The basis of the civilizational theory of social development. Civilizational approach to the development of society. Development of society: formational approach

This approach was founded by the Russian philosopher N.Ya. Danilevsky, German philosopher O. Spengler, English historian and cultural critic A. Toynbee. The idea of ​​civilization as the dominant of the historical process was put forward N.Ya. Danilevsky in his work “Russia and Europe“The scientist denied the general patterns of development of society, based on the fact that development is carried out, as it were, in parallel by several socio-historical organisms; he considered communities in the form of cultural historical types. Civilizations are not only local in nature, but also closed.

The civilizational approach is based on three principles:

1) there is no progress in social historical development as a whole. We can talk about it only in relation to a separate culture, which, like a living organism, goes through the stages of birth, flourishing and death.

2) the development of culture and civilization is not connected with economics or technology, but primarily with religion. It is the type of religion that determines the uniqueness of society and the logic of its development. N.Ya. called religion the “soul of culture.” Danilevsky.

3) there is no ideal model of development; every society and culture is valuable in itself.

The concepts of social development we have considered are not only contradictory, but also complementary. Each of these approaches has both its strengths and weaknesses. For example, within the framework of the civilizational approach the past is successfully described, i.e. the history of local civilizations, while the stage approach correctly captures modern processes associated with globalization. Attempts have been made repeatedly to unite them. But a universal scheme of the socio-historical process that would combine both approaches has not yet been created.

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Functions of philosophy
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The concept of being, substance, matter
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The law of unity and struggle of opposites. The concept of opposition, contradiction, the essence of law
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Possibility and reality, their relationship
Possibility and reality are correlative categories that characterize different aspects of the same subject. Opportunity is a trend, prerequisites arose

The nature of consciousness
The concept of consciousness arose in ancient times, and it was identified with the concept of the soul; The ancients understood the soul as the whole set of mental processes: the ability to see, hear, feel, experience

Levels and forms of reflection of reality
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Human consciousness and animal psyche
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Rational cognition or abstract thinking
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Man as a personality
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Socialization of personality
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Culture and civilization
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Is " civilization" It is most often used in modern science and journalism and comes from the 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 in the social division of labor, writing and a developed system of state-legal relations;
• a type of society with characteristics characteristic only of it.

Modern social science gives preference to the latter interpretation, although it does not contrast it with the other two. Thus, the concept of “civilization” has two main meanings: How separate company And How stage originated in ancient times and continues today in the 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 usually considered one civilization, since with all the originality of each state, they all represent one cultural-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.

Thus, A. Toynbee identified more than 10 closed civilizations. Each of them went through the development stages of emergence, growth, breakdown, and decomposition. The young civilization is energetic, full of strength, helps to better meet 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. A process of breakdown and disintegration begins, manifesting itself, in particular, in the escalation of internal civil wars. The existence of civilization ends with death, a change in the dominant culture. As a result, civilization completely disappears. Thus, humanity has no common history. No existing civilization can boast of representing the highest point of development in comparison with its predecessors.

The main civilizations include:

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

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

Theory of universal civilization

IN theories of world, universal civilization its individual stages (stages) are distinguished. Famous American scientists D. Bell, O. Toffler, Z. Brzezinski and others call three main stages in the global civilizational process:

• (agricultural);
• , which began with 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;
• strict class division of society, low social mobility of citizens;
• the predominance of customs and traditions in the spiritual sphere of society.

Character traits industrial civilization:

• the predominance of industrial production with the increasing role of science in it;
• development ;
• high social mobility;
• the increasing 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 the production of consumer goods, development of the service sector;
• development of 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 to intelligently interact with the environment, to solve global diverse problems of humanity.

Formational approach to historical phenomena

Analysis from the perspective of the theory of global civilization is close to formational approach, formed within the framework of Marxism. Under formation is understood as a historically specific type of society that arises on the basis of a specific 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 constitutes superstructure

Social consciousness

One of the elements of the superstructure is the totality of 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. First level consists of empirical (experienced) 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, views are divided into groups depending on the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe issues being addressed. These groups of ideas are usually called. These forms include: knowledge about the world as a whole, about nature, about social life, legal knowledge, morality, religion, ideas about beauty, etc. These ideas at the theoretical level appear in the form of 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 existence, i.e. the level of development of society and the nature of its economic basis.

Social revolution

The source of development of society is considered contradictions between productive forces and production relations, resolved during the social revolution.

According to this theory, humanity develops through a number of stages (formations), each of which differs in its 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 agrarian civilization. The capitalist formation corresponds to industrial civilization. The highest formation - communist - with its best principles of social structure from the point of view of Marxism, is built on the most developed economic basis.

The following are usually called disadvantages of the formational approach:

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

Currently, formation theory is experiencing a crisis; the civilizational approach to the study of the historical process is becoming more widespread. The civilizational approach has a more specific historical nature, 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 and enrich each other.

In the social sciences, there have long been discussions on a fundamental question: is the world moving towards a single civilization with universal human values, or is the trend towards cultural and historical diversity being realized and humanity will be a collection of locally developing civilizations? Supporters 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 technology, etc. Supporters of the second position emphasize that the basis for the development of any viable organism, including a social one, is the interaction of opposite sides, variety. The spread of common values ​​and cultural ways of life that are common to all peoples, and the globalization of the world community supposedly entail the end of human development.

Different theories provide the opportunity to see history differently. In formational and general civilization theories, the laws of development common to all humanity come to the fore; in the theory of local civilizations, the individual diversity of the historical process comes to the fore. Thus, different approaches have their own advantages and complement each other.

The word “civilization” comes from the Latin “civis”, which means “urban, state, civil”. Already in ancient times it was opposed to the concept of “silvaticus” - “forest, wild, rough”. Subsequently, the concept of “civilization” acquired different meanings, and many theories of civilization arose. During the Age of Enlightenment, civilization began to be understood as a highly developed society with writing and cities.
Today there are about 200 definitions of this concept. For example, Arnold Toynbee (1889 – 1975), a proponent of the theory of local civilizations, called a civilization a stable community of people united by spiritual traditions, a similar way of life, and a geographical and historical framework. And Oswald Spengler (1880 – 1936), the founder of the cultural approach to the historical process, believed that civilization is the highest level, the final period of cultural development, preceding its death. One of the modern definitions of this concept is this: civilization is the totality of material and spiritual achievements of society.
Civilization is a norm that has significance for the subject as a social law, tradition or norm. The essence of the civilizational approach is the denial of a single path for the development of human society. He argues that we can only talk about the history of local communities - ethnic groups, and this history will be a series of peaks and troughs. A characteristic feature is anti-Europeanism, since European civilization was declared decrepit. The central question was the question of the essence of the impulse leading to intensive development.
There are various theories of civilization. Among them, two main varieties can be distinguished.
Theories of the staged development of civilization (K. Jaspers, P. Sorokin, W. Rostow, O. Tofler, etc.) consider civilization as a single process of progressive development of humanity, in which certain stages (stages) are distinguished. This process began in ancient times, when humanity moved from primitiveness to civilization. It continues today. During this time, great social changes occurred that affected socio-economic, political relations, and the cultural sphere.
Thus, the prominent American sociologist, economist, and historian of the twentieth century, Walt Whitman Rostow, created the theory of the stages of economic growth. He identified five such stages:
Traditional society. There are agrarian societies with rather primitive technology, the predominance of agriculture in the economy, a class-class structure and the power of large landowners.
Transitional society. Agricultural production is growing, a new type of activity is emerging - entrepreneurship and a new type of enterprising people corresponding to it. Centralized states are taking shape and national self-awareness is strengthening. Thus, the prerequisites for society's transition to a new stage of development are maturing.
“Shift” stage. Industrial revolutions occur, followed by socio-economic and political transformations.
“Maturity” stage. A scientific and technological revolution is underway, the importance of cities and the size of the urban population are growing.
The era of “high mass consumption”. There is a significant growth in the service sector, production of consumer goods and their transformation into the main sector of the economy.
The theories of local (local from Latin - “local”) civilizations (N.Ya. Danilevsky, A. Toynbee) proceed from the fact that there are separate civilizations, large historical communities that occupy a certain territory and have their own socio-economic, political and cultural development.
Local civilizations are a kind of elements that make up the general flow of history. They may coincide with the borders of the state (Chinese civilization), or may include several states (Western European civilization). Local civilizations are complex systems in which different components interact with each other: geographical environment, economy, political structure, legislation, religion, philosophy, literature, art, people’s way of life, etc. Each of these components bears the stamp of the originality of a particular local civilization. This uniqueness is very stable. Of course, over time, civilizations change and experience external influences, but a certain foundation, a “core” remains, thanks to which one civilization is still different from another.
One of the founders of the theory of local civilizations, Arnold Toynbee, believed that history is a nonlinear process. This is the process of the birth, life and death of civilizations unrelated to each other in different parts of the Earth. Toynbee divided civilizations into major and local. Major civilizations (for example, Sumerian, Babylonian, Hellenic, Chinese, Hindu, Islamic, Christian, etc.) left a clear mark on human history and indirectly influenced other civilizations. Local civilizations are confined within a national framework; there are about thirty of them: American, German, Russian, etc.
Toynbee considered the driving forces of civilization to be: a challenge posed to civilization from the outside (unfavorable geographical position, lagging behind other civilizations, military aggression); the response of civilization as a whole to this challenge; the activities of great people, talented, “God-chosen” individuals.
There is a creative minority that leads the inert majority to respond to the challenges posed by civilization. At the same time, the inert majority tends to “put out” and absorb the energy of the minority. This leads to cessation of development, stagnation. Thus, each civilization goes through certain stages: birth, growth, breakdown and disintegration, ending with death and the complete disappearance of civilization.
Both theories—stage and local—make it possible to see history differently. In the stage theory, the general comes to the fore—the laws of development that are common to all mankind. In the theory of local civilizations - individual, diversity of the historical process.
In general, the civilizational approach represents man as the leading creator of history, paying great attention to the spiritual factors of the development of society, the uniqueness of the history of individual societies, countries and peoples. Progress is relative. For example, it can affect the economy, and at the same time, this concept can be applied to the spiritual sphere in a very limited way.
Civilization theory includes three basic principles:
a) the object of research is not socio-economic formations, class struggle, forms of ownership, but human society, that is, a community of people developing to meet the needs and interests of all its members;
b) a person is studied “stereoscopically,” that is, in all his properties and manifestations in life, - as a person with needs, as a person with social and moral orientations, as a person acting, as a person whose activities have motives, as a person who evaluates his attitude towards other people, groups of people;
c) all spheres of social life - economics, politics, law, culture, morality, religion, ethnic values ​​- are equally necessary links in historical progress. Moreover, morality and law, on the one hand, and class struggle, on the other, are opposites. They are mutually exclusive. Therefore, morality and law play a special role in the civilizational approach.
The founders of special civilizational studies and their modern followers (N.Ya. Danilevsky, A. Toynbee, S. Huntington, etc.) interpret civilizational development as a cyclical process of the emergence, maturity and extinction of individual civilizations. These and other authors each in their own way highlight the number of living and dead civilizations (from 6 to 20), and put forward their own arguments to justify them. The problem of determining the leading civilization and the prospect of its development into a world civilization has now become relevant in the West.
American sociologist F. Fukuyama formulates this problem as “the end of history.” Liberal democracy (economic and political) and the consumer culture of the population of developed capitalist countries (“golden billion”), in his opinion, complete history. History continues only in countries that have not yet reached the standard of living of the “golden billion”. In contrast to civilizational cyclicality, the idea of ​​ascending development is affirmed here - the formation of a world civilization based on the living standards of developed capitalist countries.
F. Fukuyama describes the essence of this “post-historical” civilization as follows: “...economic calculation, endless technical problems, concern for the environment and satisfying the sophisticated needs of the consumer”14. But is ecology compatible with the limitless growth of material, especially prestigious, needs? I think not. Even the approach of the “golden billion” population of developing countries to the “consumer culture” will cause such anthropogenic pressure on the natural environment that will lead to the death of the modern biosphere with all the ensuing negative consequences for humans. We should not be talking about the spontaneous growth of sophisticated consumer demands, but about the conscious formation of reasonable needs associated with the biosphere capabilities of the Earth. Civilizational stages, as it is presented by F. Fukuyama, is the road to a dead end that is disastrous for civilization. Civilizational development cannot be separated from formational transformations.
Unlike the formational theory, civilizational theory, in relation to each historical stage it identifies, deals with not one, but several reasons. Therefore, the civilizational approach to the historical process is comprehensive. Representing a collective concept, it denotes a number of interconnected and at the same time relatively independent civilizational paradigms. This explains the semantic ambiguity of the very concept of “civilization.”
It seems possible to distinguish four civilizational paradigms: general historical, philosophical and anthropological, sociocultural and technological.
1. general historical paradigm. Civilization is a special type of a separate, specific society (society) or their community. In accordance with the etymology of the term, the signs of civilization are statehood, civil status (the rule of law, state-legal regulation of social relations), and urban-type settlements. In the history of social thought, civilization is contrasted with savagery and barbarism. The historical foundation of civilization is inseparable from the producing (as opposed to gathering and hunting) economy, the spread of agriculture, crafts, trade, writing, the separation of mental labor from physical labor, the emergence of private property and classes, the formation of hierarchical (vertical) and partnership (horizontal) connections, etc. .
Characterizing civilization as a stage of social development, K. Marx and F. Engels also paid attention to the “barbarism of civilization” or, one might say, “civilized barbarism”. It finds its expression in wars of conquest, armed suppression of popular protest, terrorism and other forms of organized violence, including the destruction of civilians, and the implementation of a policy of genocide.
According to its spatio-temporal coordinates, civilization (human civilization) covers, firstly, local civilizations, the geopolitical center of which is represented either by a society, regardless of its formational type (Russian civilization, Chinese civilization, etc.), or by a regional community of such societies (European civilization, Arab civilization, etc.) and, secondly, world civilization, the formation of which is still in its infancy. In the specialized literature, local civilizations are also defined depending on the formational type of the societies representing them (ancient, bourgeois, etc. civilizations). There are also positions that identify civilization only with the emergence and development of capitalism. The general historical paradigm of civilization accepts the installation of a specific historical analysis. Some researchers do not see any difference at all between universal history (including primitive society) and the history of civilization.
2. Philosophical-anthropological paradigm. The philosophical and anthropological paradigm forms the core of the civilizational approach. It allows us to most clearly present the fundamental difference between formational and civilizational studies of historical reality. The formational approach is based on a cognitive model of reducing the individual to the social, because this is the only way to understand the historical type of a particular society. A special feature of the formational approach is the study of social structures and their subordination in the system of society. The civilizational approach is based on the opposite model - the reduction of the social to the individual, the expression of which becomes human sociality. Civilization itself reveals itself here as the vital activity of society, depending on the state of this sociality. Therefore, the requirement of the civilizational approach is an orientation toward the study of man and the human world. Thus, during the transition of Western European countries from a feudal system to a capitalist one, the formational approach focuses attention on changes in property relations, the development of manufacture and wage labor. The civilizational approach interprets the transition under consideration as a revival on a new basis of the ideas of ancient anthropology and cyclicality. It was precisely this mindset of European social science that later brought to life the very concept of civilization and the associated concepts of enlightenment, humanism, civil society, etc.
The philosophical and anthropological paradigm was brought to the forefront by K. Marx during the formation of the civilizational triad. The considerations he expressed can be represented in the form of the development and change of three historical stages of human sociality. The first step is personal dependence. The second stage is personal independence based on material dependence. The third stage is the universal development of man, free individuality.
In the formational aspect, the first stage of civilization in Western European history covers antiquity and feudalism, the second - capitalism, the third - in the Marxist understanding, future communism. However, the essence of the problem is not limited to the discrepancy between the historical boundaries of the first stage of the formational and civilizational triads. Something else is more significant. The formational triad emphasizes the discontinuity of the historical process, expressed primarily in a radical transformation of the system of social relations, while the civilizational triad emphasizes continuity. The societies it represents can go through a number of formational and civilizational stages. Hence the continuity in the development of civilization, especially sociocultural values, of previous historical eras. Russian civilization, for example, has a history of more than a thousand years in this regard, going back to pagan times.
3. Sociocultural paradigm. The concept of civilization is often presented as a synonym for the concept of culture, a general typology of culture, or is concretized through the concept of urban culture, its objective forms (division of labor) and structural formations. Such an interpretation of the connection between civilization and culture has both its grounds (sociocultural continuity) and its limitations. Civilization, in particular, does not relate to culture as a whole, but to its decline or rise. For O. Spengler, civilization is the most extreme and most artificial state of culture. It carries a negative stamp, “as an organic-logical consequence, as the completion and outcome of culture.” One of the founders of the historical school of the Annales, F. Braudel, on the contrary, believes that “culture is a civilization that has not reached its maturity, its social optimum and has not ensured its growth.”
Etymologically, the word “culture” means cultivation, processing. Therefore, “culture” is always opposed to “nature”, identified with an artificial, man-made “second nature”. Hence the activity concept of culture, which is receiving increasing recognition from specialists in our time. Culture is defined here in the form of a specifically human way of activity, a way of mastering reality, combining the actual potential of material and spiritual creativity. From the standpoint of the activity concept of culture, we can say that civilization is subordinate to culture, but this is not the same thing.
Civilization, as already noted, is a special type of society or their community, while culture, in relation to the historical process, represents all types of society, including primitive ones. In this regard, the definition of civilization proposed by the American sociologist S. Huntington deserves attention. Summarizing his statements, we can state the following: civilization, from the moment of its emergence, is the broadest historical community of cultural identity of people. There are other narrower dividing lines of civilization and culture.
Culture is the internal state of a person, civilization is an external behavioral state. Therefore, the values ​​of civilization do not always correspond to the values ​​of culture, the extreme expression of which is “civilizational barbarism.” It is impossible not to see that in a class-divided society, even in conditions of aggravation of its social contradictions, civilization is united, although the fruits of civilization are not available to everyone. Culture in such a society is always a divided culture. At least we can talk about folk culture and elite culture, about subcultures, etc.
4. Technological paradigm. The method of formation and development of civilization is social (as opposed to naturally occurring) technologies of production and reproduction of immediate life. Technology is often understood in a narrow, purely technical sense. However, there is another, broader and deeper understanding of this phenomenon. At one time, K. Marx wrote: “Technology reveals man’s active relationship to nature, the direct process of production of his life, and at the same time his social conditions of life and the spiritual ideas arising from them.” It is not known whether A. Toynbee knew these words. However, a hundred years later, translating the Greek word “technology” as “a bag of tools,” he draws attention to the fact that among them there are not only material, but also spiritual tools, including a worldview.
So, along with material principles, social technologies include in their structure spiritual principles - a person’s awareness of imaginary or real connections between phenomena. The fundamental stages of development of the spiritual principles of social technologies are associated with the stages of the civilizational triad. Their generalized characteristic is the level of practical-spiritual mastery of the world or, in other words, movement along the path of elevating human freedom to real freedom, where the free development of everyone is a condition for the free development of all.
Social technologies include in their process all means of material and spiritual production, including: language and other sign systems, social and technical norms enshrined in traditions, customs, state legal codes, technical documentation, lawmaking, law and order, etc. Civilization is presented in this regard as a technical and technological relationship between people and their technical and technological relationship to nature.
In relation to the historical process as a whole, the civilizational technological paradigm deals with the development of the human-technology system. It directly affects not only the labor functions of a person (manual technology, machine technology, self-controlled machine technology), but also the characteristics of the process of human socialization - changes in his outlook, skills, experience, knowledge and misconceptions, social environment, life orientations and attitudes, social positions and many other things that transform a person into a social individual. Therefore, the human-technical system, strictly speaking, is socio-technological. Following the American sociologist D. Bell, the milestones of its development can be defined as pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial society.
The development of the human-technology system, which, as we see, correlates with the civilizational triad, is a complex and contradictory process, which does not exclude a phase of backward movement. The spiritual world of the pre-industrial worker (craftsman and peasant) is incomparably higher and richer than the spiritual world of the partial worker, who has actually been transformed into an appendage of a machine. However, the part-time worker is not the pinnacle of industrial society, but only its initial link.
The technological use of the achievements of science and technology has created a new situation in our time. A tendency towards the intellectualization of physical labor has emerged. Moreover, the modern working class represents not only manual workers, but also mental workers directly included in the technological cycle - programmers, operators, technologists, etc. The latest post-industrial technologies are being formed.
Whatever words are used to denote post-industrial development, one thing is clear: Karl Marx’s idea of ​​the transition from the “realm of necessity” to the “realm of freedom”, which completes the prehistory of mankind, retains its predictive value. We can only hope that human intelligence, work and the responsibility of politicians will prevent the impending ecological catastrophe of the Earth’s biosphere, will do everything to create conditions for sustainable (self-sufficient) development of all regions of the planet, and preserve the future of human civilization.
The formational approach represents the logic of the historical process, its essential features (social mode of production, system of social relations, social structure, including classes and class struggle, etc.), the civilizational approach represents the whole variety of forms of manifestation of these essential features in individual, specific societies ( societies) and their communities. But K. Marx discovered not only formational, but also civilizational triads. Accordingly, the formational approach can be defined as a substantial one. It is associated with finding a single basis for social life and identifying stages (formations) of the historical process depending on this basis and its modification. Civilization - as complex. We are talking here not about one, but about several basics. The concept of a civilizational approach is a collective concept. It denotes a number of interconnected paradigms, i.e. conceptual settings of the study. The author identifies general historical, philosophical-anthropological, sociocultural and technological paradigms of the civilizational approach.
The formation triad was formulated by K. Marx in the form: primary formation (common property), secondary formation (private property) and tertiary formation (public property) - what K. Marx called communist society. The answer to the question of why the primary and tertiary formations are defined as social formations, and the secondary formation as an economic social formation, is substantiated. A hypothesis has been put forward about the archaic syncretism (non-division) of social relations that constitute the social form of the method of production of the primary formation, in the conditions of which economic relations were manifested through consanguineous ties. An assumption has also been made about the sociocultural syncretism of the tertiary social formation.
The relationship between the formational triad (three large formations) and the progressive eras (small formations - formations in the narrow sense) of the economic social formation has been clarified. It can be argued that small social formations were identified by K. Marx mainly on Western European historical material. Therefore, the ancient and feudal stages of development cannot simply be transferred to the history of the East. Already in Russia, features have emerged that do not correspond to the Western European model of development. What K. Marx called the Asian mode of production is a collective concept. Indeed, the Asian mode of production (Crito-Mycenaean society) predates antiquity. But later it existed in parallel with antiquity and feudalism. This development cannot be adjusted to the Western European scheme. At least the Ancient and Medieval East are not the same thing. The rapprochement of the western and eastern branches of the historical process emerged as a result of the predatory expansion of the West, which marked the beginning of the formation of the world market. It continues in our time.
The civilizational triad represents the stage-by-stage development of human sociality. The clarification of its essential characteristics is associated with the cognitive model of reducing the social to the individual. Civilization stages are 1) personal dependence; 2) personal independence in the presence of proprietary dependence; 3) free individuality, universal human development. Civilizational development acts as a movement towards real freedom, where the free development of everyone is a condition for the free development of all. Formational and civilizational approaches are not mutually exclusive, but complement each other. In this regard, the prospects for Russia's development should be guided not only by the formational, but also by the civilizational features of Russian history.

Today, the idea has already matured that we are at a turning point, the immediate approaches to entering a new historical dimension. One after another, ominous diagnoses are made that the world is on one of the last stages of spiritual poverty and degradation, that unprecedentedly brutal wars, destructive to the earth, hurricanes, earthquakes are about to fall on people’s heads, that at least 90% of earthlings will be incinerated, destroyed, etc., etc. Only adherents of the “teachings” that declare themselves to be the only true ones will be saved.

Rational thinkers, scientists and sociologists believe that the coming century brings with it the contradictory possibilities of both rise and decline. They insist that we are entering a multidimensional world and a new, as yet unknown, model of world civilization is emerging.

In this regard, there is an urgent need to consider civilizational concepts of social development.

Object of study: concepts of civilizational development of society.

Purpose of the work: to identify the essence of the civilizational approach to the consideration of society. The goal is realized in the following tasks:

1. identify the essence of the civilizational approach;

2. characterize the essence of A. Toynbee’s concept of civilizational development of society;

3. characterize the essence of O. Spengler’s concept of civilizational development of society;

4. consider sociological theories of the development of modern civilization.

The essence of the civilizational approach

Modern ideas about civilization are considered by researchers as something unified, located outside the framework of social systems. This is connected with the idea of ​​integrity, the unity of the world. The category of civilization covers the nature and level of development of material and spiritual culture, the results of humanity’s activities to create a “second nature,” the introduction of elements of a noospheric nature into the existing existence of modern humanity (1, p. 156).

Civilization is the totality of material and spiritual achievements of society. The category “civilization” is used in a wide range of sciences and is therefore used at various levels of abstraction:

1) in a general philosophical sense - as a social form of movement of matter;

2) as a general socio-philosophical characteristic of the world-historical process and qualitatively defined stages of its development;

3) as a cultural-historical type that characterizes regional-traditional features of the development of society;

4) as a designation of civilized societies that preserve their vital integrity for a long time (Mayans, Sumerians, Incas, Etruscans).

So, the main idea in the content of the category “civilization” comes down to the diversity of the historical process, which goes from local societies, regional stages to the planetary level.

The concept of civilizational development of society by A. Toynbee

A. Toynbee paid much attention to this problem. In A. Toynbee, the history of human society is not described by a straight line of progress, but appears as a series of civilizations, each of which arises, develops, and then degrades and dies (10, p. 258).

A. Toynbee considers civilizations as the “bricks” from which the building of human history is built. By civilization he understands a stable community of people, united primarily by spiritual traditions, as well as geographical boundaries. Spiritual traditions are, first of all, religious traditions that prevail in a given society. World history appears as a set of civilizations: Sumerian, Babylonian, Minoan, Hellenic and Orthodox Christian, Hindu, Islamic, etc. According to the author’s classification, in the history of mankind there have been about three dozen local (i.e., not beyond certain limits) civilizations . The theoretical construction of A. Toynbee is based on two hypotheses.

1. There is no single process of development of human history; only specific local civilizations evolve.

2. There is no strict relationship between civilizations. Only the components of civilization itself are strictly interconnected.

The structure of local civilization is determined by the author through the “challenge-response” system. A. Toynbee believed that civilization develops in response to a “challenge,” which is the force that forces civilization to change (progress or regress). In fact, a “challenge” is a stimulus for a subsequent specific action, i.e., in A. Toynbee’s terminology, a “response”, regardless of whether this “response” follows or not. The “challenge” is historical, that is, it changes over time, develops in its essence and can be based on specific natural and social disasters. The divine essence of the “challenge,” according to the author, is realized through the action of a variety of natural and social factors, among which he names harsh environmental conditions that play a significant role in the life of specific countries, or an unfavorable economic situation or unexpected aggression from the outside (10, p. 276).

“Response” characterizes people’s spiritual responses to a “challenge.” These reactions can be both creative - in the era of the heyday of civilization, and non-creative - in the period of its decline. The true “answer” is creative and acts as a driving force that promotes further growth within the boundaries of a given local civilization. At the same time, he can take various forms, although he always appears as a person who produces the “answer”. According to the author’s views, the success of responses to challenges is determined by the actions of the “creative minority.” Then it carries with it the “inert majority” of society. In the concept (11, p. 48) of A. Toynbee, these concepts carry a very significant semantic load: the “creative minority” appears here as a minority of geniuses, an association of creative, God-chosen individuals. The “creative minority” governs using intelligence rather than force, attempting to channel knowledge for the benefit of all citizens and society as a whole. This community of people is the carrier and at the same time the “emitter” of creativity into all other layers of society - classes and groups, which the author calls the “inert majority”. The “creative minority”, therefore, carries along the “inert majority”. It is not only power that allows the creative minority to attract the latter, but also the moral authority that they have in society.

A. Toynbee's ideas about the structure of local civilization fit organically into the context of his system of spiritual traditions prevailing in a given society. Religion was that form of human consciousness that made it possible for man and society as a whole to comprehend the existence of God. The call-response system is a social manifestation of the interaction between the divine and the human. In A. Toynbee, the religious tradition helps explain the nature and functioning of both challenges and responses in the structure of civilizations (10, p. 56).

Discussing the problem of the origin of human history, the English scientist is true to himself, arguing that the emergence of civilization is the first global response of humanity to the divine challenge. “In order to develop, civilization requires incentives from challenge, which can either be satisfied or not. Such challenges can be social or natural: the incentives of new lands, struggle, oppression and punishment,” the scientist writes. At the same time, both at the emergence of civilization and during the period of its development, the challenge must be optimal. Otherwise, a weak challenge will not evoke the necessary power of response, and its excessive force, on the contrary, can nip the development of society in the very bud.

A. Toynbee builds his analysis of the development of society based on the idea of ​​cyclical development. The cycle denotes a consistent transition from the stage of genesis, as the period of the birth of civilization, to the stage of growth, followed by breakdown and then disintegration. A. Toynbee’s designation of the phases of the “full life cycle” of a local civilization is filled with specific content. Thus, the growth phase is a period of progressive development of civilization. The breakdown characterizes the space-time interval within the boundaries of which the decline of civilization begins. The cycle is crowned by the disintegration phase - the period of decomposition of civilization, ending with its death.

In A. Toynbee’s main work, the twelve-volume “Study of History,” a special part is devoted to each of the four phases of the cycle. The consistent transition from one stage of the evolution of a local type civilization to another represents the process of functioning of the latter.

Within the cycle, not only the emergence, but also the growth of a nascent civilization, according to A. Toynbee, is possible only with the formation of a kind of chain reaction in the “challenge-response” structure: the primary (at the moment of the emergence of civilization) response of society should not only be optimal, but also and “provoking” the next challenge, to which a successful response will again be received, and so on increasing... These structural changes in the functional (i.e. dynamic) plan, from the position of A. Toynbee, appear as changes from complexity to simplicity, manifested at the level of biology as the progress of movement from the inanimate to the living, at the philosophical level - from the Macrocosmos - (external environment) to the Microcosmos (internal environment), and in religious terms as an appeal from the Earthly to the Heavenly (10, p. 58). The period of growth of civilization is quickly replaced by a breakdown, the reasons for which lie in the complexity of the interaction between the creative minority and the inert masses. At the stage of civilization growth, the “non-creative majority” obediently imitates the actions of creative leaders. At the same time, the latter are not able to maintain the leadership bar indefinitely, which is facilitated by the following reasons.

1. The creative minority begins to imitate the reproductive (i.e., mechanically repeating) actions of the majority, since creativity is very often followed by “resting on one’s laurels.”

2. As a result of mass pressure, the creative minority replaces management methods with violence (including the use of military force) and authoritarianism.

“Russian civilization,” from the scientist’s point of view, experienced its “breakdown” at the end of the 11th century, i.e., during the period of the beginning of the feudal fragmentation of Kievan Rus. All subsequent significant events in Russian history, including the post-October era, are attributed by A. Toynbee to the period after the breakdown of Russian civilization.

In addition to its relative independence in the full life cycle of the functioning of a local civilization, a breakdown is a prerequisite for its “disintegration.” The disintegration of civilization, according to A. Toynbee, leads to the death of the latter.

As the main characteristic of the disintegration stage, Arnold Joseph Toynbee considers the split of society into three groups: the dominant minority, the internal proletariat and the external proletariat. Based on the criterion of “state of feelings,” the internal proletariat practically includes representatives of all segments of the population, united by a given local civilization, who feel, for one reason or another, unsettled by life in society. The external proletariat is located outside the boundaries of local civilization and represents the external social environment of each specific civilizational system. Moreover, the activities of each of these groups are carried out thanks to the assistance of specific organizational structures. For the dominant minority, this quality is represented by the “universal state,” understood quite traditionally. At this stage of the evolution of civilization, the internal proletariat creates a “universal religion and church” (this is the most important social structure in A. Toynbee’s theory), and the external proletariat creates “barbaric military gangs” (10, p. 69).

The stage of disintegration is characterized not only by a social split, but also by a deeper “split of the soul” of representatives of a given civilization. In public life, there are four possible ways to escape from the “unbearable reality.” The first is characterized by the desire to return the past, supporters of the second path strive for revolution. The third path focuses on “escape” from reality (in particular, through the means of Buddhism). Each of the identified areas is only a partial solution to the problem of the destructive effects of disintegration. Only “universal religion and church” can save humanity, which has entered a disintegration phase.

So, a civilization that has entered a disintegration phase is doomed. But in this case, humanity has not yet perished. The proposed concept of universal religion and church, according to the author, will allow us to get out of the dead end of civilization to a new, higher spiritual and religious level of human development. Its bearer will no longer be an exhausted ruling minority prone to compromise, but the internal proletariat.

“If I am right in my diagnosis... then the means of salvation must lie in replacing the monotheistic worldview with the worldview of pantheism, which is older in time and was once universal.” Under these conditions, history - according to A. Toynbee - takes on meaning.

The concept of civilizational development of society by O. Spengler

This approach to the history of the development of society was widely used by the German scientist Oswald Spengler (1880 - 1936), whose views were widespread in the West in the first half of the 20th century. Each culture, in his opinion, exists in isolation and in isolation. It appears at a certain stage of the historical process and then dies. Spengler counted eight such cultures: Indian, Chinese, Babylonian, Egyptian, ancient, Arab, Russian and Western European. Any culture experiences the ages of an individual: childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age (5).

Each culture, the German philosopher believes, has its own civilization. “Civilizations are those very extreme and artificial states that a higher species of people is capable of realizing. They are completion, they follow like what has become after becoming, like death after life, like immobility after development, like mental old age and the petrified world city after the village... They are the inevitable end, and yet with inner necessity we always come to them.” . The death of culture, according to Spengler, begins with the emergence of civilization, when all culture is concentrated in large cities, and the rest of the state turns into a province. The city dweller, Spengler believes, is devoid of tradition and dissolves into a shapeless mass. Big cities are civilized, but have no culture (5).

The German thinker noticed some negative features of civilization. Indeed, in cities, especially large ones, people are alienated from each other and feel more alone than anyone in the village. It is also true that centuries-old traditions and customs are less observed in cities. But on this basis one cannot preach pessimism and blame civilization for the death of culture. Culture does not die, but moves into a qualitatively new state, in the formation of which civilizational processes play a significant role. It is impossible to contrast culture and civilization, which do not contradict each other and are associated with the study of different aspects of the diverse history of people and their activities.

15 . Consciousness as a philosophical problem.

Consciousness is one of the traditional eternal philosophical mysteries. Its constant reproduction in the history of culture, philosophy and science testifies not only to the existence of theoretical and methodological difficulties in solving it, but also to the enduring practical interest in the essence of this phenomenon, the mechanism of its development and functioning. In its most general form, “consciousness” is one of the most common philosophical concepts denoting subjective reality associated with the activity of the brain and its products: thoughts, feelings, ideas, prejudices, scientific and extra-scientific knowledge. Without clarifying the place and role of this reality, it is impossible to create either a philosophical or scientific picture of the world. In different historical periods, different ideas about consciousness developed, natural science knowledge accumulated, and the theoretical and methodological foundations of analysis changed. Modern science, using the achievements of scientific and technological revolution, has made significant progress in studying the nature of the substrate basis of consciousness, but at the same time has identified new aspects of conscious human activity that require fundamentally different theoretical and methodological approaches to philosophical analysis.

It is traditionally believed that the merit of a holistic formulation of the problem of consciousness, or rather the problem of the ideal, belongs to Plato. Before Plato, such a problem did not exist. The soul, which was reduced to the fundamental principle of the whole world, was considered the bearer of human thoughts and feelings. Atomists (Democritus) consider the soul as a formation consisting of special round atoms and emptiness, i.e. as a special material formation. Developing Socrates' ideas about the innateness of true knowledge to the soul before its incarnation in the human body, Plato for the first time identifies the ideal as a special essence that does not coincide with and is opposite to the sensory, objective, material world of things. In the allegorical image of prisoners in a cave, Plato explains the independent existence of the world of ideas (the real world), which determines the existence of the world of things as a reflection, a shadow of the primary world. This concept of dividing the world into 2 parts (the world of ideas and the world of things) turned out to be decisive for the entire subsequent philosophical culture of Europe, in contrast to the Eastern tradition.

The following concepts of consciousness have developed in philosophy and retain their significance in modern culture.

An objective-idealistic interpretation of consciousness as a superhuman, transpersonal, ultimately transcendental idea (the world of ideas in Plato; the absolute idea in Hegel; God in theologians; alien intelligence in ufologists), underlying all forms of earthly existence. Human consciousness is a particle, product or other being of the world mind.

Subjective-idealistic systems consider human consciousness as a self-sufficient entity that contains a picture of itself and is the substance of the material world (R. Descartes, J. Berkeley).

Hylozoism (materialized life) states that all matter thinks, consciousness is an attributive property of the entire material world. From the point of view of hylozoism, all matter is animate or, at least, has the prerequisites for thinking. This concept goes back to the early teachings of the Milesian school; its elements are contained in the teachings of Aristotle, J. Bruno, B. Spinoza. The data of modern science on the elements of rational activity of animals, the successes of physiology in diagnosing diseases of the central nervous system, the achievements of cybernetics in the creation of “thinking machines” revive the ideas of hylozoism and psychophysiological parallelism, according to which both the mental and the physiological are two independent entities, the study of which should be carried out through own substantiality.

Vulgar materialism as a reductionist identification of consciousness with material formations in the human brain. Consciousness is purely material in nature, it is the result of the functioning of certain parts or formations of the brain. The denial of the qualitative specificity of consciousness and human thinking has its origins in ancient culture and was especially clearly manifested in ancient atomism, but the materialization of consciousness gained particular popularity at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries in connection with the spread of the idea of ​​Darwinism. Its most prominent representatives K. Vogt, L. Büchner, J. Moleschott, promoting the achievements of science in the mid-19th century, coarsened and simplified the most complex philosophical and psychophysical problem, the problem of the relationship between matter and consciousness. In the 20th century, in connection with the success of solving technical problems in the construction of artificial intelligence, philosophical discussions about the problem “can a machine think?”, and research that discovered a direct relationship between the content side of thinking and the structure of processes occurring in the brain, the ideas of characterizing thinking as attribute of the material substrate.

Sociologization of consciousness. Consciousness is placed in absolute dependence on the external, including social, environment. At the origins of these ideas are J. Locke and his followers, French materialists of the 18th century, who believe that a person is born with a soul, consciousness, like a blank sheet of paper. Criticizing the concept of “innate ideas” of Descartes, they believed that the content of ideas and concepts, with the help of which a person analyzes sensory data about the individual properties of things, shapes society and education. The beginnings of this concept can be found already in Aristotle, who made the formation of human abilities and virtues dependent on the needs of society and the interests of the state - the polis. These ideas deny the individuality of human thinking, the dependence of the abilities of a thinking individual on the structural features and functioning of his central nervous system.

Consciousness is an ideal phenomenon, a function, a special property, a product of a highly organized material substrate - the human brain, thinking matter.

Consciousness is an ideal image, snapshot, copy, reflection of a material object in the subject’s brain.

Consciousness has creative activity, manifested in the relative independence of its functioning and development and the reverse impact on the material world.

Consciousness is a product of socio-historical development; it does not arise outside of society and cannot exist.

Consciousness as an ideal reflection of the material world does not exist without language as the material form of its expression.

To develop an objective picture of the historical process, science needs to rely on certain general principles and methodology. This will make it possible to organize all the material accumulated by researchers and create effective descriptive models. Next, we will consider the formational and civilizational approaches (a table briefly describing them will be given at the end of the article).

General information

For a long period, subjectivist or objective-idealistic methods of studying history were used. From the standpoint of subjectivism, the process was explained by the activity of great people: kings, kings, leaders, emperors and other major political figures. In accordance with this, mistakes or, conversely, smart calculations provoked one or another event. The interrelation of such phenomena ultimately determined the course and result of the historical process. According to the objective-idealistic concept, the decisive role was assigned to the influence of superhuman forces. In particular, we are talking about providence, the will of God and so on. With this interpretation, the historical process acquired a purposeful character. Under the influence of these superhuman forces, society steadily moved towards a predetermined goal. In this case, major figures acted only as an instrument, a means of these impersonal factors.

Periodization

It was determined by the solution to the question of the nature of the driving forces of the process. The most common periodization was by historical eras. In particular, they distinguish Ancient times, Antiquity, the periods of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, as well as New and Contemporary times. In this sequence, the time factor was quite clearly expressed. At the same time, the periodization lacked qualitative substantive criteria for identifying these eras.

New concept

Marx tried to overcome the shortcomings of the methods of studying history and to put the process, like other humanities, on a scientific basis in the mid-19th century. He formulated a new concept of materialistic description and explanation. It was based on 4 main principles:

• The unity of humanity and, as a consequence, the historical process.
• Patterns. In this matter, Marx was based on the recognition of the influence in the process of stable, general, repeated, significant connections, as well as human relations and the results of human activities.
• Determinism. This principle presupposes the recognition of the existence of dependencies and relationships of a cause-and-effect nature. According to Marx, from the whole variety of phenomena it is necessary to single out the defining, fundamental ones. He considered one of the basic methods of producing various material goods.
• Progress. Marx believed that historical development represents the progressive improvement of society, which rises to a higher level.

Materialistic Explanation: Description

Its basis is a formational approach to history. Marx, in his reasoning, proceeded from the fact that with the progressive, natural development of humanity as a single whole, it all needs to go through certain stages. Thus, the key position in describing and explaining the driving factors of the process and periodization is occupied by the socio-economic formation. Actually, it represents the stages that Marx defined. In accordance with the thinker’s definition, a socio-economic formation is presented in the form of an association of people at a certain level of development. At the same time, society is characterized by peculiar features. The term "formation" was borrowed by Marx from natural science.

Formational approach to history: a framework

As mentioned above, Marx gave a key place to the method of production of various material goods. This or that technique is distinguished by a certain degree and nature of the development of productive forces and corresponding interactions. In the latter, Marx called property relations as the basis. The complex of production relations forms their basis. Legal, political and other interactions and institutions are built on top of it. These, in turn, correspond to forms of social consciousness. These include, in particular, morality, art, religion, science and others. Thus, the socio-economic formation contains all the diversity of human life at different stages of development.

The main stages of human development

According to the formational approach, there are five stages of human progress:

• communist (in which socialism acts as the first phase);
• capitalist;
• feudal;
• slaveholding;
• primitive communal.

Transitions are carried out on the basis of a social revolution. Its economic basis is the deepening conflict between production forces that have reached a new level and a conservative, outdated system of relations. This confrontation manifests itself in the form of increased social antagonism, an intensification of the struggle between the oppressed, demanding an improvement in their lives, and the dominant classes, interested in ensuring the preservation of the existing system.

Result of the revolution

As a result, the conflict leads to a change in the dominant layer. The victorious class begins transformations in various areas of society. As a result, prerequisites are being formed for the formation of a new structure of legal, socio-economic and other relationships, a new consciousness, and so on. As a result, a new formation appears. Based on this, in his theory Marx attached significant importance to revolutions and class confrontation. The struggle was recognized as the main driving force of history. At the same time, the revolution was characterized by Marx as the “locomotive” of progress.

Positive features

The concept described above has been dominant in Russia for the past 80 years. The advantages of the formational approach are that it forms a clear model that explains development, using certain criteria, and makes its driving forces clear. As a result, the process becomes natural, objective, and progressive.

Flaws

However, the formational approach to explanation and cognition also has disadvantages. Both domestic and foreign critics point out its shortcomings. First of all, they say that history with this approach takes on a unilinear character. Marx formulated the theory as a generalization of the European path of development. However, he saw that some states did not fit into it. However, he did not carry out detailed development. He simply classified such countries as the “Asian mode of production.” On its basis, as Marx believed, a new formation is being formed. However, in Europe itself there are states that are not always possible to correlate with such a scheme. In addition, the formational approach is characterized by a strict link between events and the production method, the economic system of relations. The decisive role is given to extrapersonal, objective factors. At the same time, the approach places man as a subject of history on a secondary level. As a result, the personal content of the process is diminished.

Secondly, within the framework of the formational approach, the importance of conflict relations, including violence, is absolutized. The description of the process is carried out mainly through the prism of the struggle between classes. Opponents of this concept, comparing the formational and civilizational approaches, for example, say that social conflicts, being undoubtedly an integral component of the life of society, do not play a leading role in it. This situation, in turn, requires a reassessment of the place of political interactions. The structure of the formational approach contains elements of social utopianism and providentialism. In accordance with the above diagram, the development of the process must inevitably pass through specific stages. Marx and his students spent a lot of effort proving the inevitability of the arrival of the communist era. It assumes that each person contributes his wealth according to his abilities and receives material benefits according to his needs. The utopian nature of this concept is reflected in the last decades of the existence of the socialist system and Soviet power.

Civilizational approach to history

It is to a certain extent opposed to what was described above. A civilizational approach to history began to take shape in the 18th century. But it reached its most complete development only towards the end of the 19th and 20th centuries. The most prominent supporters of this approach include Weber, Spengler, and Toynbee. Among Russian supporters, Sorokin, Leontiev, and Danilevsky stand out. The features that distinguish the formational and civilizational approaches are quite obvious. The philosophy and concepts of these systems are aimed at slightly different areas of people's lives.

Characteristic

Formational and civilizational approaches have structural differences. In particular, the main element of the latter is the cultural level of development of society. The word “civilization” has Latin roots and in translation means state, civil, urban. Initially, this term was used to designate a certain level of social development that occurred in people's life after a period of barbarism and savagery. The distinctive features of civilization are the presence of writing, the formation of cities, statehood, and social stratification.

Advantages

The relationship between formational and civilizational approaches in this sense is unequal. The latter undoubtedly has much more advantages. In particular, the following are worth noting:

1. The ability to apply the principles of a civilizational approach to the historical development of any state or groups of countries. They are focused on understanding the development of society in accordance with the specifics of the regions. Thus, the formational and civilizational approaches differ in the level of their applicability. In this case, the latter can be called universal.
2. Presenting history itself as a multivariate, multilinear process.
3. The presence of certain highlighted criteria. Thanks to them, researchers have the opportunity to assess the level of progress in a particular state, region, or nationality, as well as analyze their contribution to global development.

The civilizational approach presupposes the integrity of human history. At the same time, the systems formed in the process of development can be compared with each other. Thanks to this, it becomes possible to widely apply comparative historical research methods. This, in turn, involves considering the development of a region, a people, a state not as an independent unit, but in comparison with others. Thus, formational and civilizational approaches have different depths of understanding of processes. The latter allows us to more clearly record the features of development.

Finally

The formational and civilizational approaches were described in detail above. The table below briefly illustrates their features.

Formational and civilizational approaches place different systems and values ​​in the leading positions. In the second case, social organization, culture, religion, and political system are of great importance. These elements have a close relationship with each other. Each component reflects the uniqueness of a particular civilization. It should be noted that, despite the changes occurring due to external and internal influences, the base and core remain unchanged. The civilizational approach to the study of human development identifies certain cultural types. They are established communities that occupy a particular area and have features of social and cultural progress that are unique to them.