization of history is occupied by the concept of socio-economic formations. According to Marx, if a society is progressively developing, then it must go through certain stages. The German thinker called these stages “socio-economic formations”. Marx borrowed this concept from natural science familiar to him. In geography, geology, biology, this concept denotes specific structures connected by one condition of formation, similar composition, interdependence of elements.

The foundations of any socio-political organization K. Marx made this or that mode of production. The main production relations are property relations. All the diversity of the life of society at different stages of its development, includes a socio-political formation.

K. Marx assumed several stages in the development of society:

Primitive communal

slaveholding

feudal

capitalist

communist

Thanks to the social revolution, there is a transition from one social-economic formation to another. Conflicts in the political sphere take place between the lower strata, who are trying to improve their situation, and the higher strata, who are striving to maintain their existing order.

The emergence of a new formation is determined by the victory of the ruling class, which carries out revolutions in all spheres of life. In Marxist theory, revolution and class wars play a significant role. The main driving force of history was the class struggle. According to Marx, the “locomotives of history” were revolutions.

During the last 80 years, the dominant point of view, based on the formational approach, was the materialistic concept of history. The main advantage of this idea is that it creates a clear explanatory model of historical development. Human history is presented to us as a natural, progressive, objective process. The driving forces and the main stages, processes, etc. are clearly identified.

Also, the formation process has its drawbacks. Some critics of domestic and foreign historiography point to them. 1) Some countries did not follow the five phases. Marx referred these countries to the “Asiatic mode of production”. As Marx believed, based on this method, a separate formation is formed. But he did not provide additional data on this issue. Later historians showed that development in some European countries does not always correspond to these five phases. Drawing a conclusion on this issue, it can be noted that some difficulties are created in reflecting different options for the formational approach.

2) In the formational approach, the decisive role is given to non-personal factors, and the person is of secondary importance. It turns out that a person is just a screw in the theory of an objective mechanism driving historical development. It turns out that the human, personal content of the historical process is underestimated.

3) This methodology describes a lot through the prism of the class struggle. A huge role is given to both political and economic processes. Oppositionists of the formational approach argue that social conflicts, although they are a necessary property of social life, still do not play a decisive role in it. This conclusion requires a reassessment of the place of political relations in history. The main role belongs to the spiritual and moral life.

4) Also in the formational approach there are notes of the interpretation of history as the Will of God, as well as the construction of plans for social reorganization, regardless of reality. The formational concept assumes that the development of the historical process will proceed from the classless primitive communal phase through the class phase to the classless communist phase. In the theory of communism, on the proof of which many efforts have been spent, in any case, an era will come when everyone will benefit according to his ability, and receive according to his needs. In other words, the achievement of communism would mean the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth. The nature of this system is reduced to utopian. Subsequently, a large number of people abandoned the "building of communism."

Civilization approach

The formational approach can be opposed to the civilizational approach to the study of history. This approach began in the 18th century. Bright adherents of this theory are M. Weber, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, and others. In domestic science, his supporters were K.N. Leontiev, N. Ya. Danilevsky, P.A. Sorokin. The word "civilization" comes from the Latin "civis", which means "city, state, civil".

From the point of view of this approach, the main structural unit is civilization. Initially, this term denoted a certain level of social development. The emergence of cities, writing, statehood, social stratification of society - all these were specific signs of civilization.

In a broad concept, civilization is generally understood as a high level of development of social culture. For example, in Europe, in the Age of Enlightenment, civilization was based on the improvement of laws, science, morals, and philosophy. On the other hand, civilization is perceived as the last moment in the development of the culture of any society.

Civilization, as a whole social system, includes various elements that are harmonized and closely interconnected. All elements of the system include the originality of civilizations. This set of features is very stable. Under the influence of some internal and external influences, changes occur in civilization, but their basis, the inner core, remains constant. Cultural-historical types are long-established relationships that have a certain territory, and they also have features that are characteristic only.

Until now, adherents of this approach are arguing about the number of civilizations. N.Ya. Danilevsky identifies 13 original civilizations, A. Toynbee - 6 types, O. Spengler - 8 types.

There are a number of positive aspects in the civilizational approach.

The principles of this approach can be applied to the history of one country or another, or a group of them. This methodology has its own peculiarity, in that this approach is based on the study of the history of society, taking into account the individuality of regions and countries.

This theory suggests that history can be viewed as a multi-variant, multi-linear process.

This approach assumes the unity and integrity of human history. Civilizations as systems can be compared with each other. As a result of this approach, one can better understand historical processes and fix their individuality.

Highlighting certain criteria for the development of civilization, it is possible to assess the level of development of countries, regions, peoples.

In the civilizational approach, the main role is assigned to the human spiritual, moral and intellectual factors. Mentality, religion, culture are of particular importance for assessing and characterizing civilization.

The main disadvantage of the methodology of the civilizational approach is the shapelessness of the criteria for identifying types of civilization. This selection of like-minded people of this approach takes place on the basis of signs that should be of a generalized nature, but on the other hand, it would make it possible to note the features characteristic of many societies. In the theory of N.Ya. Danilevsky, cultural and historical types of civilization are divided into a combination of 4 main elements: political, religious, socio-economic, cultural. Danilevsky believed that it was in Russia that the combination of these elements took place.

This theory of Danilevsky encourages the application of the principle of determinism in the form of dominance. But the nature of this dominance has a subtle meaning.

Yu.K. Pletnikov was able to identify 4 civilizational types: philosophical and anthropological, general historical, technological, sociocultural.

1) Philosophical-anthropological model. This type is the basis of the civilizational approach. It makes it possible to more clearly present the uncompromising difference between civilizational and formational studies of historical activity. To fully understand the historical type of society allows the formational approach, which originates from the cognitive form of the individual to the social. The opposite of this approach is the civilizational approach. Which is reduced from the social to the individual, the expression of which is the public of man. Civilization appears here as the vital activity of society, depending on the state of this sociality. Orientation to the study of the world of man, and the man himself, is a requirement of a civilizational approach. Thus, during the restructuring of the Western countries of Europe from the feudal to the capitalist system, the formational approach focuses on the change in property relations, the development of hired labor, and manufacture. However, the civilized approach explains this approach as a revival of the ideas of outdated cyclicality and anthropologism.

2) General historical model. Civilization is a special kind of a particular society or their community. In accordance with the meaning of this term, the main signs of civilization are civil status, statehood, urban-type settlements. In public opinion, civilization is opposed to barbarism and savagery.

3) Technological model. The way of development and formation of civilization is social technologies of reproduction and production of immediate life. Many understand the word technology in a rather narrow sense, especially in a technical sense. But there is also a broader and deeper concept of the word technology, based on the spiritual conception of life. So Toynbee paid attention in the etymology of this term that among the “tools” there are not only material, but also spiritual worldviews.

4) Sociocultural model. In the 20th century there was a "interpenetration" of the terms culture and civilization. At an early stage of civilization, the concept of culture dominates. As a synonym for culture, the concept of civilization is often presented, concretized through the concept of urban culture or a general classification of culture, its structural formations and subject forms. This explanation of the connection between culture and civilization has its limitations and its foundations. In particular, civilization is compared not with culture as a whole, but with its rise or fall. For example, for O. Spengler, civilization is the most extreme and artificial state of culture. It bears a consequence, as the completion and outcome of culture. F. Braudel believes, on the contrary, that culture is a civilization that has not reached its social optimum, its maturity, and has not ensured its growth.

Civilization, as it was said earlier, is a special kind of society, and culture, according to the historical process, represents all types of society, even primitive ones. Summarizing the statements of the American sociologist S. Huntington, we can conclude that civilization since its inception has been the broadest historical community of cultural equivalence of people.

Civilization is an external behavioral state, and culture is an internal state of a person. Therefore, the values of civilization and culture sometimes do not correspond to each other. It is impossible not to notice that in a class-separated society, civilization is one, although the fruits of civilization are not available to everyone.

Theories of local civilizations are based on the fact that there are separate civilizations, large historical communities that have a certain territory and their own characteristics of cultural, political, socio-economic development.

Arnold Toynbee, one of the founders of the theory of local civilizations, believed that history is not a linear process. This is the process of life and death of civilizations not interconnected with each other in different parts of the Earth. Toynbee singled out local and main civilizations. The main civilizations (Babylonian, Sumerian, Hellenic, Hindu, Chinese, etc.) left a pronounced mark on the history of mankind and had a secondary influence on other civilizations. Local civilizations merge within the national framework, there are about 30 of them: German, Russian, American, etc. The challenge thrown from outside of civilization, Toynbee considered the main driving forces. The response to the challenge was the activity of talented, great people.

The cessation of development and the appearance of stagnation is caused by the fact that the creative minority is able to lead the inert majority, but the inert majority is able to absorb the energy of the minority. Thus, all civilizations go through stages: origin, growth, breakdown and decay, ending with the complete disappearance of civilization.

There are also some difficulties in assessing the types of civilization, when the main element of any type of civilization is mentality, mentality. Mentality is the general spiritual mood of the people of any country or region, an extremely stable device of consciousness, a multitude of socio-psychological foundations for the beliefs of an individual and society. All this determines the worldview of a person, and also forms the subjective world of the individual. Based on these attitudes, a person works in all spheres of life - creates history. But alas, the spiritual, moral and intellectual structures of a person have a rather vague outline.

There are also some claims to the civilizational approach associated with the interpretation of the driving forces of the historical process, the meaning and direction of the development of history.

Thus, within the framework of the civilizational approach, comprehensive schemes are created that reflect the general patterns of development for all civilizations.

Comparative characteristics of approaches

It is best to identify the advantages and disadvantages of the civilizational and formational approaches by mutual criticism between the supporters of these approaches. Thus, according to the supporters of the formation process, positive sides are that it allows:

1. See what is common in the historical development of peoples.

2. Present the history of society as a single process.

3. Suggest some kind of separation of the history of individual countries and world history.

4. Establish the validity of the historical development of society.

In their opinion, the civilizational approach has the following disadvantages:

1. Due to consistent application, it becomes impossible to look at world history as a single process of the historical development of all mankind.

2. A complete denial of the unity of human history, the isolation of societies and entire peoples is being created.

3. Reducing to a minimum the admissibility of the study of the patterns of the historical development of human society.

Supporters of the civilizational approach see its advantages in that it allows solving the following problems:

1. Helps to study those aspects of life that usually do not fall into the field of view of adherents of the formation process. (spiritual life, values, psychology, national characteristics ..)

2. Allows a deeper study of the history of certain peoples and societies in all their diversity.

3. main goal studies become human, and human activity.

Followers of the civilizational approach see the following shortcomings in the formational approach:

1. Most peoples did not go through most formations in their development.

2. Most of the processes (political, ideological, spiritual, cultural) cannot be explained only from an economic point of view.

3. With the consistent application of the formational approach, the role of human activity and the human factor is relegated to the background.

4. Insufficient attention is paid to the originality and uniqueness of individual peoples and societies.

Thus, the pros and cons of the proponents of the approaches prove that the advantages of the two approaches are complementary, and through their combination, one can better understand history.

Conclusion

Civilizational and formational approaches to the study of history are often compared with each other. Each of these approaches has its positive and negative sides, but if you avoid the extremes of each of them, and take only the good in the two methodologies, then historical science will only benefit. Both approaches make it possible to consider historical processes from different angles, so they do not negate each other, but complement each other.

Literature

1. A.A. Radugina History of Russia. Russia in World Civilization Moscow: Biblionics 2004, 350

2. Marx K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 9. S. 132.

3. Theory of State and Law: Textbook. SPb., 1997 (authors-compilers: L.I. Spiridonov, I.L. Chestnov).

4. Huntington S. Clash of Civilizations// Polis. 1994. No. 1.

5. Pozdnyakov E. Formational or civilizational approaches//World economy and international relations. 1990. No. 5

6. Analysis and comparison of formational and civilizational approaches to the process of emergence and development of the state and law

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Theory of local civilizations

Theory of human civilization

Formational approach to historical phenomena

public consciousness

social revolution

ecosystems

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Biology

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recent history

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Interwar period