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).

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, only then reaches fullness, diversity and richness when the ethnographic elements that make it up are diverse - when they, not being absorbed into one political whole, using independence, constitute a federation, or a political system of states; 5) the course of development of cultural-historical types is most similar to those perennial single-fruited plants, in which the period of growth is indefinitely long, but the period of flowering and fruiting is relatively short and depletes their vitality once and for all.

Subsequently, the civilizational approach was filled with new content, but its foundations, formulated by Danilevsky, essentially remained unchanged. In Spengler, this is presented 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 unified 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.

The civilizational approach, unlike the formational one, does not represent a single concept. In particular, modern social science does not even have a single definition of the concept of "civilization". However, despite the fact that the civilizational approach is represented by different scientific schools and directions that use different criteria in determining the essence of civilization, this approach can be generally designated as a concept that integrates all social and non-social components of the historical process in the concept of civilization as a single self-developing system. such as, for example:

• o natural and geographical habitat;
• o the biological nature of man and the psycho-physiological characteristics of ethnic groups;
• o economic and production activities;
• o the social structure of society (castes, plans, estates, classes) and the social interaction arising within it;
• o institutions of power and management;
• o sphere of spiritual production, religious values, worldview (mentality);
• o interaction of local communities, etc.

In its most general form, the civilizational approach acts as an explanatory principle, the logical direction of which is opposite to that which we see in the formational approach. If in the structure of formations, in accordance with the principle of economic determinism, the phenomena of the spiritual order are derived from the economic basis, then in the structure of civilization, on the contrary, the economic characteristics of society can be derived from its spiritual sphere. Moreover, one of the basic foundations of civilization, which predetermines all its other characteristics, as a rule, is considered to be precisely the type of spiritual values ​​and the corresponding type of personality (mentality), which, in turn, are predetermined by the characteristics of a particular natural and geographical environment.

The English historian A. Toynbee (1889-1975) is considered to be the father of the civilizational approach. However, in the 1960s the works of the Arab historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (c. 1332 - c. 1402) became widely known, who came to brilliant conclusions that anticipated the views of the creators of the theory of civilization by a century. So, he argued that civilization is created by the division of labor between town and country, trade, exchange, while the development of society goes through certain historical cycles; the difference in the way of life of people, societies, he connected mainly with the geographical environment of their habitat.

In all the variety of approaches to the definition of the essence and content of the concept of "civilization" used today in science, two main fundamentally different meanings of this concept can be distinguished from each other:

• a) civilization as a stage phenomenon in world history;
• b) civilization as a local (regional) phenomenon relative to humanity as a whole.

If the first approach (stage-civilizational) is based on the recognition of the existence of a global civilization and, accordingly, a single global history for humanity as an object of scientific study, then the second approach (local-civilizational) is associated with the denial of a global civilization and world history based on statements about a self-sufficient and the original nature of the development of closed local civilizations.

It is sometimes believed that the first approach, associated with the study of universal stadial patterns of global history, does not take into account regional differences at all, while the second approach, on the contrary, focuses only on local specifics. Such opposition of two approaches as a purely integrating and differentiating historical process cannot be made absolute. On the one hand, any stages of world history proposed in the framework of the first approach in relation to individual regions can receive a specific implementation, since the chronological framework and historical forms of world historical phenomena will always differ in different countries and peoples. On the other hand, within the framework of the second approach, universal schemes are created that reflect the stage patterns of development common to all civilizations.

Periodization of history based on the stage-civilizational approach

history civilization society

The concept of civilization as a state of society, embodying its highest achievements, appeared in ancient times, when this concept was used to determine the qualitative difference between ancient society and the barbarian environment. Later, during the Enlightenment and in the 19th century, the concept of civilization began to be regarded as the universal highest stage in the historical development of all human societies, according to the three-link periodization of world history, which was established at that time in science, suggesting a successive change of three stages: “savagery”, “barbarism” , "civilization". The concept of the upward movement of society from one stage to another means a progressive increase in its achievements in the field of economy, social self-organization and spiritual culture. In this regard, it is necessary to briefly consider the main content characteristics of these stages, reflecting the economic, social and spiritual evolution of society.

Signs of the stage of "savagery".

• · An appropriating economy based on activities that represent extensive interaction with nature: gathering and hunting.
• · Social self-organization in the form of small autonomous communities (several hundred people), having a blood-kinship basis and a rigid sex-age stratification.
• Spiritual culture, the main and highest forms of expression of which are ritual and early forms of religion (totemism, fetishism, magic, animism), which is due to the dominance of the mythological worldview and the absence of individual consciousness.

Signs of the stage of "barbarism".

• The economic structure of society is characterized by a transition from extensive interaction with nature to intensive, in connection with which appropriating economic activities (gathering and hunting) are combined with elements of an emerging productive economy, which includes agriculture, cattle breeding, crafts and trade. An important feature is that the main source of the formation of material wealth for society is not internal, but external military activities aimed at redistributing the wealth of neighboring regions in their favor (military predatory and military trade expeditions, mercenary activities, control over the transit of international trade and etc.).
• · Social self-organization is characterized by the transition from consanguinity to territorial and political foundations, the formation of large-scale intertribal associations connected by “alliance-tributary” relations and, above all, by a single fixal-mobilization system that provides the combined military power of all its participants. The most developed form of such self-organization in the scientific literature is often called the "barbarian state". The historical feature of such a state is its internal fragility, due to the lack of established mechanisms for the succession of power and a self-sufficient diversified manufacturing economy.
• · Spiritual culture is characterized by the emergence of patriarchal family cults of the ancestor, the cult of leaders, the cult of tribal gods and the formation of polytheism (paganism) on this basis, the appearance of pictorial writing (pictography).

Signs of the stage of civilization.

• o A developed economic system that ensures intensive interaction of society with the natural environment and means the folding of a branched social division of labor in a certain vast territory in the form of separation into independent specialized types of economic activity of agriculture, cattle breeding, handicraft production, trade.
• o A stable institution of the state, which significantly increases the efficiency of social self-organization, primarily due to fiscal and mobilization mechanisms that allow accumulating material and human resources over a vast territory and directing them towards solving problems that are historically significant on the scale of the entire population of this territory.
• o Spiritual culture based on a developed written tradition, calendar chronology and individual consciousness. A significant role in the establishment of civilization is played by the emergence of a monotheistic religion based on the idea of ​​a single “creator god” who created everything that exists, animate and inanimate, and as such appeals to an individual with a “sacred text”, which establishes how he should use his own life. and the surrounding world.
• o City as a new type of settlement, performing the functions of the center of the economic, political and cultural life of society. For example, in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, a city was, first of all, a center of handicraft production and economic exchange (trade), a center of state power (a place for storing the treasury, placing a military garrison and a prison), a center for the reproduction and preservation of spiritual culture (education system, library ).

In the second half of the 20th century, the above three-link periodization of world history was further developed. In modern social science, it is presented in more detail in the following form:

• a) the pre-civilization period, which includes the stages of "savagery" and "barbarism" already discussed above;
• b) the period of civilization, in which agrarian, industrial and post-industrial stages are distinguished, or agrarian, industrial and post-industrial civilizations.

In order to better understand the logic of historical changes associated with the progressive movement of society from one civilizational stage to another, it is necessary to briefly consider their content.

Signs of an agrarian civilization:

• o the creation by society of the main wealth in the field of agricultural production (agriculture, cattle breeding), which covers the majority of the population;
• o the use in handicraft production of simple tools and technologies based on manual labor;
• o the predominance of natural forms of economy;
• o empirical knowledge, the dominance of myths and religions;
• o preservation of the dominance of the collectivist consciousness and the class and patriarchal social self-organization associated with it.

Signs of an industrial civilization:

• o the creation by society of the main share of wealth in the sphere of industrial production, where the bulk of the population is concentrated;
• o use in industrial production of machine technology and factory organization of labor;
• o the transformation of mass market production into the basis of economic life;
• o rational perception of the world and the application of scientific knowledge, the central role of scientific and technical activities;
• o the transition from a collectivist to an individualized consciousness, a tendency to erase hereditary social differences, traditional class privileges and establish equal civil rights and universal equality before the law.

Signs of post-industrial civilization:

• o the emergence of fundamentally new technologies - nuclear, information, space; the transformation of the production and use of scientific, technical and other types of information into the main factor in social development;
• o replacement of mass standardized production with a system of individual production, which is based on mental labor based on information and super technologies;
• o a new value system focused on decentralization, independence, diversity, individualism.

Within the framework of the civilizational approach, there is no single concept of transitions from one stage of civilizations to another. However, some concepts have been developed in science regarding historically transitional epochs. Thus, historians associate the formation of the prerequisites for the transition from the pre-civilization period to the period of civilization with the concept of the Neolithic revolution, which became the largest technological breakthrough of mankind, predetermining all its subsequent development.

Conceptually, the most developed is the transition from an agrarian civilization to an industrial one, which is commonly referred to as the term "modernization". The historical process of this transition involves interdependent changes in the economic, political and spiritual structure of society:

• · the transition from manufacturing to the industrial industry and the associated redistribution of the bulk of labor resources from the agricultural sector to the industrial sector in the course of urbanization, the growth of literacy of the population;
• · the development of civil society, stimulating public and private initiatives in the economic, political and spiritual spheres;
• · building a rule of law state and institutions of parliamentary democracy that promote decision-making based on the participation of the population - political parties, parliament, suffrage by secret ballot;
• · provision of political, economic and legal conditions for entrepreneurial activity, first of all, observance of the principles of private ownership of the means of production, market competition and freedom of decision-making by economic entities;
• · secularization of public consciousness due to the formation of the social ideal of an autonomous person and the ideology of nationalism.

The maturation of the historical prerequisites for the transition to the post-industrial stage of civilization is associated by social scientists with the concept of scientific and technological revolution.

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 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, with 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 pride itself on representing the highest point of development in comparison with 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 earlier 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 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 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 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 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, that is, 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 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 being, 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, etc. 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, variety. 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.

The civilizational approach to the study of history is one of the methods that scientific minds resort to in order to clarify important questions about the course of events in the historical process of various eras. This method was greatly influenced by the works of such historians as A. Toynbee, K. Jaspers, N.Ya. Danilevsky and many others.

Studying the course of historical events on a global scale makes it possible to trace and understand how diverse this process is, and how many options for the formation of society, which differ not only in advantages, but also in shortcomings.

The civilizational approach exists along with the formational approach, the main difference of which is that the basis of its study is socio-economic relations that are independent of the will of man. They exist due to objective circumstances. Civilization puts a person at the head of all ongoing processes, taking into account his norms of behavior, aesthetic and ethical views.

The concept of "civilization" appears in ancient times, but in the XVIII century it thoroughly became part of the historical vocabulary. Since that time, it has been actively used by representatives of science. In addition, the emergence of various theories of civilizations is also characteristic. I would like to note that the concept of "civilization" in ancient times was opposed to another Latin concept, meaning "savagery". Already in those distant times, people saw the difference between barbaric and civilized society and life in general.

Returning to the theories, the two main ones are stadial and local. In accordance with the first, civilization is a process of development in certain stages. Its initial moment can be considered the moment of the collapse of primitive society, as a result of which humanity passed into the stage of the civilized world. Such civilizations can be classified as primary, since they did not have the opportunity to use the civilizational traditions that developed at a later time. They created them on their own, giving fruits to subsequent formations. The local-civilizational approach studies the historical aspects of the emergence of a community in a certain territory, which is characterized by its own socio-economic, cultural, and political characteristics. Civilizations of a local nature can exist both within the framework of a certain state, and when several states are united.

Civilization of a local type is a system that consists of various interrelated components: political structure, economic situation, geographical location, religion, and many others. All these components perfectly reflect the uniqueness of a particular civilization.

The civilizational approach, as well as the stage approach, helps to look at the historical course of events from a different angle. The stage approach is characterized by considering the development of mankind in accordance with uniform and general laws. based on the individuality and diversity of historical processes. Therefore, it is very difficult to say which theory is better or worse. Both of them have the right to exist, as they are complementary to each other, having their own advantages. Figures of historical sciences have repeatedly attempted to combine both methods of study, but so far this has not happened, and a common system has not been developed that would combine both theories.

Summing up, it should be noted that the civilizational approach helps to understand the main patterns and directions of the formation and development of world civilization, the originality of individual civilizations, and also makes it possible to compare the development processes of various civilizations.

FEDERAL STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

« KALININGRAD STATE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY»

Abstract on the discipline ""

Topic: "Formational and civilizational approaches to history"

1. Formations or civilizations? ................................................. .................................

2. On the formational approach to history.................................................. ……………………….

3. On the essence of the civilizational approach to history.................................................... ......

4. On the correlation of formational and civilizational approaches to history ………..

5. About possible ways of modernization of the formational approach ………………………………

Formations or civilizations?

The experience accumulated by mankind of the spiritual assimilation of history, with all the difference in worldview and methodological positions, reveals some common features.

First, history is viewed as a process that unfolds in real space and time. It happens for certain reasons. These causes, wherever they are found (on earth or in heaven), are factors that determine the movement of history and its direction.

Secondly, already at the early stages of understanding the paths and destinies of various countries and peoples, civilizations and specific national societies, problems arise related to one or another understanding of the unity of the historical process, the uniqueness and originality of each people, each civilization. For some thinkers, the history of mankind has an internal unity, for others it is problematic.

Thirdly, in many teachings, history has an explicit or hidden teleological (goal-setting) character. In religion, this is chiliastic eschatology (the doctrine of the end of earthly history), in materialistic philosophy - a certain automatism of the laws of social development, with the immutability of fate leading humanity to a brighter future or, on the contrary, to a world cataclysm.

Fourthly, the desire to penetrate into the nature of the movement of history. Here, too, a kind of dichotomy arose - linear or cyclic movement.

Fifth, history is comprehended as a process that has its own stages (stages, etc.) of development. Some thinkers start from the analogy with a living organism (childhood, adolescence, etc.), while others take as a basis for distinguishing the stages of the features of development of any elements or aspects of people's existence (religion, culture, or, conversely, tools, property, etc.). P.).

Finally, history has always been comprehended under the strong influence of sociocultural factors. The national-state, social-class and cultural-civilizational orientation of thinkers usually played a paramount role. As a rule, the universal beginning appeared in a specific (national, etc.) form. The personal characteristics of thinkers cannot be discounted. In general, two methodological approaches have been identified today. One is monistic, the other is civilizational or pluralistic. Within the framework of the first, two concepts are distinguished - Marxist and the theory of post-industrial society. The Marxist concept is associated with the recognition of the mode of production as the main determinant of social development and the allocation on this basis of certain stages or formations (hence its other name - formational); the concept of a post-industrial society puts forward the technical factor as the main determinant and distinguishes three types of societies in history: traditional, industrial, post-industrial (information and eoch.) society.

On the basis of the civilizational approach, many concepts are distinguished, built on different grounds, which is why it is called pluralistic. The root idea of ​​the first approach is the unity of human history and its progress in the form of staged development. The root idea of ​​the second is the denial of the unity of the history of mankind and its progressive development. According to the logic of this approach, there are many historical formations (civilizations) that are weakly or not at all connected with each other. All these formations are equal. The history of each of them is unique, as unique as they are.

But it is not superfluous to give a more detailed scheme of the main approaches: religious (theological), natural science (in Marxist literature it is often called naturalistic), cultural-historical, socio-economic (formational), technical-technological (technical, technical- deterministic). In the religious picture of the historical process, the idea of ​​the creation of the world by God is taken as the starting point. Within the framework of the natural-scientific approach, any natural factor (geographical environment, population, biosphere, etc.) acts as the starting point for the study of human history. The cultural-historical approach most often appears in the form of a civilizational approach in the narrow sense of the word. Here, culture comes to the fore (in general or in some specific forms).

The listed approaches to history differ significantly in their place and role in social cognition, in their influence on social practice. The highest claim to the revolutionary change of the world shows the Marxist doctrine (formational approach). This predetermined broad opposition to it from other approaches and resulted in a kind of dichotomy - Marxist monism or Western pluralism in understanding history. Today, this dichotomy among Russian scientists (philosophers, historians, etc.) has acquired the form of a formation or civilization and, accordingly, a formational or civilizational approach.

About the formational approach to history

Marx's doctrine of society in its historical development is called the "materialistic understanding of history." The main concepts of this doctrine are social being and social consciousness, the method of material production, the basis and superstructure, the socio-economic formation, the social revolution. Society is an integral system, all elements of which are interconnected and are in a strict hierarchy. The basis of social life or the foundation of society is the mode of production of material life. It determines "the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness"2. In the structure of the mode of production, the productive forces and, above all, the instruments of labor (technology) are of primary importance. Their influence on other spheres of public life (politics, law, morality, etc.) is mediated by production relations, the totality of which constitutes "the economic structure of society, the real basis on which the legal and political superstructure rises and to which certain forms of social consciousness correspond"3 . In turn, the superstructure (politics, law, etc.) has a reverse active influence on the basis. The contradictions between the productive forces and production relations are the main source of development, sooner or later they cause special conditions in the life of society, which take the form of a social revolution. The history of mankind is natural, i.e. the process of changing socio-economic formations, independent of people's consciousness. It moves from simple, lower forms to more and more developed, complex, meaningful forms. “In general terms, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern, bourgeois, modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs of economic formation. Bourgeois production relations are the last antagonistic form of the social production process. Therefore, the prehistory of human society ends with the bourgeois social formation”1.

Particular attention should be paid to the concept of formation. In Marx, it denotes a logically generalized type (form) of the organization of the socio-economic life of society and is formed on the basis of the identification of common features and characteristics in various concrete historical societies, primarily in the mode of production. In other words, it is a historically defined type of society, representing a special stage in its development ("... a society that is at a certain stage of historical development, a society with a peculiar distinctive character"2. Thus, capitalism is a machine industry, private ownership of the means production, commodity production, market.A formation, therefore, cannot be understood as some kind of empirical society (English, French, etc.) or some kind of aggregate geopolitical community (West, East).Formation in this sense is highly idealized, abstract-logical object.At the same time, the formation is also a reality that acts as a common thing in the socio-economic organization of the life of various specific societies. Thus, modern society is, in the view of Marx, "a capitalist society that exists in all civilized countries, more or less free from the admixture of the Middle Ages , more or less modified by the peculiarities of historical times development of each country, more or less developed"3.

Marx, in general, remained within the framework of the global ideas of his time about history (how they develop, for example, in the philosophy of Hegel: world history is characterized by direct unity, general laws operate in it, it has a certain direction of development, etc.). It is clear that he rethought these ideas on a different methodological (materialistic in this case) basis, but in general, we repeat, he was and remained the son of his age. And, of course, he could not resist the temptation of global foresight: the communist formation will follow the capitalist formation (socialism is only its initial stage). Communism is thus the highest goal of history, the golden age of mankind. It makes sense to distinguish between Marxism as a scientific theory addressed to the scientific community (community of scientists, specialists) and Marxism as an ideological doctrine designed for the masses, to win their minds and hearts; a doctrine in which, unlike theory, faith occupies a large proportion. In the first case, Marx appears as a scientist, in the second as a passionate ideologue, a preacher.