G. Spencer's doctrine of society. Spencer's mechanism of social evolution

Herbert Spencer(1820-1903) - English philosopher and sociologist; he shared Comte's ideas about social statics and social dynamics. According to his teaching, society is similar to a biological organism and can be represented as a whole, consisting of interconnected and interdependent parts. Just as the human body is made up of organs - kidneys, lungs, heart, etc., society is made up of various institutions such as the family, religion, law. Each element is irreplaceable because it performs its own socially necessary function.

In a social organism, Spencer distinguishes an internal subsystem, which is in charge of the preservation of the organism and adaptation to environmental conditions, and an external one, whose functions are to regulate and control the relationship of the organism with the external environment. There is also an intermediate subsystem responsible for communication between the first two. Society as a whole, according to Spencer, is systemic in nature and cannot be reduced to a simple sum of actions of individuals.

According to the degree of integration, Spencer distinguishes between simple, complex, doubly complex societies; distributes them according to levels of development between two poles, the lower of which is a military society, and the upper one is industrial. Military societies are characterized by the presence of a single system of belief, and cooperation between individuals is achieved through violence and coercion; here the state dominates the individuals, the individual exists for the state. , where dominated, are characterized by democratic principles, a variety of belief systems and voluntary cooperation of individuals. Here the individual does not exist for the state, but the state exists for individuals. Spencer thinks of social development as a movement from military societies to industrial ones, although in a number of cases he considers the reverse movement to military societies possible, for example, in the context of socialist ideas. However, as societies develop, they become more diverse and industrial society exists in many varieties.

Sociology of G. Spencer

Herbert Spencer(1820-1903) - English philosopher and sociologist, one of the founders of positivism. He worked as an engineer on the railroad. Became the successor of positivism (philosophical and sociological); his ideas were also influenced by D. Hume and J. S. Mill, Kantianism.

The philosophical basis of his sociology is formed, first of all, by the position that the world is divided into the knowable (the world of phenomena) and the unknowable (“thing in itself”, the world of essences). The goal of philosophy, science, and sociology is the knowledge of similarities and differences, analogies, etc. in the phenomena of things to our consciousness. The essence, unknowable by human consciousness, is the cause of all phenomena, about which philosophy, religion, and science conjecture. The basis of the world, Spencer believed, is formed by universal evolution, which is a continuous interaction of two processes: the integration of bodily particles and their disintegration, leading to their balance and stability of things.

Spencer is the founder of organic sociology, according to which society arises as a result of a long evolution of living and itself is an organism similar to a living one. It consists of organs, each of which performs certain functions. Each society has an inherent function of survival in the natural and social environment, which is in the nature of competition - the struggle, as a result of which the most adapted societies are called. The evolution of nature (inanimate and living) is an ascent from the simple to the complex, from the low-functional to the multifunctional, etc. Evolution, as an integrative process, is opposed by decomposition. The struggle of evolution and decomposition is the essence of the process movements in the world.

Social organisms are the pinnacle of natural evolution. Spencer gives examples of social evolution. Peasant farms are gradually united into large feudal systems. The latter, in turn, are united in the provinces. Provinces create kingdoms, and those turn into empires. All this is accompanied by the emergence of new governing bodies. As a result of the complication of social formations, the functions of the parts that form them change. For example, at the beginning of the evolutionary process, the family had reproductive, economic, educational, and political functions. But gradually they passed to specialized social bodies: the state, the church, the school, etc.

Each social organism, according to Spencer, consists of three main organs (systems): 1) production (agriculture, fishing, handicraft); 2) distribution (trade, roads, transport, etc.); 3) managerial (elders, state, church, etc.). An important role in social organisms is played by the management system, which determines goals, coordinates other organs, and mobilizes the population. It operates on the basis of fear of the living (state) and the dead (church). Thus, Spencer was one of the first to give a fairly clear structural and functional description of social organisms: countries, regions, settlements (cities and villages).

Spencer's Mechanism of Social Evolution

How is the evolution (slow development) of social organisms according to Spencer? First of all, due to population growth, as well as due to the unification of people into social groups and classes. People organize themselves into social systems either for the sake of protection and attack, resulting in "military types of societies", or for the production of commodities, resulting in "industrial societies". There is a constant struggle going on between these types of societies.

The mechanism of social evolution includes three factors:

• people are initially unequal in their characters, abilities, living conditions, resulting in differentiation of roles, functions, power, property, prestige;
• there is a tendency to increase the specialization of roles, the growth of social inequality (power, wealth, education);
• society is divided into economic, political, national, religious, professional, etc. classes, which causes its destabilization and weakening.

With the help of the mechanism of social evolution, humanity goes through four stages of development:

• simple and isolated from each other human societies in which people are engaged in approximately the same activity;
• military societies, characterized by a temporary territory, division of labor, the leading role of a centralized political organization;
• industrial societies, characterized by a permanent territory, constitution and system of laws;
• civilizations that include nation-states, federations of states, empires.

Central to this typology of societies is the dichotomy of military and industrial society. Below, this Spencer dichotomy is shown in tabular form (Table 1).

According to G. Spencer, at the first stage, the development of social science was under the complete control of theology, which remained the dominant type of knowledge and faith until about 1750. Then, as a result of the secularization of society, theology was denied the status of a privileged science, and this role passed to philosophy: not God, the priest, but the philosopher, the thinker began to be considered the source (and criterion) of true knowledge. At the end of the XVIII century. philosophers were replaced by scientists (natural scientists), who introduced into scientific circulation the empirical justification for the truth of knowledge, and not the authority of God or philosophy. They rejected the philosophical justification for the truth of knowledge as deductive speculation. As a result, a positivist theory of sociocognition emerged, which includes the following main provisions:

• the objective world is given to a person in the form of sensory phenomena (sensations, perceptions, ideas), a person himself cannot penetrate into the essence of the objective world, but can only empirically describe these phenomena;
• society is the result of the interaction of (a) the conscious activity of people and (b) objective natural factors;
• social phenomena (facts) are qualitatively the same as natural phenomena, due to which the methods of natural scientific knowledge are applicable in sociological research;
• society is like an animal organism, it has certain organs-systems that interact with each other;
• the development of society is the result of an increase in the number of people, differentiation and integration of labor, the complication of former organs-systems and the emergence of new ones;
• represents a genuine benefit for people, and the development of mankind directly depends on the development of science, including sociology;
• social revolutions are a disaster for people, are the result of mismanagement of people, arising from ignorance of the laws of sociology;
• for normal evolutionary development, leaders and leading classes must know sociology and be guided by it when making political decisions;
• the task of sociology is to develop empirically substantiated universal laws of social behavior in order to orient it towards the public good, a rational social order;
• humanity consists of different countries (and peoples) that move along the same path, go through the same stages, and therefore obey the same laws.

Table 1. Military society versus industrial society

Criticizing positivist knowledge, Hayek writes: “In accordance with the idea of ​​the knowability of laws<...>the human mind is supposed to be able, so to speak, to look at itself from above and not only to understand the mechanism of its action from the inside, but also to observe its actions from the outside. The curiosity of such a statement, especially in Comte's formulation, is that, while it is openly recognized that the interaction of individual minds can lead to the emergence of something that is in a certain sense superior to the achievements available to an individual mind, this same individual mind, nevertheless, is declared not only capable of grasping the whole picture of human development and knowing the principles according to which it is carried out, but also capable of controlling this development and directing it, achieving in such a way that it proceeds more successfully than it would be without control.

§ 1. Brief biographical sketch

One of the largest representatives of the classical stage in the development of sociology is the English scientist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). Born in Derby, in the family of a school teacher. Due to poor health, he could not attend school and studied at home under the guidance of his father and uncle until the age of 13, and then on his own. The future classic of sociology did not receive not only a school, but also a university education. Subsequently, Spencer was very proud of this circumstance of his life, proving that self-education is no less, and sometimes more important than ordinary school and university systematic education, a factor in obtaining knowledge.

At 17, Spencer had to go to work. For four years he worked as a railway technician, then as an engineer-supervisor in the same place, simultaneously mastering knowledge in the field of natural science and mathematics. Ten years of service on the railroad ended in 1846, when it was replaced by a job as a journalist in the later famous magazine The Economist (which remains so today). Spencer's editorial activity in the magazine, like his entire service in general, ended in 1853. Having received the inheritance necessary for a comfortable, albeit modest existence after the death of his uncle, Spencer could now do what he truly loves - write books and conduct scientific research. The next fifty years of his life were devoted to these activities and, from the point of view of biographers, do not represent anything super interesting. Spencer was a lonely, withdrawn person, almost never went anywhere, he suffered all his life with neuroses and insomnia.

Having become an armchair scientist, having sufficient financial resources for doing science, not wanting to hold academic posts and official positions, the English researcher wrote many major works during his long creative life, which brought him world fame and authority as a classic of sociology. Among them: "Foundations of Sociology" (in three volumes, 1876-1896) - his main sociological work, "Social Statics" (1850), "Basic Principles" (1862), "Sociology as a Subject of Study" (1873).

Part 1. Classic stage

The sociological ideas of Spencer were deeply influenced by the philosophical and natural scientific works of J. Bentham, T. Hobbes, J. Locke, and C. Darwin. The evolutionary-organismic concept of the English sociologist experienced the most complete impact of the law of the struggle for existence and the theory of biological evolution, discovered and formulated by Darwin. This circumstance must not be forgotten when considering Spencer's sociological views. Let's move on to their characteristics.

§ 2. The subject of sociology

G. Spencer treated sociology as a comprehensive science, including ethnography, anthropology, and the general theory of historical development. Unlike O. Comte, who associated the new science of society with the progress of ideas, concepts, knowledge about it, Spencer believed that the subject of sociology should be the concrete objective reality of society itself, the described social phenomena and processes. In his Autobiography, he distinguishes between his own and Comte's teaching as follows: “What is the goal proclaimed by Comte? Give a comprehensive description of the progress of human concepts. What is my goal? Give a comprehensive description of the progress of the human world. Copt proposes to describe the necessary and real filiation (development, continuity. - G.Z.) ideas. I propose to describe the necessary and real filiation of things. Comte claims to explain the genesis of our knowledge of nature. My goal is to explain... the genesis of the phenomena that make up nature. One is subjective, the other is objective.

Emphasizing the objective nature of the science he developed, he proceeds from the organic connection between natural science and social knowledge, from the continuation of the first by the second. Spencer and Comte have in common the desire to transform, transfer the laws of natural science to the sphere of analysis of social phenomena and processes. Sociology becomes a genuine, real science only when, Spencer believes, when it follows the idea of ​​a natural, evolutionary law. Leading natural science in the second half of the XIX century. English sociologist considered biology (we have already mentioned the great influence of Darwin's ideas on him).

Therefore, his attitude to sociology as a science that continues to develop biological laws based on the materials of social development and thus turns them into sociological laws becomes quite logical and understandable. In Sociology as a Subject of Study, Spencer writes that "biology reveals certain common features in development, structure, and functions, features of which some are found

1 Spencer H. An autobiography. N.Y., 1904. Vol. 2. P. 570.

in all organisms, others - in certain large groups, still others - in certain subgroups that are contained in these groups, in the same way sociology must learn the laws of social development, structure and functions and those features of them, of which some are universal laws, others are general for groups and still others - private laws.

Since Spencer believes that the main question for sociology is the question of what society is, he seeks to give an answer to it in the first place. The sociologist rejects the attempt to define society as a collective name for a certain number of individuals. In his opinion, this is a special being, which, although it is composed of individual units, is not equal to their sum. The main thing here is the constancy of relations between parts of society.

In order to give his own idea of ​​it, Spencer constantly resorts to comparing society, which he calls the "social aggregate", now with the "class of inorganic aggregates", now with the "class of organic aggregates". As the first, he often uses the example of a house and its components - bricks, stones, pieces of wood, etc., as the second - any living creature, the consideration of whose components he constantly pays great attention to.

§ 3. Society as an organism

In the end, G. Spencer comes to the conclusion that society is an organism that has much more in common with living beings than with inorganic aggregates. At least two of his features testify to this. The first is that social growth, like the growth of a living organism, usually lasts either until the given society is absorbed by some other society, or until it breaks up into two or more others. “Another distinguishing feature of both societies and living beings is that, along with an increase in size, they also have an increase in the complexity of the structure” [Spencer. Sociology as a subject of study. 1996. S. 281].

At the same time, a sociologist often follows the path of analogies between society and a living organism, both in general and within their specific structures. “The analogy between society and an organism,” he writes, “becomes even clearer when we learn that every organism of any appreciable extent is a society, and also when we find out, further, that in both cases the lives of units continue for some more time after the life of the unit is suddenly stopped by some violent means...” [Ibid. S. 294]. However, Spencer sees not only what is common between a living organism and society (this allows him to draw analogies between them), but also what distinguishes them from each other.

Let us formulate in a generalized form the main similarities and differences between biological and social organisms as Spencer saw them. Talk-

Part I. Classic stage

In a row about the similarities, we will name the main ones among them: 1) society, like a biological organism, has been growing for most of its existence, increasing in volume; 2) as society grows in volume, its structure becomes more complex, as well as the structure of an organism in the process of biological evolution; 3) both in a biological and in a social organism, the differentiation of the structure of its elements is accompanied by a similar differentiation of their functions. As for the differences between biological and social organisms, the main ones are manifested in the following: 1) in a biological organism, elements live for the sake of the whole, in society, on the contrary; 2) the ability to feel and think is concentrated only in certain parts of a living organism, while in society consciousness is “poured” throughout the entire “aggregate”.

In the above approach of Spencer to society, attention is drawn to one of the first attempts at a system-structural approach, to which functional analysis is then added, since the English sociologist is constantly striving to identify the functions of individual elements of both living organisms and social aggregates.

Let us cite to illustrate the formulated position a fragment from the work "Foundations of Sociology", which gives a clear idea on this score. “The alimentary canal,” writes Spencer, “taking over the entire function of absorbing nutrients, gradually breaks up into separate, distinct sections, each performing its own special function, which is part of the overall function of the entire alimentary canal. Each individual member, serving for movement or grasping, undergoes certain divisions and subdivisions; moreover, the parts thus obtained perform each of its main and auxiliary functions of the entire member. The same is true with respect to those parts into which the society breaks up. The ruling class that arises in it not only becomes different from the rest of the classes, but also assumes control over their actions; when this class further breaks down into subclasses, some of which have a greater degree of dominance, others a lesser degree of dominance, then these latter again begin to exercise their own, completely special part of the general control.

Thus, Spencer's sociological theory, in so far as it concerns the understanding of society, is based on a proposition borrowed primarily from Darwin's theory of the living organism. In essence, society copies and reproduces it, from which it follows that biological laws are characteristic of it. The latter are adapted by Spencer in relation to society. Thus, the Darwinian law of the struggle for existence, derived for the biological environment, is considered in its social manifestation as the law of class struggle.

The identification of society with a biological organism led Spencer to the fact that he characterized the functions of the elements in a very peculiar way.

Chapter 3. The Evolutionary Sociology of H. Spencer 47

cops that make up the structure of the social system. So, agriculture and industry, in his opinion, perform the function of nutrition, the institution of trade - the function of blood circulation, the army - a kind of skin, transport - the vascular system, etc. At the same time, in society, as in a living organism, there is a division of labor, the analysis of which Spencer pays considerable attention - both at the level of social and organic "aggregates".

It is interesting to note that in this analysis we encounter Spencer's rare statement of the fact that biological science is ahead of social science, especially economic science. “The division of labor,” he writes, “first indicated by economists as a social phenomenon and after that recognized by biologists as a phenomenon of organic life and called by them the “physiological division of labor”, is exactly that feature - both in society and in the animal world - which makes each of them a living body” [Ibid. S. 284].

Describing society, the scientist notes that it exists for the benefit of its members, and not vice versa. The satisfaction of their needs should be served primarily by the political organization of society, which the sociologist often calls the "political aggregate". “It must always be remembered,” we read in Spencer, “that, however great the efforts directed towards the well-being of the political aggregate, all the claims of this political aggregate are in themselves nothing and that they become something only to the extent that which embody the claims of the units that make up this aggregate” [Ibid. S. 294].

§ 4. The structure of society and its social types

The English sociologist pays great attention to the consideration of the structure of society (in the "Foundations of Sociology" one of the chapters is called "Social Structure"), both within the framework of both historical and logical analysis. Considering the problems of social growth, Spencer speaks of the gradual complication of the structure of society, associated with the ascent "from the smallest groups to larger ones, from simple groups to complex ones, from complex groups to groups of double complexity," etc. The sociologist did not leave us a clear and precise description of these types of society, although from the context one can guess the classification of the stages of social development in connection with the increasing complexity of the social structure. On a large historical and ethnographic material (he refers to data and materials from the study of the life of the Eskimos, Australians, Bushmen, Fuegians, Kayaguas - forest Indians of South America, considers examples of medieval handicraft and contemporary factory industrial production in Europe, primarily

48 Part I. Classic Stage

in England) Spencer shows how the differentiation of the executive power occurs, its new structures arise as the population grows, the unification of tribes, how “social unions” are created, the progress of organization is achieved. Considering simple societies, he singles out among them those who do not have permanent leaders, those who have non-permanent ones (appearing from time to time) and are characterized by the presence of stable leaders. Another classification of society by Spencer, associated with such a criterion as the nature of settled life, includes nomadic, semi-sedentary and sedentary types.

But here again it should be noted that all this detailed and detailed analysis is interspersed with arguments that similar processes occur in the organic, living world. Constant parallels are drawn between individual and social organisms. “A close examination of the facts,” writes Spencer, “points to another striking parallel between society and the organism in regard to their structure. The organs of the animal and the organs of society, considered in relation to their internal structure, turn out to be built on the basis of the same principle” [Fundamentals of Sociology. 1996. S. 308].

It is a certain ratio of the main and auxiliary elements in the body (social aggregate) - both in terms of their place in the overall structure, and in terms of the implementation of the main and auxiliary functions. At the same time, he points out, they complement each other, without which society (a living organism) is doomed to extinction. Here we are talking about the division not only of labor, but also of the functions performed by certain structures: “Changes in the structure cannot take place without changes in the function. ... Moreover ... many changes in the social structure are more likely to be revealed through changes in function than they are seen directly ... ”[Ibid. S. 316].

Analyzing the structure of society in Spencer's works through the allocation of its social types, it is necessary to dwell on the main ones among them - drinking and industrial (industrial) societies. Their social characteristics are directly opposite. In a military society (the classic example considered by Spencer is ancient Sparta), collective goals noticeably prevail over individual ones. It has a rigid organization, a hierarchy of control, a system of coercion, strict discipline, inherited power, and so on. The cooperation that sustains life in a military society is coercive. And - curiously - again there is a comparison with a living organism: just as in the human body the external organs are completely dependent on the central nervous system, in a military society, people's behavior is determined from above by the government. This society is very conservative and poorly adapted to evolutionary changes.

Chapter 3. G. Spencer's Evolutionary Sociology - 49

As for the industrial (industrial) society (a typical example is England in the 19th century), then the basis for its functioning is voluntary, not forced cooperation. This type of society is characterized by individual freedom, the ability to carry out commercial transactions at will, the high activity of a significant part of the population, a decentralized apparatus of executive power, etc. One of the important (but, according to Spencer, not yet fully realized) features of an industrial society is (should be) its freedom from government and state interference in the established social order. The main task of the state is to protect the rights of individuals both from external threats associated with foreign aggression and within the country, creating favorable conditions for the manifestation of free initiative of people.

When considering the industrial society, essentially contemporary to Spencer, his position was frankly opposed to the views of O. Kopt, it had a pronounced anti-collectivist character. If the French sociologist believed that people should act collectively in the social world, and society is obliged to manage this process and direct it in the right direction, then Spencer believed that the collective efforts of people can and should be undertaken without any interference in their actions, only on the basis of agreements between them.

Thus, if the military society was characterized, according to Spencer, by the subordination of man to the state, then industrial society, on the contrary, was determined by the existence of the state for man, to ensure his freedom. Perhaps the main distinguishing characteristic of an industrial society from a military one is the presence of comprehensive and diverse freedoms in the first (freedom of the individual, trade, industrial occupations, private organizations, etc.) and the absence of such in the second.

Here it should be said about the significance of such an analysis of society (within the framework of distinguishing its two types) for the subsequent development of sociological science. In modern sociology since the second half of the XX century. the idea of ​​dividing societies into pre-industrial and industrial (and then post-industrial) has become one of the most common in the typology (or classification) of the process of social development.

The characterization of different types of society in the works of the English sociologist demonstrates his active use of the comparative historical method. It was not new in sociology, it was widely used, in particular, by Copt. According to Spencer, it turned out to be closely associated with the main characteristic feature of his work - the use of evolutionary theory. At the same time, the use of the comparative method was aimed not only at arguing analogies between a living organism and society, but also at interpreting society itself, which is in a state of change and development. .

50 Part I. Classic Stage

§ 5. Evolutionism as the main feature of the teachings of G. Spencer

Earlier it was noted that G. Spencer's sociological theory is based on the principle of understanding society as an organism. The second main constitutive principle of the teachings of the English sociologist was evolutionism. Both principles turned out to be closely related to the evolutionary theory of the origin of man by Charles Darwin. With Spencer, the idea of ​​universal evolution became the central point of his entire sociology.

The English sociologist considers three types of evolution - inorganic, organic, supraorganic, corresponding to inorganic, organic nature and human society. Along with the general laws of evolution that operate in all these areas, there are laws specific to each of them. Moreover, as Spencer points out, the evolutionary laws of the higher spheres of being cannot be reduced to the laws of the lower spheres, since in the former there are phenomena and processes that are absent in the latter.

Evolution is seen as a transition from one state to another, more developed, within one social system. A person turns into a social being, becomes one in the process of a long evolution of primitive communities into social systems. Spencer writes about the natural evolution of labor skills, intelligence, social feelings, the core of which is the socialization of man. According to the English scientist, sociology should reveal the operation of the universal laws of evolution in the course of studying social facts, processes, and typical mass phenomena. In this regard, sociological science must reject the single, random, individual.

Speaking about the main types of evolution - unilinear or multilinear, Spencer believes that at the initial stage of human progress, the first appears more than the second. In accordance with his concept, the process of social evolution is rigidly predetermined, and its stages follow each other with an "iron" necessity - just like the transition in a person's life from childhood to youth, from it to a mature state, from the latter to old age . The social organism, according to the English thinker, undergoes the same evolutionary changes as the individual organism, and they largely depend on the environmental conditions with which it interacts.

However, considering that the evolutionary development of society within its certain stages largely depends on the surrounding natural and social conditions, Spencer drew attention to the subsequent multilinearity of social progress, since the emerging social types "do not form a single series, but are classified into divergent and spreading groups ".

Chapter 3. G. Spencer's Evolutionary Sociology

The sociologist paid great attention to the analysis of both evolution in general and social evolution. He characterized the first as the integration of matter, its transition from one state (incoherent homogeneity) to another (connected homogeneity), and in essence - from inorganic nature to society through organic, living nature. As for social evolution, it "fits" in Spencer's ideas about social progress. We have already spoken about his criterion - the growth of freedom, which reaches its highest development in an industrial society, since it is in it that the individual is not subordinate to society, but, on the contrary, society serves (or at least should serve) individuals, satisfying their needs.

From the time of Spencer and (slightly earlier) another British thinker - J.St. Mill, English sociology becomes clearly focused on the consistent implementation of the principle of individualism. It was incorporated into Spencer's concept when considering the main types of society - military and industrial - and the process of evolution from the first to the second. In essence, the very evolution of the types of society was characterized as a transition from one of its types, based on forced association "from above" (military society), to the second type, based on voluntary association "from below" (industrial society).

Spencer considered this process of social evolution to be natural, objective, independent of the desires and interests of people. Whether they like it or not, social evolution is taking place and will continue to take place. In what way does it manifest itself specifically? Here the question arises about the nature of the "measurement" of social facts, its accuracy, moreover, about what a social fact is in general. This is one of the central concepts of sociology Spencer connects with the phenomena that determine the process of social evolution. Among them, he attributed the change in the political system, the nature of the political organization of society, etc. Social facts cannot be measured with the help of instruments, which shows the complexity of their study, which the scientist saw well. But this is also the specificity of social cognition, which it presents only in the most general terms.

An examination of Spencer's evolutionary theory would be incomplete without mentioning the factors of evolution, which were analyzed in detail by the English sociologist. He divided the most diverse factors of evolution into primary and secondary (derivatives), then in each of these groups he singled out external and internal. He attributed the physical and mental properties of a person to the primary internal factors at the earliest stages of his appearance and development. Since at these stages a person seemed to be an undeveloped (or underdeveloped) being, it is clear that these properties were most often described with a minus sign: a weak ability for mental activity, an inability to cooperate for a long time with people like themselves, the predatory nature of being, etc. In ka-

52 Part I. Classic Stage

Climatic, landscape, soil, other geographical and natural features that characterized the life of primitive man were considered as primary external factors.

The secondary factors of social evolution begin to "work" thanks to itself. Under them, Spencer understood, first of all, the essence of man in the era of civilization that has changed as a result of the impact of the natural and social environment. The main thing is that a person is socialized, and this circumstance acts as one of the main secondary factors of evolution. The emergence and development of social institutions has a profound effect on the process of social evolution.

§ 6. The doctrine of social institutions

An important component of G. Spencer's sociological concept is the doctrine of social institutions, which follows from the interpretation of society, as well as a systematic understanding of its types, stages, development within the framework of evolution. Under the social institution, the English sociologist understood the method and form of self-organization of the joint life of people, although he did not give its strict scientific definition. His characteristic of a social institution is essentially a modern interpretation of this concept, which was actively introduced into scientific circulation and firmly established in sociology as one of the most significant precisely thanks to Spencer. His social institution correlates with the organization, institution, system of coercion and its other specific characteristics. The totality of social institutions, in his opinion, constitutes the structure and organization of society. The sociologist devotes a significant part of his main sociological work, The Foundations of Sociology, to the analysis of institutions.

He proves that in society, but as it evolves, there are more and more social institutions, the purpose of which is to ensure the normal functioning of the entire social organism. Since 41 ic.io institutions are increasing, and the structure of each is becoming more complex, sociology must study, Spencer believes, the synchronicity of their interaction. Social progress depends on the effectiveness of this process, and sociological science cannot ignore this circumstance.

In addition to ensuring the stability of social functioning, social institutions, according to the sociologist, perform another important task, ensure the transformation of a person into a social being, include him in social actions that are collective in nature, in other words, create conditions for the socialization of the individual. It should be noted that this interpretation of the social institution looks quite relevant today and is widely used by modern sociology.

Chapter 3. The Evolutionary Sociology of G. Spencer 53

Within the framework of social institutions, according to Spencer, there are three systems of organs (institutions) - productive, distributive and regulatory, which perform differentiating and integrating social functions in relation to the development of society. Social institutions themselves are considered by the sociologist in their six main varieties. These are domestic, ritual, political, church, industrial, professional institutions, each of which is in a state of change and development.

Home institutions characterize the inclusion of people in various forms of life associated with interindividual relationships. They evolve from disordered relations between the sexes (primitive forms of social life) to modern forms of monogamy and show the relationship between the type of family and the type of society. Spencer focuses on the consideration of such domestic institutions as family, marriage, education. There is nothing surprising here, the sociologist pays tribute to the tradition that existed at that time to begin the analysis of society with the family as its “main unit” (in this regard, we can recall a similar approach to it by O. Kopt).

Ritual or ceremonial institutions regulate people's behavior through the establishment, approval as accepted by the majority of the population of customs, rituals, etiquette, fashion, habits, etc. Many of these institutions have had and continue to have a cult character (weddings, funerals, folk festivals, etc. .). It is important to note, following Spencer, the implementation by such institutions of the regulatory function and the function of social control over the daily behavior of people that concretizes it. Ritual institutions are older than political and ecclesiastical institutions, and often turn out to be more effective in the implementation of basic social functions than the state and religion.

Political institutions (the main ones among them are the state, army, law, police, court, etc.), the analysis of which the scientist pays more attention to than any other, establish and regulate political and legal relations between people, their groups, classes. According to Spencer, social production, labor, wars, the need to maintain order and stability in society, and also to regulate basic social processes are directly related to the emergence of such institutions. Considering political institutions, the English sociologist has a different attitude to the possibilities and prospects for their development, to the significance of each of them. Thus, he believes that the role of the modern state cannot be too great, since it on its nature acts as a limiter of individual freedom, and rights - on the contrary, require growth, because it should become its guarantor.

Church institutions, like political institutions, ensure the integration of various groups of the population into society, although they are used to achieve

Part 1. Classic stage

other means and mechanisms for this purpose. Spencer emphasized the great role of the clergy in the functioning of church institutions. As a prototype of his activity, he considered the actions of priests, shamans, sorcerers.

Professional institutions arise on the basis of the social division of labor and actively develop along with the evolution of production and its forms. Spencer referred to professional institutions as guilds, workshops, and trade unions. Their main function is to bring together, integrate, protect people engaged in the same professional activity.

Finally, the last group of institutions - industrial - covers various types of production and their organization in factories and factories. It is clear that these institutions are characteristic of an industrial, and no other, society. They ensure the functioning of its production structure and the regulation of labor relations between participants in production. The development of industrial institutions, as well as professional ones, is based primarily on the increasing division of labor and the optimization of production management.

The doctrine of social institutions was developed by an English sociologist as part of a systematic description of society. All institutions constitute a single, and interconnected, whole. Each of them satisfies a certain social need and does not replace other institutions. Just like society, institutions exist for the benefit of people, and not vice versa.

The value of Spencer's teaching on social institutions is determined, firstly, by the fact that they were first strictly classified, secondly, they were analyzed from the standpoint of evolutionary theory, and thirdly, they were considered on a vast historical and ethnographic material. He was able to show the possibilities of institutional analysis for understanding the most important problems of society and its social structure.

§ 7. G. Spencer's attitude to socialism

The problem of social evolution in connection with G. Spencer's search for a social ideal and ways to achieve it found its development in his interpretation of socialism - a society that did not exist in reality, but was predicted and promoted by many thinkers of the modern English sociologist of the era.

Describing the industrial society as a kind of ideal of a social structure, opposing it as a model of a humane democratic society that exists in the interests of each individual, to another type of society - the military one, the sociologist, with a similar approach, initially declared the rejection of any other "social aggregate". Since in the second

W

Chapter 3. G. Spencer's Evolutionary Sociology

swarm half of the 19th century. were quite strong various theories of socialism, concerning the arrangement of the future society and sharply opposed to capitalism, the English sociologist could not ignore them and expressed his attitude, which can be formulated in a laconic form as their sharp rejection.

In The Foundations of Sociology, in the section on industrial institutions, there is a chapter entitled "Socialism". In it, the author examines the economic foundations of this society, focusing on the problems of production management. The main thing he opposes is the centralization and monopolization of power and administration under socialism, if it is implemented in the form in which it is presented by the theoreticians of the new society. These social characteristics inevitably lead to coercion, but the latter has never contributed to the true efficiency of people's activities.

Spencer viewed socialism as a peculiar form of slavery. The basis for this identification was for him the main similarity that existed, in his opinion, between slavery and socialism: the presence of coercion. The slave gives all or almost all of what is produced by his own labor to his master, and a member of socialist society will do the same, only for him not some specific person, but the state, will act as master.

The English sociologist sees the error of socialism in that the latter regards entrepreneurs as their main enemy, their willfulness and selfishness directed against the workers. It is against them that, according to the socialists, the monopolized centralized power, which establishes coercion as the main way of its existence, should be directed. But such a position is fundamentally wrong, Spencer argues, because it is directed against freedom as the principle of the life of every person and, thus, in essence, against the majority of the population.

It is known what great positive significance Spencer attached to the functioning of the family in society. All the more unacceptable seemed to him the collectivist doctrines of socialists and communists concerning the family. The main thing that the scientist saw as their fallacy was that these doctrines did not distinguish between the ethics of family life and the ethics of life outside the family. It is impossible, according to the English sociologist, to extend the family mode of life to the whole society, and vice versa, the norms of social relations to the family. In essence, this was an implicit speech by Spencer against the "collectivization" of the family. The subsequent course of events that took place in the Soviet Union after the socialist revolution of 1917, more precisely, the new concepts of the "collectivization" of the family, showed that the English sociologist was not in vain expressing anxiety and fears.

Spencer was convinced of the ultimate impracticability of socialism, but he was very afraid of its temporary victories, considering them inevitable and believing that

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they will be associated with the sharpest forms of despotism. In his opinion, socialism will impede the development of all countries - both those who have reached a high level and those striving for it. This belief was based on the point of view that socialism means intervention in the life of people, classes, the state as a result of planning their activities. Socialism and planning are inseparable from each other. Once this is so, individual freedom, the possibility of free competition, becomes almost impossible.

In some ways, socialism seemed to Spencer close to a military society, or even a variant of it. Indeed, if we recall some features of a military society, such as power coercion, forced cooperation, fairly strict regulation of activities, the existence of an individual for the state, predetermination and fixation of status, type of occupation, and others, then the similarity between it and socialism, indeed, turns out to be considerable. .

According to the sociologist, not a single class of industrial society is interested in socialism, and workers are even more than entrepreneurs. The fact is that under socialism the workers will not be able to resist the restriction of their own freedom and coercion on the part of the state, for this they will not have the opportunity in the form of active trade unions that would protect them. In conditions of a free labor market and voluntary (and not forced, as under socialism) cooperation, the anti-labor activities of entrepreneurs can meet with strong resistance from trade unions.

What is the significance of Spencer's sociological work? Of course, first of all, in showing the historical inevitability, regularity and invincibility of social evolution and using sound scientific arguments for this purpose. Thanks to this analysis, a wide range of thinkers of the second half of the 19th century. imbued with social optimism and confidence in the progress of mankind, which is a concretization of the general idea of ​​social evolution.

World sociology received a whole "bouquet" of well-developed concepts (social organism, system, structure, functions, social institution, etc.), without which its further development became impossible. Spencer showed sociological science the vast possibilities of using the comparative historical method, which was one of the main tools for studying society as a social organism. The English sociologist developed a typology of society, which even today does not leave indifferent sociologists who study its various structures and classifications. He took a new and very important step towards the transformation of sociology into a very significant and prestigious field of scientific activity.

Chapter 3. The Evolutionary Sociology of H. Spencer 57

Questions and tasks

1. Why is H. Spencer's sociology called evolutionary?

2. What did Spencer see as the differences between his own and Comte's teachings in understanding the subject of sociology?

3. What does it mean to interpret society as an organism? What did Spencer see as the main similarities and differences between biological and social organisms?

4. How did Spencer imagine the structure of society?

5. Describe the main social types of society (according to Spencer).

6. Describe the essential features of evolutionism as a direction of social thought. What do you think is the reason for its appearance and popularity?

7. What types and factors of evolution does Spencer consider? Describe them after the English sociologist.

8. What is, according to Spencer, a social institution? What tasks in society are called upon to solve social institutions?

9. Name the main types of social institutions and tell about each of them.

10. Expand Spencer's attitude to socialism. How do you see the relevance of this approach today?

11. What is the significance of Spencer's sociological work?

Literature

Volkov YuG, Nechipurenko V.N., Samygin SM. Sociology: history and modernity. M; Rostov n / a 1999.

Gromov Il., Matskevich A.Yu., Semenov V A. Western theoretical sociology. SPb., 1996.

History of sociology. Minsk, 1993.

History of sociology in Western Europe and the USA. M., 1999.

History of Theoretical Sociology: In 4 vols. M, 1997. Vol. 1.

Kapitonov V.A. History and theory of sociology. M., 2000.

Kultygin V.P. classical sociology. M., 2000.

Spencer g. synthetic philosophy. Kyiv, 1997.

Spencer g. Foundations of sociology. Sociology as a subject of study // Western European sociology of the 19th century: Texts. M., 1996.

Naturalism in sociology

§ 1. The concept of naturalism in sociology

By naturalism in sociology we will understand the direction, or set of concepts, the authors of which relied in the study of society and man on the cognitive means and methods of the natural sciences. Representatives of naturalism are characterized and noticeable by the desire to develop an objective and rigorous system of knowledge about society, about social phenomena, the same as in the developed natural sciences - mechanics, physics, biology - about nature. But as a result of such an orientation, sociologists often came to direct analogies of social processes with natural (natural), hence the very term "naturalism". The complex dialectic of social relations and processes, as a rule, was ignored by them.

The development of naturalism in sociology in the second half of the XIX century. contributed largely to the successes of natural science. Along with achievements in the field of physics, biology begins to play a noticeable, and sometimes the main role, with its most outstanding discovery of that time - the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin. Due to the serious impact on sociology from natural science, two lines of naturalism have developed in it - social mechanism (the determining influence of physics, mechanics) and social biologism (the dominant influence of biology). Gradually, the second line began to dominate the naturalistic direction of sociology. However, before talking about it, let us briefly characterize the essence of social mechanism.

Social mechanism acts as a manifestation (sometimes written as an extreme form) of positivism, and its essence lies in the characterization of social laws discovered and studied by sociology as a kind of laws of mechanics and physics. Society is viewed as a mechanical unit, and social processes and structures are compared with the processes and structures of the inorganic world.

One of the first forms of reductionism in sociology arises, consisting in the researchers' going beyond the limits of this scientific discipline into the field of mechanics and physics, in which non-sociological methods of study and cognition are used. For example, the German scientist W. Ostwald

considered the cultural process as the transformation of free energy into bound energy: the more useful bound energy is obtained in such a transformation, the greater the progress of culture. The influence of mechanical and physical reductionism in sociology is also manifested in the fact that it actively uses natural science, primarily physical, terminology and phraseology.

The positive thing here is that in this way sociologists tried to overcome subjectivist, religious, non-scientific interpretations of social problems. But these attempts to consider social processes from natural-scientific positions led, on the other hand, to their reduction to a mechanical, physical, chemical basis, i.e. the emergence of mechanical, physical, chemical reductionism, which clearly limited the cognitive capabilities of researchers.

Social mechanism had many supporters, among them primarily the Franco-Belgian sociologist and statistician A. Quetelet and the Italian sociologist V. Pareto. About their work in the future will be specially said. In general, it should be noted that in comparison with social mechanism, social biologism turned out to be much more developed.

Two offshoots of this line require consideration - social organicism and social Darwinism. Since the first was most clearly represented in the work of H. Spencer already considered, let us turn in this chapter to a detailed examination of the second branch - social Darwinism. It developed in the 19th century. more active than social organicism, and had a more serious influence on the subsequent development of sociological thought.

§ 2. Social-Darwinist direction in sociology. Views of L. Gumplovich and G. Ratzenhofer

Social Darwinism is most often understood as a direction (sometimes they write "school" or even "paradigm") in sociology, proclaiming the principles of natural selection and biological evolution as the determining factors of social life and considering them as principles of social selection and social evolution. Representatives of this trend proceed from the premise that all sociological conclusions must comply with the laws of natural science, and social structures are based on the natural features of a person.

Social Darwinism is characterized by the application of the Darwinian theory of the struggle for existence to the consideration of social life, i.e. definition of the latter as an arena of continuous and widespread struggle, clashes, conflicts between individuals, social communities (groups) of people, entire societies. At the same time, representatives of social Darwinism attribute the status of naturalness to social conflicts (similar to

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mu, as in organic nature, intraspecific and interspecific struggle is natural). With this approach, it is obvious that biological reductionism is inherent in social Darwinism. The most prominent exponents of the ideas of social Darwinism were the Polish-Austrian sociologist L. Gumilovich and his Austrian follower G. Ratzsnhofer, the American sociologists A. Small and W. Sumner. Let us briefly consider the essence of their views and positions.

Ludwig Gumilovich (1838-1909), one of the most famous European sociologists of the 19th century, wrote a number of major works on general problems of sociology. Some of them have been translated into Russian 1 .

Gumilovich considered sociology as a science dealing with the study of social groups and relations between them. So his understanding of the subject of sociology has not lost its relevance to this day. “The truth is,” he wrote, “that the social world from the very beginning, always and everywhere, moves only in groups, in groups it starts to work, in groups it fights and strives forward ... In the harmonious interaction of social groups lies the only possible solution to social problems, as far as it is entirely possible."

In reality, the basic state of relations between groups, according to Gumilovich, is a continuous and merciless struggle, which is the main factor in their social life. As the basic social law, the sociologist declares "the desire of each social group to subjugate to itself every other social group encountered on its path, the desire for enslavement, domination" . It is not difficult to find that Gumplovich's concept is based on the Darwinian law of the struggle for existence, which he applied to the consideration of social relations, among which the sociologist considers group relations to be the main ones.

It is important, however, to note that, according to the sociologist, the basis of intergroup conflicts is people's desire to satisfy material needs. Consequently, the struggle is group, and interests are individual. And this provision was included in the theoretical bank of sociological ideas, which were then adopted by some researchers. It is only necessary to clarify one essential circumstance: paying attention to social conflicts as the basis of social life, the social Darwinists (primarily Gumilovich) did not have in mind the class struggle. The connection between group confrontation and class, more broadly, social relations was not taken into account by them at all.

Gumplovich opposed simple analogies between wildlife and society as an explanatory principle of sociology (which could be found, for example, in Spencer). In his opinion, the use of biological comparisons, comparisons and even in some cases analogies with

1 Gumplovich L. Sociology and politics. M., 1895; His own. Foundations of sociology. SPb., 1899; His own. Essays on the history of sociology. SPb., 1899; His own. Sociological essays. Odessa, 1899.

Chapter 4 Naturalism in Sociology

social processes and phenomena only helps to understand the latter more clearly and intelligibly. But real and genuine knowledge of social life cannot be obtained in this way. In essence, Gumplovich comes to the position of the fundamental irreducibility of social phenomena to the biological nature of the individual.

The individual himself was considered in the sociologist's concept only as a consequence, the result of group interaction, the influence of the environment. Gumplovich believed that “it is not he who thinks in a person at all, but his social group, the source of his thoughts lies not in him, but in the social environment in which he lives, in the social atmosphere that he breathes, he can only think in such a way that how necessary he is compelled by the influences of his social environment concentrating in his brain.

Since the study of social groups is central to Humnlovich's sociology, it makes sense to clarify their classification proposed by him. First of all, he divided all groups into simple and complex. Simple social groups primarily included primitive human communities with pronounced anthropological and ethnic characteristics (hordes, tribes, clans, etc.). Complex groups, or groups of the second order, were distinguished by their multidimensionality and structure, the presence of a number of social characteristics and the performance of numerous functions. Gumplovich attributed estates, states, classes to complex groups. Speaking of the latter, he writes: “... there are three large social classes that differ from each other in their economic position, namely: the class of nobles, the middle class of merchants and artisans, and the peasant class” [Ibid. S. 42].

Another classification of social groups, proposed by Gumplowicz, is to identify among them the dominant and subordinate. Strictly speaking, the desire to turn from a subordinate into a dominant one, i.e. struggle for power, and is the source of inter-group struggle and conflict.

Here it is necessary to say about the role that plays in the life of society and the individual, from the point of view of Gumplovich, the presence of certain needs and various possibilities for their satisfaction. He believes that, along with the preservation of life, the satisfaction of needs, primarily natural, "forms the most important content of human aspirations." Natural needs are followed by economic, political and cultural needs. “Economic needs lead a person to the political area, since the state must deliver funds to one at the expense of others, satisfy their highest economic and cultural needs without harm to them” (Ibid., p. 78]. Gumplovich considers the economic the position of the individual, because it

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“forces him to a certain way of life and awakens in him the ideas and views connected with this latter” [Gumplovich. 1996. S. 42].

A large place in the sociology of Gumshyuvych is occupied by the doctrine of conflicts. Considering the relationship of social groups, primarily simple (primitive), he proves the inevitability of conflicts, which thus has a deeply historical character. In conflicts, first of all, the social inequality of groups, and within them - of individuals, is expressed. In turn, this inequality itself is determined by the inequality of races. The stronger race seeks to subdue the weak.

But here it is necessary to note what Gumplovich stands behind the concept and term "race". He does not give a traditional, "usual" characterization of a race as a social community of people with certain biological characteristics, but believes that races are nations or peoples that are in a state of biosocial inequality. Hence the "racial struggle" is the struggle of nations, states, ethnic communities.

The Austrian sociologist Gustav Ratzenhofer was ideologically close to Gumplovich. He (like Gumplovich) believed that the same regularities operate in society as take place in organic nature. Like Gumplovich, his focus was on the social group. As the main social phenomena and processes, he considered the struggle for existence, racial dismemberment of society, hostile relations between races, etc. The main sociological category for the Austrian sociologist was the interest that drives the behavior of groups and individuals. Therefore, conflicts between groups and people are primarily conflicts of interest.

Ratzenhofer proposed a classification of interests, including five types. These are: irocreative interests that stimulate the activity of procreation; physiological interests realized in nutrition; individual interests, in which the desire for self-affirmation is embodied; social interests, expressed in the desire for kinship and group ties; transcendental interests, meaning connection with religion and striving for it.

§ 3. Sociological ideas of A. Small and W. Sumner

The categories of conflict, interest, aspiration, desire, developed by sociologists in the context of their proximity to society, social group, person, associated with the biological world, were quite characteristic of social Darwinism. Some of these key concepts, primarily the categories of conflict, interest, and desire, turned out to be central to the work of the American sociologist Albion Small (1854-1926), who was influenced by the ideas of Ratzenhofer (the main

Chapter 4 Naturalism in Sociology

Interest for Small was nothing more than an "unsatisfied faculty," and in sociology it was as basic and indivisible a cell as the atom was in physics. Small identified six classes of interests related to the areas of health, wealth, communication, knowledge, beauty, and justice. The first class of interests concerns food and sexual relations, the second - wealth and possession of things, the third - relations between people, the fourth - knowledge and science, the fifth - enjoyment of the aesthetic, the sixth - rightness.

Each of these classes (groups) of interests claims dominance among others, as a result there is a constant conflict between them, which is manifested in the actions of people. Strictly speaking, the conflict, according to Small, takes place not so much between the interests themselves, but between people who seek to satisfy their own interests at the expense of other individuals. After all, a person's life is a process of adaptation and satisfaction of his interests. It should be noted that the sociologist borrowed the idea of ​​a conflict of interest from social Darwinism.

However, the conflict for Small was not the only and universal form of relations between people and social groups. He believed that the main thing is the ability to find the transition from social conflict to social harmony. In connection with the need to search for such a transition, he emphasized the importance of sociology, which, in his opinion, being not only a theoretical but also a practical discipline, should be used to establish normal relations (that is, relations of consent) between social groups.

Small closely associated social ties, relationships, processes, conflicts with the mental manifestations of the personality. His famous aphorism is well known: "There is nothing social that is not mental." As can be seen, in social Darwinism a line towards the psychologization of social relations is already beginning to be clearly traced, which was expressed most fully in the emergence and development of the psychological direction in sociology (a special chapter will be devoted to its detailed consideration).

Small is known in sociological science not only as a theoretician who worked within the framework of the social Darwinist trend and created important prerequisites for establishing the psychological trend. His name is associated with the emergence of one of the first departments of sociology in the United States - at the University of Chicago. He was the founder and head of the first sociological department in the country at this university, the first sociological journal, the author of the first textbook on sociology (together with J. Vincent), one of the founders of the American Social

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logical society, and finally, one of the founding fathers of the Chicago School of Sociology. However, these aspects of his activity will be specially discussed in the chapter devoted to the results of the development of the classical stage of sociology and the emergence of the first sociological schools.

We now turn to the consideration of the work of the American sociologist, a supporter of social Darwinism, William Sumner (1840-1910), who is considered one of the largest representatives of this trend. His main work - "Folk Customs" - was published in 1906. According to the American sociologist, customs are the product of four main motives for human actions and deeds: hunger, sexual passion, ambition and fear. These motives are based on diverse human interests.

Sumner formulated his main ideas on the basis of a sociological analysis of a large ethnographic material. That is why he considered folk customs and mores to be the determining factor in the development of society. Sumner considered mores and customs as a way of consciousness and behavior, as a way of life for people. He paid great attention to the analysis of the mechanism of the emergence of customs and habits. Sumner believed that the ways people work, developed by them to meet their needs, gradually turn into everyday, routine, become habits and an indispensable element of lifestyle.

As the main object of sociological study, Sumner considers not society as a whole or a person, but a social group. Society is a totality, a conglomeration of competing, competing groups. At the center of this struggle is each specific individual who, in his real life and activity, is associated with a certain set of social groups, i.e. with society. This, Sumner believed, was how the last seemed to a particular person. Consequently, sociology should also consider the problem of "society - social group - individual" in a similar perspective.

Sumner was strongly influenced by the ideas of G. Spencer and C. Darwin, therefore he considered social evolutionism, natural social selection and the struggle for existence that social groups wage among themselves as the main principles of sociology. Each of these principles, singled out in the course of the analysis of real social processes, contains as its basis the factor of intergroup inequality, starting with property and ending with spiritual.

Recognizing groups as the main focus of research interest, Sumner proposed their original classification, which was then widely used in sociology within the framework of his psychological direction, as well as in psychological science. He divided all groups into “we-group” and “they-group”. In the first type of relationship groups, I characterize gays with cohesion and solidarity; in the second, hostility prevails.

Chapter 4 Naturalism in Sociology

According to Sumner, "we-group" (or one's own group) appears to a person as the center of attraction for all interests and actions, which essentially acts as a principle of ethnocentrism. This concept was introduced by Gumplowicz, and after him used by Sumner. It means the ability of a person to perceive all emerging and developing interpersonal and social relations on the scale of the socio-cultural values ​​of the ethnic group to which he belongs.

Summing up the consideration of social Darwinism as a trend in sociological science, it should be noted that it had a certain influence on its development. This was done through the formulation and analysis of such problems as social selection, social evolution, socio-cultural adaptation, inter-group relations, conflicts in them, the struggle of social groups for existence, etc. In general, social Darwinism turned out to be characterized by naturalism when considering social phenomena and processes, which was expressed in the form of reducing social patterns to biological ones. This is what primarily explains the gradual decline of its influence on the development of sociological science, especially in the 20th century, when it (influence) practically ceased to be perceived as any significant.

§ 4. Racial-anthropological direction in sociology

The racial-anthropological trend, which was popular in sociology in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, is a kind of naturalism. The most famous representatives of this trend are J. Gobineau, III. Letourneau, J. Lapouge (France), X. Chamberlain (England), O. Ammon (Germany). The essence of this direction is to determine the influence of the biological nature of a person, his racial traits and genotype on the life of society.

The main provisions of the racial-anthropological direction are the following: a) the social behavior of people is entirely determined by their biological heredity; b) social life is the consequence and result of racial and anthropological factors; c) races are not equal among themselves, which determines not only social, but also cultural inequality between groups of people; d) racial mixing is harmful to societies in general and to individuals in particular.

In his four-volume work An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1853, 1855), Gobineau (1816-1882) sought to explain the course of socio-historical changes on the basis of the action of the racial-biological factor as the main and determining factor in this process. Only the dominance of the white race, and at the same time the achievement of the “purity” of such dominance through prohibitions on mixing races, ensures the sustainable development of society, considered

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Tal was a French social philosopher and sociologist. The white race is unique due to the fact that it harmoniously combines intelligence, strength and beauty given by nature to its representatives.

True, it should be noted that the white race, according to Gobineau, is heterogeneous, since it includes three variations of people who behave differently in relation to the yellow and black races. These are "Semites", "Hamites" and "Japhetids". Only the latter turned out to be, from the point of view of the historical process, the most "persistent" and did not mix with the yellow and black races. "Semites" and "Hamites" failed to maintain their racial purity. From this, Gobineau concluded that humanity should connect all its hopes only with the “Aryan family”, descended from the “Japhetids”. It is he who is characterized by high activity, creative energy, genuine fearlessness and creative genius.

As for the other two races - yellow and black, their dominance cannot bring the desired result to society due to the inherent features of limitation and insufficiency inherent in each of them. Thus, the yellow race “suffers” from utilitarianism, its representatives by nature do not have heroic deeds and high achievements in their activities. Speaking about the black race, Gobineau believes that the Negroes, who represent it, again by their biological, physiological and mental nature, are incapable of rational self-control, and therefore, of long-term, meaningful, purposeful actions.

It should be noted that these openly racist ideas, associated with an attempt to prove the superiority of one race over others, turned out to be basic for fascism and Nazism. Considering, moreover, that in order to substantiate them, Gobineau resorted to a monstrous distortion of the facts of real history, allowing for the most real historical arbitrariness, it becomes clear why his theory was subjected to sharp and merciless criticism as soon as it appeared. The first to do this was the French sociologist and politician of the 19th century. Alexis de Tocqueville, who managed to show the reactionary essence of the racial-anthropological views of Gobineau shortly before his

Spencer (1820-1903). Along with O. Comte and D. S. Mill, G. Spencer was one of the founders of positivism, in line with which he sought to transform the methodology of associative psychology. Spencer, like Ben, makes the theory of evolution the basis of positive psychology.

For the first time since Descartes, Spencer turned to the analysis of the subject of psychology, since he considered its identification with consciousness unsatisfactory. He revised the subject of psychology, defining it as the ratio of external forms to internal ones, associations between them. Thus, he expanded the area of ​​the mental, including in it not only associations between internal factors, that is, associations in the field of consciousness, but also the connection of consciousness with the external world. Spencer wrote that there is an objective psychology that studies the structure of the brain, and a subjective psychology that deals with the state of the soul. Exploring various states of the soul, he came to the conclusion that there are parallel stages in the development of internal and external (behavioral) mental acts. Thus, both the internal and the external became the subject of psychology research, which made it possible to develop objective research methods that were impossible when the psyche was reduced to consciousness alone. He also emphasized the specifics of psychological research, speaking of the uniqueness of psychology as the only science that considers the connection between the external and internal, while other disciplines remain either in the external field (physics, chemistry) or in the internal (philosophy, physiology). An important point in this definition was the study of the process, which, according to the positivists, opened the way to broader patterns. Exploring the role of the psyche in human evolution, in his generalizing book on psychology "Fundamentals of Psychology" (1870-1872), Spencer wrote that the psyche is a mechanism for adapting to the environment. Thus, a new approach to the determination of the psyche appeared in science - the biological one, which replaced the mechanistic explanation. It follows from this approach that the psyche arises naturally at a certain stage of evolution, at the moment when the living conditions of living beings become so complicated that it is impossible to adapt to them without adequate reflection. Of great importance was the fact that Spencer studied the genesis of the psyche, proceeding from the fact that the human psyche is the highest stage of development, which did not appear immediately, but gradually, in the process of complicating the living conditions and activities of living beings. The original form of mental life - sensation developed from irritability, and then from the simplest sensations various forms of the psyche appeared, reflecting the interconnected levels of the formation of consciousness and behavior. All of them are original tools for the survival of the organism, particular forms of adaptation to the environment. These particular forms of adaptation include:

consciousness behavior

sensation reflex

feelings instinct

memory skill

mind volitional behavior

Speaking about the role of each stage, Spencer emphasized that the main significance of the mind is that it is devoid of the limitations that are inherent in the lower forms of the psyche, and therefore provides the most adequate adaptation of the individual to the environment. This idea about the connection of the psyche, mainly the intellect, with adaptation became the leading one for psychology at the beginning of the 20th century. Spencer also argued that mental development should be considered from the point of view of the principles of differentiation and integration, showing how the psyche of an adult is formed from individual mental qualities that are given to a child from birth. Subsequently, this approach was implemented in the Celli theory. Spencer extended the laws of evolution not only to the psyche, but also to social life, formulating the organic theory of society. He said that a person needs to adapt not only to nature, but also to the social environment, so his psyche develops along with society. He was one of the first psychologists to compare the psychology of a savage and modern man and concluded that modern man, in comparison with savages, has a more developed thinking, while primitive people had more developed perception. These conclusions at that time were quite unconventional and fundamental, they allowed scientists to develop comparative methods of mental research, which were widely used. Analyzing the difference in the mental development of people belonging to different nations and living at different times, Spencer abandoned the old views of associationism on the lifetime of the formation of knowledge. He wrote that the most frequently repeated associations do not disappear, but are fixed in the human brain and are inherited, thus, "consciousness is not a blank slate, it is full of pre-prepared associations." These innate associations determine the difference between the brains of a European and a native, the difference between the consciousness of different peoples. Spencer's theory was recognized among psychologists, had a huge impact on the further development of psychology, primarily on strengthening its connection with natural science and the search for an objective method, and contributed to the creation of experimental psychology.

KONT

Auguste Comte(1798-1857) developed a three-stage model of the development of society (religious, metaphysical and positive stages) and believed that contemporary society was on the verge of transition to the third stage. To implement such a transition, society needs new knowledge about itself - not critically philosophical, but positively scientific. He called such a science "sociology" - similarly to biology and the names of other natural science disciplines. Sociology should be evidence-based, neutral, i.e. be free from personal preferences and dislikes, like any science.

As an instrument of knowledge, positive science aims at the knowledge of laws. Each more complex science builds on the more general sciences, so far as it can use their methods, but each more complex science adds its own specific method or mode of consideration. For sociology, this is the "historical method". Comte understands by it the comparison of the previous and subsequent states and the derivation on this basis of the laws of development.

Sociology as a science of human society is the youngest science in Comte's encyclopedia of sciences. With its help, one can not only explain the laws of social structure and development, but also put politics on a scientific basis so that it serves the progress of man and society. At the same time, sociology is the most complex in the hierarchy of positive sciences and therefore must be based on all previously formed positive sciences. Of these, mathematics seems to be the main and fundamental to Comte, and astronomy is historically the earliest. Astronomy is followed by physics, chemistry and biology. In order to engage in sociology, you need to master these sciences.

Comte, with the help of sociology, is trying to find a way to overcome the social cataclysms of his time and combine order and progress, which he perceives primarily as two types of social patterns that fix two parts of sociology - social statics and social dynamics.

social static deals with the social order, which is understood as a harmony of elements based on community relations, and focuses on the structure of society, explores the conditions of its existence and the laws of social harmony. Social statics involves, on the one hand, an anatomical analysis of the structure of society at a given moment in time, and on the other hand, an analysis of the element or elements that determine the consensus, i.e. transforming a collection of individuals or families into a collective. Consensus is the main idea of ​​Comte's social statics.

social dynamics studies society in development. Comte again considers social development to be three-stage - in the form of three forms of socio-political organization of society:

§ theological stage - military domination;

§ metaphysical stage - feudal domination;

§ positive stage - industrial civilization.

These stages naturally follow one after another, so inequality between social groups is associated with the level of development. The level of development of society is determined not by material changes, but by spiritual and moral relations between people. The basic law of social dynamics (“the law of progress”) is that each uplift of the spirit causes, due to universal harmony, a corresponding resonance in all social areas without exception - art, politics, industry. The spirit rules everything, forming the power center of social evolution.

Comte's writings had a huge impact on other prominent sociologists, especially H. Spencer and E. Durkheim

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) - French philosopher, one of the founders of positivist philosophy and sociology. In 1817-1822. he was Saint-Simon's secretary and edited some of his works. Thus, Comte became to some extent the successor of the philosophical and sociological views of Saint-Simon in the positivist direction. He became famous for his Course in Positive Philosophy (1830-1842). The main provisions of Comte's positivist sociology (theory, method, evaluation) are expressed in the following.

First, social phenomena (events) are qualitatively similar to natural phenomena (events). This means that natural and social laws are of the same type in their essence and form.

Secondly, the methods of social cognition (observation, experiment, modeling, analysis and synthesis, analogy and hypothesis, etc.) are of the same type as the methods of natural science cognition, so the latter can be transferred to the analysis of social phenomena: social command, social connections and relationships, organizations and institutions, etc.

Thirdly, the task of sociology is to develop a system of theoretical positions that are empirically substantiated. These sociological provisions should become the basis for explaining social phenomena and predicting their development. Sociology as a science should be modeled after the natural and technical sciences. Neither philosophy nor science can raise the question of the cause of phenomena - this is beyond their power. Their task is to describe what is happening in nature, society, man, and not to identify the essence of what is happening. For example, an apple fell, but the law of universal gravitation as the essence of the fall of all bodies on Earth cannot be known.

Comte developed the idea of ​​Saint-Simon about the stages of development of human societies in the form of three stages intellectual evolution of humanity and the individual. The first stage is theological, in which all the phenomena of the world surrounding a person are explained by religious ideas (for example: “Everything was created by God”). The second stage is metaphysical, when all the phenomena of the world surrounding a person are explained by essential causes (an absolute idea, laws, etc.). Third stage - positive(scientific), on it the same phenomena are explained by empirical and rational grounds. This is where the science of society arises - sociology, the concept of which, as mentioned, was first used by Comte.

Comte divided the new science of sociology into two parts. First part - social statics, studying natural, stable conditions, social structure of society etc. Here he includes the geographical environment, family(cell of society), social division and integration (and solidarity) of labor, which form the structure of society, and other phenomena. Speaking about a person from a sociological point of view, Comte singles out the ratio of mental (intellectual) and emotional qualities in him. In society, there is a social hierarchy and subordination based on the division of labor. The government plays a leading role, being at the top of the social pyramid and guided by scientific sociology.

The second part is social dynamics, which studies the natural causes and laws of social development. Here Comte is the representative of the evolutionary trend in sociology. Social dynamics depicts the history of mankind as a successive change in the states of the human mind (intellect). The development goes from the military to the industrial type of society, which is based on (1) industry, (2) the penetration of positive science into all areas of the economy and (3) the urbanization of the population. The goal of social progress is to overcome selfish interests and focus on altruistic interests.

In another essay - "The System of Positive Politics" (1851 - 1854) - Comte considers sociology as "social physics". In this capacity, it should be the basis of "scientific policy", reconcile the principles of "order" and "progress" of society, as well as revolutionary and restoration tendencies in its development. For Comte, society is a kind of organism, which consists of parts that are in balance with each other. The evolution of this organism consists in the functional specialization of structures and their adjustment to each other. Sociology then becomes "positive morality," a set of rules to guide people, and it must be followed by political leaders.

Comte believed that he applied the empirical (as in natural science) method in sociology drawing conclusions on social facts (statistics, observations, experiments). This method assumed an external observer - a scientist who collects facts, a researcher who supposedly does not influence the object. But a logical contradiction arises: one cannot be an observer of what is itself the result of conscious actions of many people and in which you yourself take part with your consciousness. The object of sociological research - society - represents the multitude of social interactions created by millennia of evolution. It is impossible to imagine an observer-scientist capable of knowing this conscious interaction. The subject of social science is different from the subject of natural science (science).

Comte believed that in sociological analysis he proceeds from social facts (as in natural science). But what are the facts of social life? This is the unity of the natural and the conscious. People communicate and understand each other because their minds are the same. This is what creates the unity of the human community and creates history as something amenable to interpretation (understanding). Hayek notes that trying to create a social science without addressing the individual consciousness of human behavior is like trying to pull your mind by the hair to the level of a "superhuman" mind. What can such a mind see in human society, if the same actions can mean a complete separation in their meaning? The kiss of Soviet leaders, the kisses of lovers - these are different types of behavior that can only be unraveled by the human consciousness of a given society.

Hayek believes that Comte's sociology laid the foundation for a scientistic and historicist approach to the study of society. scientism is the natural science study of society, similar to the study of nature. It consists in the decomposition of natural objects into their constituent parts (analysis), and then their connection (synthesis). historicism includes an empirical study of society, on the basis of such a study, a certain pattern is revealed. For example, such a regularity in Marxist sociology was the law on the decisive role of material production in the development of society. The main goal of any sociological theory should be the creation of a universal history of the human race, understood as a scheme of its steady development in accordance with knowable laws.

According to scientistic-historicist thinking, society is like a living organism, in which the whole - the organism - does not entirely depend on the opinions of individual cells, but is set by some natural law. From this comes the definition of historical phases as stages in the development of a living organism. What causes the change of these historical phases? Comte has this natural law, Hegel has the World Spirit, Marx has material production, etc. Historicism, according to Heisk, Poppsra and other subjectivists, is one of the greatest delusions of the human mind in the 20th century. In Marxist sociology, a theory of five socio-economic formations was created, which denied the aspirations of people: whether you like it or not, the proletarian-socialist revolution, and after it communism, will surely come.

Thus, O. Comte in front of us is typically scientistic attitude to sociology, according to which science is the main factor of social progress, sociology should become like the natural sciences, distrust of the freedom of the individual, the desire to overcome the spontaneous development of society by the power of systematic, scientifically organized activity of the state is affirmed. Miles, under the influence of the system

O. Comte, wrote about it as "the most perfect system of spiritual and secular despotism of all produced by the human brain ...".

SPENCER

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) - English philosopher and sociologist; he shared Comte's ideas about social statics and social dynamics. According to his teaching, society is similar to a biological organism and can be represented as a whole, consisting of interconnected and interdependent parts. Just as the human body is made up of organs - kidneys, lungs, heart, etc., society is made up of various institutions such as family, religion, law. Each element is irreplaceable because it performs its own socially necessary function.

In a social organism, Spencer distinguishes an internal subsystem, which is in charge of the preservation of the organism and adaptation to environmental conditions, and an external one, whose functions are to regulate and control the relationship of the organism with the external environment. There is also an intermediate subsystem responsible for communication between the first two. Society as a whole, according to Spencer, is systemic in nature and cannot be reduced to a simple sum of actions of individuals.

According to the degree of integration, Spencer distinguishes between simple, complex, doubly complex societies; according to the levels of development, he distributes them between two poles, the lower of which is a military society, and the upper one is industrial. Military societies are characterized by the presence of a single system of belief, and cooperation between individuals is achieved through violence and coercion; here the state dominates the individuals, the individual exists for the state. Industrial societies where dominates economic system, are characterized by democratic principles, a variety of belief systems and voluntary cooperation of individuals. Here the individual does not exist for the state, but the state exists for individuals. Spencer thinks of social development as a movement from military societies to industrial ones, although in a number of cases he considers it possible to move in the opposite direction - to military societies, for example, in the context of socialist ideas. However, as societies develop, they become more diverse and industrial society exists in many varieties.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) - English philosopher and sociologist, one of the founders of positivism. He worked as an engineer on the railroad. Became the successor of positivism (philosophical and sociological) O. Konta; his ideas were also influenced by D. Hume and J. S. Mill, Kantianism.

The philosophical basis of his sociology is formed, first of all, by the position that the world is divided into the knowable (the world of phenomena) and the unknowable (“thing in itself”, the world of essences). The goal of philosophy, science, and sociology is the knowledge of similarities and differences, analogies, etc. in the phenomena of things to our consciousness. The essence, unknowable by human consciousness, is the cause of all phenomena, about which philosophy, religion, and science conjecture. The basis of the world, Spencer believed, is formed by universal evolution, which is a continuous interaction of two processes: the integration of bodily particles and their disintegration, leading to their balance and stability of things.

Spencer is the founder of organic sociology, according to which society arises as a result of a long evolution of living and itself is an organism similar to a living one. It consists of organs, each of which performs certain functions. Each society has an inherent function of survival in the natural and social environment, which is in the nature of competition - the struggle, as a result of which the most adapted societies are called. The evolution of nature (inanimate and living) is an ascent from the simple to the complex, from the low-functional to the multifunctional, etc. Evolution, as an integrative process, is opposed by decomposition. The struggle of evolution and decomposition is the essence of the process movements in the world.

Social organisms are the pinnacle of natural evolution. Spencer gives examples of social evolution. Peasant farms are gradually united into large feudal systems. The latter, in turn, are united in the provinces. Provinces create kingdoms, and those turn into empires. All this is accompanied by the emergence of new governing bodies. As a result of the complication of social formations, the functions of the parts that form them change. For example, at the beginning of the evolutionary process, the family had reproductive, economic, educational, and political functions. But gradually they passed to specialized social bodies: the state, the church, the school, etc.

Each social organism, according to Spencer, consists of three main organs (systems): 1) production (agriculture, fishing, handicraft); 2) distribution (trade, roads, transport, etc.); 3) managerial (elders, state, church, etc.). An important role in social organisms is played by the management system, which determines goals, coordinates other organs, and mobilizes the population. It operates on the basis of fear of the living (state) and the dead (church). Thus, Spencer was one of the first to give a fairly clear structural and functional description of social organisms: countries, regions, settlements (cities and villages).

Spencer's Mechanism of Social Evolution

How is the evolution (slow development) of social organisms according to Spencer? First of all, due to population growth, as well as due to the unification of people into social groups and classes. People organize themselves into social systems either for the sake of protection and attack, resulting in "military types of societies", or for the production of commodities, resulting in "industrial societies". There is a constant struggle going on between these types of societies.

The mechanism of social evolution includes three factors:

§ people are initially unequal in their characters, abilities, living conditions, resulting in differentiation of roles, functions, power, property, prestige;

§ there is a tendency to increase the specialization of roles, the growth of social inequality (power, prosperity, education);

§ society is divided into economic, political, national, religious, professional, etc. classes, which causes its destabilization and weakening.

With the help of the mechanism of social evolution, humanity goes through four stages of development:

§ simple and isolated from each other human societies in which people are engaged in approximately the same activities;

§ military societies, characterized by a temporary territory, division of labor, the leading role of a centralized political organization;

§ industrial societies, characterized by a permanent territory, constitution and system of laws;

§ civilizations, which include nation-states, federations of states, empires.

Central to this typology of societies is the dichotomy of military and industrial society. Below, this Spencer dichotomy is shown in tabular form (Table 1).

According to G. Spencer, at the first stage, the development of social science was under the complete control of theology, which remained the dominant type of knowledge and faith until about 1750. Then, as a result of the secularization of society, theology was denied the status of a privileged science, and this role passed to philosophy: not God, the priest, but the philosopher, the thinker began to be considered the source (and criterion) of true knowledge. At the end of the XVIII century. philosophers were replaced by scientists (natural scientists), who introduced into scientific circulation the empirical justification for the truth of knowledge, and not the authority of God or philosophy. They rejected the philosophical justification for the truth of knowledge as deductive speculation. As a result, a positivist theory of sociocognition emerged, which includes the following main provisions:

§ the objective world is given to a person in the form of sensory phenomena (sensations, perceptions, ideas), a person himself cannot penetrate into the essence of the objective world, but can only empirically describe these phenomena;

§ society is the result of the interaction of (a) the conscious activity of people and (b) objective natural factors;

§ social phenomena (facts) are qualitatively the same as natural phenomena, due to which the methods of natural science knowledge are also applicable in sociological research;

§ society is like an animal organism, it has certain organs-systems that interact with each other;

§ the development of society is the result of an increase in the number of people, differentiation and integration of labor, the complication of former organs-systems and the emergence of new ones;

§ the science represents a genuine benefit for people, and the development of mankind directly depends on the development of science, including sociology;

§ social revolutions are a disaster for people, they are the result of mismanagement of people, arising from ignorance of the laws of sociology;

§ for normal evolutionary development, leaders and leading classes must know sociology and be guided by it when making political decisions;

§ the task of sociology is to develop empirically substantiated universal laws of social behavior in order to orient it towards the public good, a rational social order;

§ Humanity consists of different countries (and peoples) that move along the same path, go through the same stages, and therefore obey the same laws.

Table 1. Military society versus industrial society

Criticizing positivist knowledge, Hayek writes: “In accordance with the idea of ​​the knowability of laws<...>the human mind is supposed to be able, so to speak, to look at itself from above and not only to understand the mechanism of its action from the inside, but also to observe its actions from the outside. The curiosity of such a statement, especially in Comte's formulation, is that, while it is openly recognized that the interaction of individual minds can lead to the emergence of something that is in a certain sense superior to the achievements available to an individual mind, this same individual mind, nevertheless, is declared not only capable of grasping the whole picture of human development and knowing the principles according to which it is carried out, but also capable of controlling this development and directing it, achieving in such a way that it proceeds more successfully than it would be without control.

MARX

Karl Marx (1818-1883) - German politician, sociologist, philosopher, historian, economist. His teachings are based on the philosophical views of G.V.F. Hegel, transformed into the concept of dialectical materialism.

Marx developed a theory of the materialistic understanding of history, based on the principle of the natural-historical development of society. According to Marx, social development has a single three-term scheme, the second link of which is the negation of the first, but is itself denied by the third. Thus, the historically primary classless society is replaced by a class, internally contradictory society, which in turn is replaced by a classless, but highly developed communist society, where social contradictions will be removed. The engine of social development is the incessant struggle between antagonistic classes.

Within the framework of the materialistic understanding of history, Marx creates a typology of societies, classifying them according to socio-economic formations. A socio-economic formation is a concrete historical type of society, the main characteristic of which is the type of production relations that dominate in it.

According to Marx's views, each economic system develops until it reaches a state of maximum efficiency; at the same time, internal contradictions or weaknesses develop in him, undermining him from the inside. The foundations of the new system begin to take shape in the bowels of the existing one. According to Marx, not a single socio-economic formation perishes before all the productive forces have developed, for which it gives enough scope, and new production relations never appear before the material conditions for their existence have matured in the bosom of the old society. Marx gives the following sequence: slavery is replaced by feudalism, which is replaced by capitalism, capitalism - by socialism, and, finally, socialism - by communism (the highest stage of development of society).

An important socio-cultural consequence of capitalist relations, which Marx focused on, is alienation - the loss of the fullness of human, cultural, personal existence in the face of capital accumulation. Depersonalization concerns both the hired worker - the proletarian, from whom not only the product is alienated in labor, but also the human essence itself, and the capitalist, for whom all the richness and diversity of cultural and social life is reduced to the pursuit of profit.

According to Marx, political ideologies, law, religion, the institution of the family, education, and government constitute the superstructure of society. The economic basis of society - the mode of production of material goods and the class structure - affects the formation of all social institutions. When one class controls the most essential means by which people ensure their existence, it has in its hands the "system of levers" necessary for the formation in its own interests of other aspects of institutional life - the superstructure. However, the economic system does not affect the superstructure unilaterally. The superstructure, in turn, affects the economic basis and changes it. Marx believed that when the working class armed itself with a revolutionary ideology capable of raising class consciousness, it would overthrow the existing social order and establish a new truly humanistic order - communism.

The names of Karl Marx (1818-1881) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) are associated historical (economic) materialism. They considered society as a historically established system of human life. The main factors of its functioning and development are economic. Nature is primarily an object of labor, which society, with the help of developing technology, turns into material goods. Consciousness, and with it morality, religion, etc., are secondary, dependent on economic life. “It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness.” Other propositions of historical materialism follow from this principle.

The materialistic-economic approach to society was developed by Marx and his followers in the concept of a socio-economic formation (SEF). In historical materialism, this social formation is (a) a type of social organism and (b) a stage in the historical development of mankind; in addition, (c) the basis of the GEF is formed by the economy (material production), and not by religious, moral or political (state) factors.

The GEF includes: 1) the method of social production (the basis of society); 2) the superstructure (legal, political, forms of social consciousness), determined by the basis. Mode of production material goods is the unity of productive forces (people and means of production) and production relations (production, distribution, exchange, consumption of material goods). In this understanding, it remained unclear: which element of the basis is the main one - production relations or the mode of production? After Stalin's death, socio-economic formations began to be seen as social organisms (societies), including other elements of society: life, family, lifestyle, etc.

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces come into conflict with the existing production relations. The era of social revolutions is coming: the replacement of old production relations, forms of the state, types of ideology, etc. with new ones. Not a single EEF will perish until the new productive forces mature and the old production relations no longer correspond to them. In this regard, humanity sets itself only those tasks that correspond to the productive forces of society.

In the preface to his Critique of Political Economy (1858), Marx writes: Asiatic, antique, feudal and modern, bourgeois, production methods can be described as progressive economic era social formation." The Asiatic mode of production and its corresponding formation turned out to be similar to Spencer's military society.

The transition of mankind from one OEF to another is natural history a process, i.e., independent of the consciousness and will of people and determining their consciousness and will. In a simpler scheme, the above methods of production can be put into three main eras human history(not an economic formation): 1) pre-class (primitive communal, pre-industrial, non-economic); 2) class (slave-owning, feudal, capitalist society - economic); 3) classless (non-economic, communist society, the first phase of which is socialism).

Marx and Engels argued that communism is a higher type of economic formation, and the transition from capitalism to communism is the most important regularity that is realized as a result of the proletarian socialist revolution. This revolution will take place due to the fact that capitalist society will not be able to resolve its inherent contradictions in an evolutionary way. They believed that the capitalist formation, within which they lived, had reached the limit of its capabilities and the proletarian-socialist revolution would soon come. That they were mistaken, Engels was forced to admit at the end of his life.

The fatal predetermination of the communist future made the development of mankind uncontested. The conscious choice of kings, generals, political elites, etc. plays an insignificant role, since it reflects the objective circumstances inherited by people from previous generations. The "material productive forces of society" in historical materialism represent ultimate cause(driving force) of the development of economic formations. Among the elements of these forces, the main ones are tools. The hand mill gives us a society with an overlord, and the steam mill gives us a society with industrial capital, Marx wrote in The Poverty of Philosophy (1847). In this way, not people with their needs and interests, and the material productive forces of society are the true subjects of the historical process.

Historical materialism can be called objective materialism, because the basis of social development is not just the economy, but its objective laws hidden from direct observation of people. They actually took the place of God - or Hegel's Absolute Spirit. The following were considered objective laws: the method of production of material goods is the basis for the development of society; social being determines social consciousness; the relations of production must correspond to the productive forces; the driving force behind the development of antagonistic formations is the class struggle; the transition from one formation to another is carried out by a social revolution, "the locomotive of history"; the highest form of social revolution is proletarian-socialist; the proletariat is the advanced class of the industrial age.

From the leading role of the economy followed the role of the struggle of economic classes as the driving force of social development. Spiritual life was assigned a subordinate (superstructural) role. A myth was created about the proletariat as the driving force behind post-capitalism. Marxism tried to find the semantic structure of society on the basis of the proletariat. The methodological principle of Marxism is simple: the proletariat is a progressive class of the post-capitalist world, its interests are progressive and act as a criterion for the truth of different worldviews and social actions. The bourgeois understanding of society was correct earlier, before the advent of the proletariat. (True, it remained incomprehensible how this marginal, illiterate class, worried about work and earnings, could be the bearer of social progress.)

Historical materialism played an important role ideological function in the communist parties. “Just as philosophy finds its material weapon in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapon in philosophy.” This spiritual weapon turned out to be, in particular, a tough bridle for the consciousness of the “Soviet intelligentsia”, in which the ideological and dogmatic side became predominant to the detriment of the cognitive (V. S. Barulin devotes a separate chapter to this topic in his “Social Philosophy”, which is called "The Drama of Historical Materialism"). It can be said that Marxist sociocognition was a development of the positivist one and included its basic principles.

Karl Popper compared historical materialism with astrology, which also does not pay attention to facts that are unfavorable to it. The prominent liberal thinker Ludwig von Mises emphasized the fatalism of Hegelian and Marxian social philosophy and sociology: “In reality, they concentrate the final given in two points of the system, its supposed beginning and its supposed end. They suggest that at the start of history there is a force that cannot be analyzed and simplified, for example, spirit in the Hegel system or material productive forces in Marx's system. And then they assume that this prime mover of history is striving for a certain goal, also not amenable to analysis and simplification, for example, to the Prussian state around 1825 or to socialism.

Why did Marxism acquire such influence in the world? Gary North believes that this was primarily facilitated by the picture of utopian communism created by Marx. It brought Marxism fame in Russia among the raznochintsy intelligentsia. But only the building of "proletarian socialism" in the USSR under the slogans of Marxism made the Marxist ideology popular worldwide. According to Hayek, the generally accepted theory of socialism contains almost nothing that was not thought out in its time by the Saint-Simonists: the organization of the country's economy by analogy with a single factory; a financial system led by one state-owned bank; organization of society in the name of a common goal; turning people into cogs in a totalitarian state machine; transformation of communist ideology into a kind of religion, etc.

The main arguments against historical materialism turned out to be the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 1852 - seven years before the publication of The Origin of Species Charles Darwin - Herbert Spencer published an article: The Development Hypothesis, which outlined the idea of ​​evolution (this was also recognized by Charles Darwin) ...

Followers often called the complex of ideas expressed "the general law of evolution"

The work below is cited from the 1882 edition.

“Eighteen years or more ago, an American friend asked me to give him, in a concise form, the main points developed by me in a successive series of works, both already published by me, and those that I still intended to publish. I wrote these propositions for him and then they appeared in England, but in a form that did not allow them to be widely disseminated; I will now reproduce them here to prepare the way for Mr. Collins' work.

"one. Everywhere in the universe, both in general and in particular, there is an uninterrupted redistribution of matter and motions.

2. This redistribution is evolution when it is dominated by the integration of matter and the dispersal of motion, but it is decomposition when it is dominated by motion and the disintegration of matter.

3. Evolution will be simple if the process of integration or formation of a connected aggregate is not complicated by other processes.

4. Evolution will be complex if, next to the primary change from a disconnected state to a connected state, there are secondary changes caused by dissimilarity in the positions of various parts of the aggregate.

5. These secondary changes accomplish the transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, a transformation which, like the primary change, is also found in the universe as a whole and in all (or almost all) of its parts: in aggregates of stars and nebulae; in the solar system; in the earth as an inorganic mass; in every organism, animal and vegetable (law Baer); in a collection of organisms during a geological period; in spirit; in society; in all products of social activity.

6. The process of integration, both in particular and in general, is combined with the process of differentiation to make this change not a simple transition from homogeneity to heterogeneity, but a transition from indefinite homogeneity to a definite heterogeneity; and this increasing certainty, which accompanies increasing heterogeneity, manifests itself, like the latter, both in the totality of things, and in all its deeds and subdivisions, down to the smallest.

7. Along with the redistribution of matter, which constitutes some developing aggregate, there occurs a redistribution of the preserved motion of its component parts in relation to each other: it also becomes, step by step, more definite and more heterogeneous.

8. Due to the lack of infinite and absolute homogeneity, this redistribution, one of the phases of which is evolution, is inevitable. The reasons that make it inevitable are:

9. Instability of the homogeneous, which is a consequence of the property of any limited aggregate, the various parts of which are subjected to unequal action of external forces. The transformations that arise from here are complicated:

10. Reproduction of consequences. Each mass and part of the mass, on which the sipa acts, subdivides and differentiates this force, which thus produces various changes, and each this change gives rise to new changes, multiplying in a similar way: their reproduction becomes the greater, the more heterogeneous the aggregate becomes. . These two causes of increasing differentiation are:

11. Separation: a process which tends to separate dissimilar units and unite homogeneous units, and thus constantly sharpens or makes more definite the differentiation produced by other causes.

12. Equilibrium is the end result of the transformations experienced by the developing aggregate. These changes are made until an equilibrium is reached between the forces to which all parts of the aggregate are subject, and the forces opposed to them by these parts of the aggregate. On the way to the final equilibrium, the process may pass through a transitional state of balanced movements (as in a planetary system) and balanced functions (as in a living body), but the state of rest for inorganic bodies and death in the organic world is the necessary limit of all changes that make up evolution.

13. Decomposition is a process of reverse changes to which, sooner or later, every developing aggregate undergoes. Subject to the influence of surrounding unbalanced forces, each aggregate is constantly liable to be dispersed by a continuous or sudden increase in the motion contained in it; and to this dispersal, rapidly undergone by bodies which still recently lived, and slowly accomplished among the inanimate masses, every planetary and stellar mass which, in an indefinitely distant past period, began to develop gradually, will undergo, at an indefinitely distant period: thus the cycle of transformations will come to an end.

14. This rhythm of evolution and disintegration (completing among small aggregates in short periods, and among large aggregates requiring periods beyond the measure of the human mind), as far as we can judge, is eternal and universal - each of the alternating phases of the process dominates at a certain moment in one place , in the known - in another, depending on local conditions.

15. All these phenomena, from the largest to the smallest, are the inevitable consequences of the conservation (constancy) of force in its forms of matter and motion. Since they are given in space and their number cannot change, neither increase nor decrease, the inevitable consequence of this will be a constant redistribution, characterized as evolution and decay, with all its aforementioned characteristic features.

16. That which remains quantitatively unchanged, but eternally changes its form under the sensual manifestations presented to us by the universe - that surpasses human knowledge and understanding and is an unknown and unknowable force, which we must consider as having no limits in space and having no beginning , no end in time."

Herbert Spencer, Synthetic Philosophy (abridged by Collins), Kyiv, Nika Center; "Wist-S", p. 12-14.