Social science
The archetype is a form of the unconscious which is repeated many times in history. Since ontogenesis repeats phylogenesis, a higher organization includes immanently the whole previous hierarchy of archetypes of the former stages of social development.
Among main questions of sociology, P. Sztompka picks out the search for answers to the question what is a society and how it changes. H. Spencer named the idea of development as a key in scientific analysis.
Organic development is the transition from the state of homogeneity to the state of heterogeneity (involution/evolution). The law of development spreads not only on all material phenomena, but on psychological ones. Mental progress is the evidence for social progress. Organic progress consists in the gradual transition from homogeneous to inhomogeneous.
Therefore, one of the most important sociological principles is the principle of historism. Indeed, in order to comprehend any contemporary phenomenon, it is necessary to return to its sources, to analyse the processes stimulating his development. So, the sociology of history helps to more deeply
comprehend the theoretical regularities of social development.
Idea of universal epochal cycle. The French philosopher S. Moscovici emphasizes that “many unfavourable events have sources in a deformed vision of social phenomena and those forms of practice which are conditioned by them”.
Therefore, a certain correction of the theoretical vision formed under conditions of an industrial society will give a possibility for the realization of a more adequate and efficient social practice by contemporaries of a post-industrial society.
So, public processes can be explained by social and psychological reasons. The important characteristic of social changes is the historical time. To social events, the rhythmic or chaotic change of intervals between them is intrinsic. Time reflects a rhythm of collective actions and, at the same time, is a regulator of the named actions.
Thus, P. Sztompka determined social time as “events in time” and “time in events”. Social time carries out important functions: synchronization, coordination, succession, timeliness, measuring, and ifferentiation. Time is relative in the historical and cultural sense. Workweek and calendar have socio-contractual character. Every society possesses immanently the own time configuration.
Because the man’s life is, in fact, a cyclic process, each stage of which has own characteristics, one can advance the hypothesis as for the possibility of explanation of the historical process from the viewpoint of development of certain cycles. This idea, like the majority of scientific approaches, is not absolutely new.
It was touched earlier by L. Gumilev, M. Danilevsky, M. Kondrat’ev, P. Sorokin, A. Toynbee, and O. Spengler.
Older is the cyclic concept of the comprehension of changes which was associated with the practice of ancient agricultural societies and their annual cyclicity of works. With the development of the industrial method of production, the linear concept of the cognition of time and history begins to
prevail. As usual, it goes from the Judaic-Christian philosophy which expanded the idea of development of the humanity from the Fall to the Rescue and Kingdom of Heaven. Still greater was influenced the secularization of the idea of linear time by the ideology of Enlightenment with its idea of gradual progressive development. Therefore, P. Sorokin wrote not by chance that “the social thought of the second half of the XIXth century is marked by the linear concept of socio-historical changes”.
The notion of cycle is perceived as a reiteration of certain stages of development. Of course, there exist the evident astronomic cycles: day and night, Moon’s phases, and seasons. Well-known are the biological cycles which have important consequences for social life: birth, childhood, youth,
maturity, old age, and death. Quite clearly are displayed the political, economic, and social cycles.
As social cycle, one can consider the certain state of a system, in which it can be at any stage of its development and which was already inherent in it in the past.
Astrology gives the old example of the faith in the cyclic character of social changes. Contemporary astronomy gives reason to say about big cosmic cycles which realize the philosophical idea of infinity, unhandmadeness, and eternity of the Universe. According to the last data of astronomers, the Big Bang which occurred about 15 bln years ago started a next cycle of expansion of the Universe. Then one should expect the phase of contraction, and a next big explosion will happen finally.
Long ago, ancient Chaldeans opened a 223-month cycle, i.e., its duration is about 18 years. Near the end of this cycle, the lunar eclipses begin to return with analogous intervals and in the same order as those at its beginning (the Saros cycle). For this reason, it becomes possible to make use of the cycle as a time unit for measuring the future periods.
No comments:
Post a Comment