For a long time, the analysis of science and scientific knowledge was carried out according to the “model” of natural and mathematical knowledge. The characteristics of the latter were considered characteristic of science as a whole, which is especially clearly expressed in scientism. IN last years interest in social (humanitarian) knowledge has sharply increased, which is considered as one of the unique types of scientific knowledge. When talking about it, two aspects should be kept in mind:

any knowledge in each of its forms is always social, since it is a social product, and is determined by cultural and historical reasons;

one of the types of scientific knowledge, which has as its subject social (social) phenomena and processes - society as a whole or its individual aspects (economics, politics, spiritual sphere, various individual formations, etc.).

In this study, it is unacceptable to reduce the social to the natural, in particular, attempts to explain social processes only by the laws of mechanics (“mechanism”) or biology (“biologism”), as well as the opposition of the natural and the social, up to their complete rupture.

The specificity of social (humanitarian) knowledge is manifested in the following main points:

• 1. The subject of social cognition is the human world, and not just a thing as such. This means that this subject has a subjective dimension. it includes man as “the author and performer of his own drama,” which he also cognizes. Humanitarian knowledge deals with society, social relations, where the material and the ideal, the objective and the subjective, the conscious and the spontaneous, etc. are closely intertwined, where people express their interests, set and realize certain goals, etc. Usually this is, first of all, subject-subject cognition.
• 2. Social cognition focused primarily on processes, i.e. on the development of social phenomena. The main interest here is dynamics, not statics, because society is practically devoid of stationary, unchanging states. That's why main principle his research at all levels is historicism, which was formulated much earlier in the humanities than in the natural sciences, although here too - especially in the twentieth century. - it plays an extremely important role.
• 3. In social cognition, exclusive attention is paid to the individual, individual (even unique), but on the basis of the concrete general, natural.
• 4. Social cognition is always a value-semantic development and reproduction of human existence, which is always a meaningful existence. The concept of “meaning” is very complex and has many aspects. As Heidegger said, meaning is “to what and for the sake of what.” And M. Weber believed that the most important task of the humanities is to establish “whether there is meaning in this world and whether there is meaning to exist in this world.” 1-10, religion and philosophy should help in resolving this issue, but not natural science, because it does not pose such questions.
• 5. Social cognition is inextricably and constantly connected with objective values ​​(evaluation of phenomena from the point of view of good and evil, fair and unfair, etc.) and “subjective” (attitudes, views, norms, goals, etc.), They indicate the humanly significant and cultural role of certain phenomena of reality. These are, in particular, a person’s political, ideological, moral beliefs, his attachments, principles and motives of behavior, etc. All these and similar points are included in the process of social research and inevitably affect the content of the knowledge obtained in this process.
• 6. Important in social cognition there is a procedure of understanding as familiarization with the meanings of human activity and as meaning formation. Understanding is precisely connected with immersion in the world of meanings of another person, the achievement and interpretation of his thoughts and experiences. Understanding as a real movement in meanings occurs in the conditions of communication, it is not separated from self-understanding and occurs in the element of language.

Understanding is one of the key concepts of hermeneutics - one of the modern areas of Western philosophy. As one of its founders, the German philosopher H. Gadamer, wrote, the “fundamental truth, the soul” of hermeneutics is this: the truth cannot be known and communicated by anyone alone. It is necessary to support the dialogue in every possible way and allow dissidents to have their say.

• 7. Social cognition is of a textual nature, i.e. Between the object and the subject of social cognition there are written sources (chronicles, documents, etc.) and archaeological sources. In other words, the poisoning of reflection occurs here: social reality appears in places, in sign-sound expression.
• 8. The nature of the relationship between the object and subject of social cognition is very complex and very indirect. Here, the connection with social reality usually occurs through historical sources (texts, chronicles, documents, etc.) and archaeological (material remains of the past). If the natural sciences are aimed at things, their properties and relationships, then the humanities are aimed at texts that are expressed in a certain symbolic form and which have meaning, meaning, and value. The textual nature of social cognition is its characteristic feature.
• 9. A feature of social cognition is its primary focus on the “qualitative coloring of events.” Phenomena are studied mainly from the point of view of quality rather than quantity. That's why specific gravity There are much fewer quantitative methods in social cognition than in the sciences of the natural and mathematical cycle. However, here too the processes of mathematization, computerization, formalization of knowledge, etc. are increasingly unfolding.
• 10. In social cognition, you cannot use either a microscope, or chemical reagents, much less the most complex scientific equipment; all this must be replaced by the “power of abstraction.” Therefore, the role of thinking, its forms, principles and methods is extremely important here. If in natural science the form of comprehension of an object is a monologue (because “nature is silent”), then in humanitarian knowledge it is a dialogue (of personalities, texts, cultures, etc.). The dialogical nature of social cognition is most fully expressed in the procedures of understanding. It is precisely connected with immersion in the “world of meanings” of another subject, comprehension and interpretation (interpretation) of his feelings, thoughts and aspirations.
• 11. In social cognition, a “good” philosophy and correct method play an extremely important role. Only their deep knowledge and skillful application makes it possible to adequately comprehend the complex, contradictory, purely dialectical nature of social phenomena and processes, the nature of thinking, its forms and principles, their permeation with value and worldview components and their influence on the results of knowledge, the meaning and life orientations of people, characteristics dialogue (inconceivable without posing and resolving contradictions/problems), etc.
• 4. Structure and levels of scientific knowledge

Scientific knowledge (and knowledge as its result) is an integral developing system with a rather complex structure. The latter expresses the unity of stable relationships between the elements of a given system. The structure of scientific knowledge can be presented in its various sections and, accordingly, in the totality of its specific elements. These can be: object (subject area of ​​cognition); subject of knowledge; means, methods of cognition - its tools (material and spiritual) and conditions for implementation.

With a different cross-section of scientific knowledge, the following elements of its structure should be distinguished: factual material; the results of its initial generalization in concepts; fact-based scientific assumptions (hypotheses); laws, principles and theories “growing” from the latter; philosophical attitudes, methods, ideals and norms of scientific knowledge; sociocultural foundations and some other elements.

Scientific knowledge is a process, i.e. a developing system of knowledge, the main element of which is theory - the highest form of organization of knowledge. Taken as a whole, scientific knowledge includes two main levels - empirical and theoretical. Although they are related, they are different from each other, each of them has its own specifics. What is it?

On empirical level living contemplation (sensory knowledge) predominates; the rational moment and its forms (judgments, concepts, etc.) are present here, but have a subordinate meaning. Therefore, the object under study is reflected primarily from its external connections and manifestations, accessible to living contemplation and expressing internal relationships.

Any scientific research begins with the collection, systematization and synthesis of facts. The concept of “fact” (from the Latin facturum - done, accomplished) has the following basic meanings:

• 1. A certain fragment of reality, objective events, results related either to objective reality (“facts of reality”) or to the sphere of consciousness and cognition (“facts of consciousness”).
• 2. Knowledge about any event, phenomenon, the reliability of which has been proven, i.e. as a synonym for truth.
• 3. A sentence that captures empirical knowledge, i.e. obtained through observations and experiments.

The second and third of these meanings are summarized in the concept “ scientific fact" The latter becomes such when it is an element logical structure specific system of scientific knowledge included in this system.

Collection of facts, their primary generalization, description (“logging”) of observed and experimental data, their systematization, classification and other “fact-fixing” activities characteristic features empirical knowledge.

Empirical research is aimed directly (without intermediate links) at its object. It masters it with the help of such techniques and means as comparison; observation, measurement, experiment, when an object is reproduced in artificially created and controlled conditions (including mentally); analysis - dividing an object into its component parts, induction - the movement of knowledge from the particular to the general, etc.

The theoretical level of scientific knowledge is characterized by the predominance of the rational element and its forms (concepts, theories, laws and other aspects of thinking). Living contemplation, sensory cognition is not eliminated here, but becomes a subordinate (but very important) aspect of the cognitive process.

Theoretical knowledge reflects phenomena and processes from their internal connections and patterns, comprehended through rational processing of empirical knowledge data. This processing is carried out using systems of “higher order” abstractions - such as concepts: inferences, laws, categories, principles, etc.

Based on empirical data, here there is a generalization of the objects under study, comprehension

their essence, “internal movement”, the laws of their existence, which constitute the main content of theories - the quintessence of knowledge at a given level. The most important task of theoretical knowledge is to achieve objective truth in all its specificity and completeness of content. In this case, such cognitive techniques and means as abstraction are especially widely used - abstraction from a number of properties and relationships of objects, idealization - the process of creating purely mental objects (“point”, “ideal gas”, etc.), synthesis of the resulting analysis of elements into a system, deduction - the movement of knowledge from the general to the particular, ascent from the abstract to the concrete, etc.

A characteristic feature of theoretical knowledge is its focus on oneself, intrascientific reflection, i.e. study of the process of cognition itself, its forms, techniques, methods, conceptual apparatus, etc. On the basis of theoretical explanation and known laws, prediction and scientific foresight of the future is carried out.

The empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge are interconnected, the boundary between them is conditional and fluid. Empirical research, revealing new data through observations and experiments, stimulates theoretical knowledge (which generalizes and explains them), confronts it with new, more complex tasks. On the other hand, theoretical knowledge, developing and concretizing its own content on the basis of empirics, opens up new, broader horizons for empirical knowledge, orients and directs it in the search for new facts, contributes to the improvement of its methods and means, etc.

Science as a whole dynamic system knowledge cannot develop successfully without being enriched with new empirical data, without generalizing them into a system of theoretical means, forms and methods of cognition. At certain points in the development of science, the empirical turns into the theoretical and vice versa. However, it is unacceptable to absolutize one of these levels to the detriment of the other.

Empiricism reduces scientific knowledge as a whole to its empirical level, belittling or completely rejecting theoretical knowledge. “Scholastic theorizing” ignores the significance of empirical data, rejects the need for a comprehensive analysis of facts as a source and basis for theoretical constructions, and is divorced from real life. Its product is illusory-utopian, dogmatic constructions - such as, for example, the concept of “the introduction of communism in 1980.” or “theory” of developed socialism.

For a long time, the analysis of science and scientific knowledge was carried out according to the “model” of natural and mathematical knowledge. The characteristics of the latter were considered characteristic of science as a whole, which is especially clearly expressed in scientism. In recent years, interest in social (humanitarian) knowledge, which is considered as one of the unique types of scientific knowledge, has sharply increased. When talking about it, two aspects should be kept in mind:

• any knowledge in each of its forms is always social, since it is a social product, and is determined by cultural and historical reasons;
• one of the types of scientific knowledge, which has as its subject social (public) phenomena and processes - society as a whole or its individual aspects (economics, politics, spiritual sphere, various individual formations, etc.).

In this study, it is unacceptable to reduce the social to the natural, in particular, attempts to explain social processes only by the laws of mechanics (“mechanism”) or biology (“biologism”), as well as the opposition of the natural and the social, up to their complete rupture.

The specificity of social (humanitarian) knowledge is manifested in the following main points:

Subject of social cognition -- human world, and not just a thing as such. This means that this subject has a subjective dimension; it includes a person as “the author and performer of his own drama,” which he also cognizes. Humanitarian knowledge deals with society, social relations, where the material and the ideal, the objective and the subjective, the conscious and the spontaneous, etc. are closely intertwined, where people express their interests, set and realize certain goals, etc. Usually this is primarily a subject - subjective cognition.

Social cognition is focused primarily on processes, i.e. on the development of social phenomena. The main interest here is dynamics, not statics, because society is practically devoid of stationary, unchanging states. Therefore, the main principle of its research at all levels is historicism, which was formulated much earlier in the humanities than in natural sciences, although here too - especially in the 21st century. - it plays an extremely important role.

In social cognition, exclusive attention is paid to the individual, individual (even unique), but on the basis of the concretely general, natural.

Social cognition is always a value-semantic development and reproduction of human existence, which is always a meaningful existence. The concept of “meaning” is very complex and multifaceted. As Heidegger said, meaning is “to what and for the sake of what.” And M. Weber believed that the most important task of the humanities is to establish “whether there is meaning in this world and whether there is meaning to exist in this world.” But religion and philosophy, and not natural science, should help in resolving this issue, because it does not pose such questions.

Social cognition is inextricably and constantly connected with objective values ​​(evaluation of phenomena from the point of view of good and evil, fair and unfair, etc.) and “subjective” (attitudes, views, norms, goals, etc.). They point to the humanly significant and cultural role of certain phenomena of reality. These are, in particular, a person’s political, ideological, moral beliefs, his attachments, principles and motives of behavior, etc. All these and similar points are included in the process of social research and inevitably affect the content of the knowledge obtained in this process.

The procedure of understanding as familiarization with the meaning of human activity and as meaning formation is important in social cognition. Understanding is precisely connected with immersion in the world of another person’s meanings, comprehension and interpretation of his thoughts and experiences. Understanding as a real movement of meaning occurs in the conditions of communication; it is not separated from self-understanding and occurs in the element of language.

Understanding- one of the key concepts of hermeneutics - one of the modern trends in Western philosophy. As one of its founders, the German philosopher H. Gadamer, wrote, the “fundamental truth, the soul” of hermeneutics is this: the truth cannot be known and communicated by anyone alone. It is necessary to support the dialogue in every possible way and allow dissidents to have their say.

Social cognition is of a textual nature, i.e. Between the object and the subject of social cognition there are written sources (chronicles, documents, etc.) and archaeological sources. In other words, a reflection of a reflection occurs: social reality appears in texts, in sign-symbolic expression.

The nature of the relationship between the object and the subject of social cognition is very complex and very indirect. Here, the connection with social reality usually occurs through sources - historical (texts, chronicles, documents, etc.) and archaeological (material remains of the past). If the natural sciences are aimed at things, their properties and relationships, then the humanities are aimed at texts that are expressed in a certain symbolic form and which have meaning, meaning, and value. The textual nature of social cognition is its characteristic feature.

A feature of social cognition is its primary focus on the “qualitative coloring of events.” The phenomenon is studied mainly from the aspect of quality rather than quantity. Therefore, the proportion of quantitative methods in social cognition is much less than in the sciences of the natural and mathematical cycle. However, here too the processes of mathematization, computerization, formalization of knowledge, etc. are increasingly unfolding.

In social cognition, one cannot use either a microscope, or chemical reagents, or even more so the most complex scientific equipment - all this must be replaced by the “power of abstraction.” Therefore, the role of thinking, its forms, principles and methods is extremely important here. If in natural science the form of comprehension of an object is a monologue (because “nature is silent”), then in humanitarian knowledge it is a dialogue (of personalities, texts, cultures, etc.). The dialogical nature of social cognition is most fully expressed in procedures understanding. It is precisely connected with immersion in the “world of meanings” of another subject, comprehension and interpretation (interpretation) of his feelings, thoughts and aspirations.

In social cognition, a “good” philosophy and correct method play an extremely important role. Only their deep knowledge and skillful application makes it possible to adequately comprehend the complex, contradictory, purely dialectical nature of social phenomena and processes, the nature of thinking, its forms and principles, their permeation with value and worldview components and their influence on the results of knowledge, the meaning and life orientations of people, characteristics dialogue (inconceivable without posing and resolving contradictions/problems), etc.

The difference between the sciences of nature and the sciences of culture was analyzed in detail in previous chapters, so we will only briefly formulate some of the features of scientific research work in the social sphere, identified by modern philosophical thought.

1. Subject of social cognition – sphere of human activity (sphere of social ) in its diverse forms and manifestations. This is the unity of the objective (social laws) and the subjective (individual interests, goals, intentions, etc.). Humanitarian knowledge is knowledge about the integral system of subjective reality, both individual (“the world of man”) and collective (“the world of society”). Wherein social object considered both statically and dynamically.

The most important goal of social cognition is development research social phenomena, identifying laws, causes and sources of this development. In this aspect, significant temporal differences are revealed in the development of the object and the theory of social and humanitarian knowledge.

A situation characteristic of natural science: the subject does not change significantly, and its theoretical knowledge develops quite quickly. Thus, the time frame for the evolution of the Galaxy is extremely long in comparison with the time period for people to understand this evolution.

A situation characteristic of social cognition: the time frame for the development of the subject is comparable to the time frame for the development of theory, therefore, the evolution of scientific knowledge reflects the evolution of the object. For theories social work this is especially important since the results of theoretical work in this area directly influence the development of the social work system. In this regard, it is of particular importance here the principle of historicism, namely, the consideration of social phenomena in the process of their genesis, development and transformation.

2. Social cognition is focused on the study of the singular, unique, individual, while relying on the results of the study of the general, natural. G. Hegel showed that the phenomenon is richer than the law, since it contains within itself the moment of a self-moving form, something that is not covered by the law, which is always “narrow, incomplete, approximate.”

There are objective laws in society, the identification of which is the most important task of social cognition, but these are “laws-trends” that are quite difficult to “isolate” from the subject of social cognition. This is precisely what explains the difficulties of generalization and generalization in social cognition. Man (like society as a whole) is a complex unity of the rational and the irrational, the common and the unique. At the same time, the uniqueness of socio-historical phenomena does not “cancel” the need to identify general, natural in this sphere: every individual is in one way or another general, and every unique includes an element of the universal.

Difficulties in structuring and typologizing humanitarian material complicate both the processes of its unification and categorization. Many researchers distinguish two layers of the linguistic potential of the humanities:

• – the first is a collective fund of social science intended for explanations, explanations
• – the second is the terminological arsenal of cultural theory, anthropology, psychology, etc., intended for hermeneutic activity.

At the same time, the apparatus of natural language is widely used in social science.

3. The subject of cognition is constantly included in the subject of social cognition, and one cannot get rid of such a presence, therefore one of the most important tasks of social cognition is to understand someone else’s “I” (and to a certain extent, one’s own “I”) as another subject, as a subjective-active principle.

At the same time, in social cognition there is a complex, very indirect the nature of the relationship between object and subject. In the process of social cognition, “reflection of reflection” occurs; these are “thoughts about thoughts”, “experiencing experiences”, “words about words”, “texts about texts”. M. M. Bakhtin noted that the text is the primary given of any humanitarian discipline: “The spirit (both one’s own and someone else’s) cannot be given as a thing (direct object natural sciences), but only in a symbolic expression, realization in texts both for oneself and for another."

Due to the textual nature of social cognition, a special place in the humanities occupies semiotic (from Greek semeion – sign, sign) problematic. Sign – a material object (phenomenon, event), acting as a representative of some other object (properties, relationships). The sign is used to acquire, store and process messages (information, knowledge). Symbol (from Greek symbolon – sign, identifying feature) – the ideal content of both signs and other material things and processes. The meaning of a symbol really exists only within human communication. It is the concepts of “text”, “sign”, “meaning”, “symbol”, “language”, “speech” that determine the features of both the object of social cognition and its methods.

Social and humanitarian knowledge acts as a value-semantic development and reproduction of human existence. The categories “meaning” and “values” are key to understanding the specifics of social cognition. The great German philosopher M. Heidegger believed that “to understand the direction in which a thing is already moving on its own means to see its meaning. Understanding such a meaning is the essence of comprehension. Understanding implies more than just knowledge.”

Since the object of humanitarian knowledge exists in the space of human meanings and values, social cognition is inextricably linked with values, with meaningful life aspects of both a social object and a social subject. Values ​​are social characteristics of objects that reveal their meaning for a person and society (good, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, etc.).

M. Weber emphasizes the role of values ​​in social cognition: “What becomes the subject of research and how deeply this research penetrates into the endless interweaving of causal connections is determined by the value ideas dominant at a given time and in the thinking of a given scientist.” Values ​​determine both the specificity of methods of cognition and the originality of the way of forming concepts and norms of thinking that guide a scientist.

5. The specificity of the methodology of social cognition is related to the procedure of understanding. Understanding is fundamental to hermeneutics as the theory and practice of text interpretation. Thanks to the symbolic nature of social existence, the concept of “Text” (as a set of signs with meaning and meaning) turns out to be universal as a characteristic of the processes and results of human activity in various fields.

Understanding should not be identified with cognition, as is the case in ordinary cognition (“to understand means to express it in the logic of concepts”) or confused with the procedure of explanation. Understanding is associated with comprehension, with immersion in the “world of meanings” of another person, comprehension and interpretation of his thoughts and experiences. Understanding is a search for meaning: you can only understand what makes sense.

6. Social cognition explores primarily the qualitative side of the reality under study. Due to the specificity of the mechanism of social laws (including, along with rationalizable ones, a system of irrational components), the proportion of quantitative methods here is much less than in the natural sciences. However, here too the processes of mathematization and formalization of knowledge are intensified. Thus, the system of mathematical methods is widely used in applied sociology, psychology, statistics, etc.

The comprehensive introduction of mathematical methods into social cognition is hampered by the individualization (often uniqueness) of social objects; the presence of various subjective factors; polysemy and incompleteness of meanings, their dynamism, etc.

• 7. The specific relationship between the empirical and theoretical levels in social cognition. In social cognition, the possibilities of social experiment are limited, and empirical methods are used in a unique way: surveys, questionnaires, testing, model experiments, often aimed at identifying the value and semantic connections of a person with the world. The importance of methods of getting used to it, empathy, understanding techniques, etc. is very great here.
• 8. On lack of generally accepted paradigms in social sciences the outstanding logician and philosopher of our time G. H. von Wright drew attention: “In sociology there is no universally recognized paradigms, and this is the feature that distinguishes it from natural science.<...>

They often talk about the inevitability of “theoretical anarchism” in the humanities, because there is no “one true theory” here. For these sciences, the norm is a multiplicity of competing concepts and theoretical models of social reality, as well as the possibility of free choice of any of them.

There is another point of view. Thus, L. V. Topchiy does not consider the polyparadigm of social theories to be a positive characteristic and asserts that “the theory of social work in Russia is perhaps the only social discipline that does not have a common (generally recognized) theoretical paradigm of social work.”

9. Increasing need for practical impact on the part of the humanities. Since social reality in modern society (social institutions, social relations, social ideas and theories) increasingly is being constructed social sciences are increasingly turning into a direct social force. Their recommendations are necessary for implementation in various spheres of society: in economics and practical politics, in the management of social processes, in the spheres of culture, education, etc. A particularly important role for the optimal “design” of social policy and national system Social work plays a creative development of social work theory.

Human cognition is subject to general laws. However, the characteristics of the object of knowledge determine its specificity. We have our own character traits and in social cognition, which is inherent in social philosophy. It should, of course, be borne in mind that in the strict sense of the word, all knowledge has a social, social character. However, in this context we are talking about social cognition itself, in the narrow sense of the word, when it is expressed in a system of knowledge about society on its basis. various levels and in various aspects.
The specificity of this type of cognition lies primarily in the fact that the object here is the activity of the subjects of cognition themselves. That is, people themselves are both subjects of knowledge and real actors. In addition, the object of cognition also becomes the interaction between the object and the subject of cognition. In other words, in contrast to the natural sciences, technical and other sciences, in the very object of social cognition, its subject is initially present.
Further, society and man, on the one hand, act as part of nature. On the other hand, these are the creations of both society itself and man himself, the materialized results of their activities. In society there are both social and individual forces, both material and ideal, objective and subjective factors; in it both feelings, passions, and reason matter; both conscious and unconscious, rational and irrational aspects of human life. Within society itself, its various structures and elements strive to satisfy their own needs, interests and goals. This complexity public life, its diversity and different quality determine the complexity and difficulty of social cognition and its specificity in relation to other types of cognition.
To the difficulties of social cognition explained by objective reasons, that is, reasons that have grounds in the specifics of the object, are added the difficulties associated with the subject of cognition. Such a subject is ultimately the person himself, although involved in public relations and scientific communities, but having his own individual experience and intelligence, interests and values, needs and passions, etc. Thus, when characterizing social cognition, one should also keep in mind its personal factor.
Finally, it is necessary to note the socio-historical conditionality of social cognition, including the level of development of the material and spiritual life of society, its social structure and the interests prevailing in it.
The specific combination of all these factors and aspects of the specificity of social cognition determines the diversity of points of view and theories that explain the development and functioning of social life. At the same time, this specificity largely determines the nature and characteristics of various aspects of social cognition: ontological, epistemological and value (axiological).
1.Ontological(from the Greek on (ontos) - existing) the side of social cognition concerns the explanation of the existence of society, the patterns and trends of its functioning and development. At the same time, it also affects such a subject of social life as a person, to the extent that he is included in the system of social relations. In the aspect under consideration, the above-mentioned complexity of social life, as well as its dynamism, combined with the personal element of social cognition, are the objective basis for the diversity of points of view on the issue of the essence of people’s social existence.
That this is indeed the case is evidenced by the very history of social cognition and its current state. It is enough to note that various authors take such diverse factors as the basis of the existence of society and human activity, such as the idea of ​​justice (Plato), divine plan (Augustine the Blessed), absolute reason (Hegel), economic factor(K. Marx), the struggle of the “life instinct” and the “death instinct” (eros and thanatos) among themselves and with civilization (3. Freud), “relics” (V. Pareto), “social character” (E. Fromm) , “folk spirit” (M. Lazarius, H. Steinthal), geographical environment (C. Montesquieu, P. Chaadaev).
Each of these points of view, and many more could be named, reflects one or another aspect of the existence of society. However, the task of social science, which is what social philosophy is, is not to simply record various factors of social existence, but to discover objective patterns and trends in its functioning and development. But here we are faced with the main question when it comes to social cognition: do these objective laws and trends exist in society?
From the answer to this follows the answer about the possibility of social science. If objective laws of social life exist, then, therefore, social science is possible. If there are no such laws in society, then there can be no scientific knowledge about society, because science deals with laws. There is no clear answer to this question today.
Pointing to the complexity of social cognition and its object, for example, such followers of I. Kant as W. Windelband and G. Rickert argued that there are and cannot be any objective laws in society, because here all phenomena are of an individual, unique nature, and, consequently, in society there are no objective laws that fix only stable, necessary and repeating connections between phenomena and processes. The followers of the neo-Kantians went even further and declared that that society itself exists only as our idea of ​​it, as a “world of concepts,” and not as an objective reality. Representatives of this point of view essentially identify the object (in this case, society and social phenomena in general) and the results of social cognition.
In fact, human society (like man himself) has an objective, primarily natural, basis. It also arises and develops objectively, that is, regardless of who knows it and how, regardless of the specific subject of knowledge. Otherwise, there would be no general line of development in history at all.
The above, of course, does not mean that the development of social knowledge does not affect the development of society at all. However, when considering this issue, it is important to see the dialectical interaction between the object and subject of knowledge, the leading role of the main objective factors in the development of society. It is also necessary to highlight the patterns that arise as a result of the action of these factors.
Such basic objective social factors underlying any society include, first of all, the level and nature of economic development of society, the material interests and needs of people. Not only an individual person, but all of humanity, before engaging in knowledge and satisfying their spiritual needs, must satisfy their primary, material needs. Certain social, political and ideological structures also arise only on a certain economic basis. For example, the modern political structure of society could not have arisen in a primitive economy. Although, of course, one cannot deny the mutual influence of a variety of factors on social development, ranging from the geographical environment to subjective ideas about the world.
2.Epistemological(from the Greek gnosis - knowledge) the side of social cognition is associated with the characteristics of this cognition itself, primarily with the question of whether it is capable of formulating its own laws and categories and whether it has them at all. In other words, we are talking about whether social cognition can lay claim to truth and have the status of science? The answer to this question largely depends on the scientist’s position on the ontological problem of social cognition, that is, on whether the objective existence of society and the presence of objective laws in it are recognized. As in cognition in general, in social cognition ontology largely determines epistemology.
The epistemological side of social cognition also includes the solution of such problems:
- how cognition of social phenomena is carried out;
- what are the possibilities of their knowledge and what are the boundaries of knowledge;
- the role of social practice in social cognition and the significance in this personal experience cognizing subject;
- the role of various kinds of sociological research and social experiments in social cognition.
Of no small importance is the question of the capabilities of the human mind in understanding the spiritual world of man and society, the culture of certain peoples. In this regard, problems arise regarding the possibilities of logical and intuitive knowledge of the phenomena of social life, including the psychological states of large groups of people as manifestations of their mass consciousness. The problems of the so-called “common sense” and mythological thinking in relation to the analysis of the phenomena of social life and their understanding are not without meaning.
3. In addition to the ontological and epistemological aspects of social cognition, there is also value - axiological its side (from the Greek axios - valuable), which plays an important role in understanding its specifics, since any knowledge, and especially social, is associated with certain value patterns, predilections and interests of various cognitive subjects. The value approach manifests itself from the very beginning of cognition - from the choice of the object of research. This choice is made by a specific subject with his life and educational experience, individual goals and objectives. In addition, value prerequisites and priorities largely determine not only the choice of the object of cognition, but also its forms and methods, as well as the specifics of interpretation of the results of social cognition.
How the researcher sees an object, what he comprehends in it and how he evaluates it follows from the value prerequisites of cognition. The difference in value positions determines the difference in the results and conclusions of knowledge.
In connection with the above, the question arises: what then to do with objective truth? After all, values ​​are, after all, personified and have a personal character. The answer to this question is ambiguous among different authors. Some believe that the presence of a value element in social cognition is incompatible with the recognition of social sciences. Others take the opposite point of view. It seems that the latter are right.
Indeed, the value approach itself is inherent not only in social cognition, the “sciences of culture,” but also in all cognition, including the “sciences of nature.” However, on this basis no one denies the existence of the latter. The factual side, showing the compatibility of the value aspect of social cognition with social science, is that this science primarily studies objective laws and trends in the development of society. And in this regard, value prerequisites will not determine the development and functioning of the object of study of various social phenomena, but only the nature and specificity of the study itself. The object itself remains the same regardless of how we know it or whether we know it at all.
Thus, the value side of social cognition does not at all deny the possibility of scientific knowledge of society and the existence of social sciences. Moreover, it contributes to the consideration of society and individual social phenomena in different aspects and from different positions. This results in a more specific, multifaceted and complete description of social phenomena and, consequently, a more scientific explanation of social life. The main thing is to identify, on the basis of different points of view and approaches, positions and opinions, the internal essence and pattern of development of social phenomena and processes, which is the main task of the social sciences.
The ontological, epistemological and axiological aspects of social cognition are closely interconnected, forming an integral structure cognitive activity of people.

3. The main tasks and ways of forming a rule of law state in Ukraine An important stage on the path to establishing the independence of Ukraine and developing the signs of its independent statehood was the adoption by the Supreme Council of Ukraine on June 28, 1996 of the Constitution of Ukraine. As a political and legal act of extreme importance and long-term action, it represents the foundation of not only modern, but also future democratic transformations in social relations, the basis for the formation legal system Ukrainian civil society, social, legal state, its national legislation. It can be argued that the fundamental constitutional foundations of the legal field of the economic and political functioning of society, the relationship between the state, society and the individual (person, citizen) have been laid. As the Basic Law of Ukraine, the Constitution not only outlines the contours of a civilized social, legal state and acts as the main source of current lawmaking, but also legally enshrines such democratic values ​​and principles that will still need to be introduced into the practice of national lawmaking and law enforcement. This, firstly, determines the main features and features of the process of direct implementation of democratic legal ideas and norms of the Constitution into the life of Ukrainian society, since the degree of real democracy of any constitution can be verified only through the practical application of its norms. Secondly, this predetermines the relevance of developing a new paradigm for domestic legal science, its jurisprudence and state science. It is known that at one time the social function of Soviet legal science was reduced by the authorities primarily to supporting and protecting the interests of the state, and jurisprudence carefully professed mainly a normative approach to law, considering it only as an element of the superstructure, integral to the state, a product and instrument of the latter , the basis and instrument for the implementation of class domination in state forms. Marxist-Leninist teaching proceeded from the interpretation of the state as an apparatus of class domination and suppression. Hence the ideas that law is freedom, the law of the ruling class, which received its expression in legal form, were derived; law is a form of expression for the use of violence and the like. It is a fair point of view that it is precisely the identification in the theory and legal practice of law exclusively with the norms that are published government agencies, this is nothing more than one of the signs of a totalitarian political regime, the elevation of the state over society, the humiliation of democracy. And it must be recognized that the legal legacy of the Soviet period has not yet been overcome, when the law legally consolidated the actual dictatorship of the party state nomenklatura, the dominance of administrative-command management methods in the economy and the legitimate basis totalitarian regime in society. The conceptual core of the modern legal paradigm should be the determination of the priority place and role of man and citizen in civil law and state power relations, as well as in the system of legal categories, understanding the state as political function civil society, which must exercise real control over public life, and law as a specific function of law and the state. Hence, a qualitatively new legal understanding is needed, awareness of the complex nature of the dialectical relationship between law and law, and the latter’s compliance with moral requirements. As for the constructive-critical study and practical use of world experience in the legal development of a democratic society in the formation of a national paradigm of law, it undoubtedly deserves attention. However, it must be taken into account that specific historical legal facts, events, and the like must be looked at only as possible analogues, options for solving certain social problems, which have already been implemented in one way or another. Legal concepts that are used in legal science and practice are as unstable in their essence and content as moving, dynamic real life processes. Therefore, as it turns out, it is incorrect to scientific point from a pragmatic point of view, and even dangerous from a pragmatic point of view, both to “modernize” the history of law and draw conclusions regarding the events of the distant past on the basis of the legal views of the late 20th century, modern ideas about good and evil, and to blindly transfer old and foreign legal experience and knowledge to the modern national soil, without deciding on the specific historical legal state of our society. In this understanding, it can be argued that Hegel was right when he wrote: “... Experience and history teach that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history and have not acted in accordance with the teachings that could be received from it. In each era such special circumstances arise that each era represents such an individual state that in this era it is necessary and possible to make only those decisions that follow precisely from this state... Pale memories of the past have no power against vitality and freedom modernity." It is impossible to compensate for the lack of a real democratic socio-cultural and legal environment in Ukraine by attempting to derive and apply legal categories and concepts not from one’s own legal experience, but from scientific practical experience countries of developed democracy, where the historical natural-evolutionary development of market relations was synchronously correlated with the formation of civil society and the rule of law, an appropriate level of development. At the same time, it is also incorrect to refer to the export assessments of Western legal scholars, whose knowledge and experience are based on studies of legal relations and problems that are far from adequate to the essence, content and characteristics of social relations and problems of the transition period in Ukraine. New social realities require not just the administrative and political abolition of former Soviet law, reform, and improvement of the legal system inherited from the former USSR. It is known that, in principle, it is possible to reform or modernize (improvement of external manifestations, characteristics of an object) any social object of transformation only in the case when it in its basic structure has the potential for positive development, and does not represent (as in our case) a disintegrating social cultural matter that has not stood the historical test of time. Today we should be talking about replacing, on the basis of the Constitution of Ukraine, the inherited system of law, the transformation of all components of the legal system, their relationships: legal culture and consciousness, ideology, legal science, legal policy and legal practice, and the like. And, of course, we should talk about creating high-quality new system national legislation on increasing the role of the legislative process in the life of society and the functioning of the state. In this regard, it is appropriate to listen to the words of the professor of law, academician of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences B. Kistyakovsky, who back in 1909, analyzing the essence of the process of legal formation, emphasized that “the old law cannot simply be abolished, since its abolition has effect only then when it is replaced by a new right. On the contrary, the simple abolition of the old law only leads to the fact that it temporarily does not seem to be in effect, but then is restored in all its force.” The legislator’s consolidation in the Constitution of Ukraine of the foundations of democratic social freedoms in society gives rise to the need not only to expand the legal space, to develop organizational and legal mechanisms for their implementation, to create not just “quantitatively new” legislation, but “qualitatively new” - legal legislation, its system, which would meet the general needs of the Ukrainian people in the democratic political and economic development of society. In this system, each law must not only be organically connected with others, but also meet both the objective needs of social life and, most importantly, real possibilities their satisfaction, must not only take into account the priorities of universal legal values, but also the peculiarities of the national-cultural and social-class nature of social relations, must include the achievements of legal science and legislative technology.

Conclusion

Thus, at present, the rule of law is more of a constitutional principle, a slogan, and has not yet received its full implementation in any country. For example, states such as Germany, France, Switzerland, the USA and others have come closest to implementing this idea in practice. The current Ukrainian society is still far from achieving the ideals of the rule of law, but it is necessary to move in this direction. Overcoming various difficulties and obstacles, Ukraine will find its own image of a rule of law state, which will correspond to its history, traditions and culture, which will allow it to become a truly free democratic society. In conclusion, it should be noted that the idea of ​​the rule of law arose and was formed several centuries ago. For a long time, the theoretical and practical aspects of the formation of the rule of law have been polished. The greatest success in building a rule of law state has been achieved by countries where, along with the equal existence of forms of ownership, a developed civil society has been formed. From the point of view of the theory of state and law, a legal state has a clearly formulated definition, characteristics, common features, foundations and factors of existence. Thus, the rule of law is Democratic state, where the rule of law, the supremacy of law, the equality of all before the law and an independent court are ensured, where human rights and freedoms are recognized and guaranteed, and where the principle of separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers is the basis for the organization of state power. Currently, the foundations for the formation of a rule of law state have been laid and are being developed in Ukraine. But with the practical implementation of the proclaimed idea, many objective and subjective reasons arise that hinder the formation of the rule of law in Ukraine. Objective reasons are primarily determined by the historically established legal culture and national character traits. Subjective reasons are determined by the political lack of will and corruption of the country's leadership at all levels. However, building a rule of law state in Ukraine is possible. This process will take many years, but only with the consolidation of all creative forces society and with the responsible citizenship of each person.

Comprehensive development of the individual is such assimilation of the riches of social culture, in which the work of each member of the society turns into an integral activity, into amateur performance (Communist labor), and each person becomes an amateur and creative person. This is possible only as a result of overcoming such a social division of labor, which disfigures a person, turns him into a performer of a narrow labor function assigned to him, thereby making him one-sided, “partial.” Characterizing communism as a society that involves the development of “individuals into integral individuals,” Marx and Engels emphasized that this is not an arbitrary utopian ideal, but a real resolution of the real contradictions of the system of division of labor (vol. 3, pp. 68-69). Under capitalism, the splitting and fragmentation of human activity has created a mass of professional occupations, devoid not only of creativity, but in general of any content and meaning. Functions of this kind (for example, formal bureaucratic ones), generated by antagonistic social relations, represent those aspects of labor that are incompatible with the activities of an integral, communist person, subject and creator of social relations. Overcoming these aspects of human activity, turning it into a meaningful and creative process does not mean at all that every person must be able to and know everything that other people can and know, which is the property of the society as a whole. Yes, this is impossible: the progress of the productive forces gives rise to an increasing wealth of specialization. But under communism, this will be a specialization of activity, in which there is no division between physical and mental, executive and managerial labor, as well as professional consolidation of occupations, the opposition between working and free (more precisely, given at individual disposal) time, the gap between cognitive, artistic and moral culture. This is achieved not by mechanically combining and concentrating in one person all and any labor functions, specialties, etc., but by developing the true comprehensiveness of a person, which makes independent administrative-control, distribution, security, etc. functions unnecessary, standing above people. The person himself, in the process of work, masters these functions, including them in his integral activity as auxiliary functions, thereby becoming a universal and creative subject. If, even under capitalism, large-scale industry, capital flows, etc. factors require “the greatest possible versatility of workers” (K. Marx, F. Engels, vol. 23, p. 499), then the communist formation requires not just versatility, but integrity, harmonious human development. Basic the principle of communism “is the complete and free development of each individual” (Marx K., Engels F., vol. 23, p. 605).

PERSONALITY AND SOCIETY

The problem of man in philosophy. Concepts: “person”, “personality”, individuality.

Dialectics of the relationship between the social environment and the individual. Social and biological in individual human development and antisocial behavior.

Historical necessity and personal freedom. Freedom and responsibility, rights and responsibilities of the individual.

The question of the nature (essence) of man, his origin and purpose, man’s place in the world is one of the main problems in the history of philosophical thought.

The problem of man was identified, although in an undeveloped form, already in philosophy ancient world. During this era, cosmocentrism dominated as a type of philosophical thinking. Everything that exists was considered as a single and vast Cosmos, and man was thought of as its organic part. It was assumed that man is not free, since the world around him is huge and mysterious, and often hostile. The ideal existence of a person is to live in harmony with this world.

Almost all ancient philosophical thought talked about wisdom as a person’s ability to live in harmony with nature and the Cosmos. At this time, the foundations of humanism were laid - an ideological movement that considers man as a unique being, the highest value and goal of society.

In the philosophy of the Middle Ages, theocentrism dominated as a type of worldview, represented in all forms of social consciousness of that era. God was considered at that time the center of the universe, and man was only one of its many creatures.

The meaning of human life is to comprehend the divine, to approach it and thereby to save oneself. A person does not believe in himself, he believes in God.

The philosophy of the Middle Ages, to a greater extent than the ancient one, paid attention to the inner (spiritual) world of man. This created the prerequisites for man’s separation from the external (natural) world and gradual opposition to it.

Unlike the Middle Ages, the philosophy of the Renaissance turned man into an object of cult and worship. At this time, anthropocentrism was established as a specific type of philosophical worldview, and a transition was made from a religious to a secular understanding of man. The humanistic orientation of philosophy, rooted in antiquity, has been revived. The philosophy of the Renaissance affirmed the idea of ​​omnipotence and omnipotence of man.

The Renaissance, with its spirit of anthropocentrism, not only elevated man above the rest of the living world, but also sowed in him the seeds of pride and boundless individualism. Along with the philosophical thought of that time emphasized that man is a product of the surrounding nature, and not the result of his own activities.

In general, philosophical anthropology of the Renaissance is characterized by the opposition of man to nature. Man is placed above nature.

In the philosophy of the New Age, man was studied from the standpoint of mechanism as a philosophical worldview. It was believed that man, like the outside world, is also a mechanism, a complex machine. This machine is a creation of nature, the fruit of its long evolution. The main quality in a person is his intelligence. Man's calling is to change the world through the power of knowledge.

In German classical philosophy, an activity approach to understanding man was established. He was studied as an exclusively spiritual being, the creator of history and the world of culture (I. Herder, I. Kant, G. Hegel, I. Fichte). The history of society was considered as the history of the formation of freedom of the human race through its activities. The ultimate goal of history is humanism as a state of humanity, overcoming alienation and gaining freedom. I. Kant founded anthropology - the doctrine of man. Hegel shared Kant's anthropology and strived for knowledge of the whole person, his spiritual nature. L. Feuerbach made man the subject of his philosophy and created human religion.

Classical Marxism viewed man in the context of the entire totality of social relations and human history. The central ideas of Marxism are the idea of ​​human sociality, the social essence of man, understood materialistically and concretely historically (the essence of man is the totality of social relations).

Russian religious philosophy is entirely anthropological in its content; it is addressed primarily to the human soul. God and man, the meaning of history, good and evil - all these are the most important topics for this philosophy. the main problem for her it is human improvement. Russian religious philosophy has always called people to asceticism and the search for truth, to self-improvement and the acquisition of high morality, expressed in conscience.

The highest calling of a person is to create and transform this world, to bring into it love, beauty, goodness, and other high spiritual and moral values. Russian philosophy has always been morally oriented, so it was very interested in the topic of human freedom and creativity. She posed and resolved questions about the meaning of life, death and immortality of man. Ultimately, she saw a person’s calling in achieving harmony in the world by overcoming selfishness and increasing love for all living things.

In foreign philosophy of the twentieth century. There was also great interest in the topic of man. An important place in modern philosophy has been occupied by the topic of global problems of modern civilization and the human situation in connection with the crisis situation in the world.

In the 20s-30s of the twentieth century. V Western Europe Existentialism arose as a “philosophy of human existence.” The main theme in this philosophy was the theme of human existence in the alienated world of social relations. Existentialists taught that a person is doomed to be free if he does not want to die as a person, spiritually. The world and man have a future only if man finds the strength in himself not to die, but to create this world, making it more humane.

Modern scientific philosophy, systemic, scientific, A complex approach operates with a variety of scientific knowledge about man. But the synthesis of scientific knowledge does not provide an image of a whole person, an understanding of his living substance. Man is not only a material and social system that can be studied and measured, but a spiritual universe, a unique world governed by values ​​and meanings that omnipotent science cannot discover.

An appeal to the history of philosophical thought shows that the theme of man is, firstly, enduring. Secondly, it is interpreted from different ideological positions, determined by specific historical and other reasons. Thirdly, in the history of philosophy, questions about the essence and nature of man, the meaning of his existence, are constant.

To study man as a very complex object of scientific knowledge, philosophical thought has developed a whole series of concepts that make it possible to quite fully and comprehensively answer the question about the essence and nature of man, the meaning of his existence.

First of all, man is the highest level of living organisms on earth, a subject of socio-historical activity and culture. Concept man-concept generic, expressing the general features of the human race, a socialized person. This concept combines biological and general social traits of a person.

To study an individual person in philosophy and other sciences, the concept of “individual” is used. Individuality refers to the original, unique features and qualities inherent in a given individual.

Personality is the social qualities of an individual, acquired by him in the process of education and self-education, spiritual and practical activity and interaction with society. A person has, first of all, spiritual qualities. Personality is not given to a person from the outside; it can only be formed by him. A true personality is not a frozen phenomenon, it is entirely dynamic. Personality is always creativity, victory and defeat, search and acquisition, overcoming slavery and gaining freedom.

A personality always bears the stamp of a specific era. The modern personality is characterized by a high level of education, social activity, pragmatism and heuristics, and determination. Modern man is a person who has mastered democratic and universal values ​​and ideals. He does not separate his fate from the fate of his people and society as a whole.

By nature, man is an active, active being. To a large extent, he himself creates his own life and destiny; he is the author of history and the world of culture. Activity in its various forms (labor, politics, knowledge, education, etc.) is a way of human existence as a person, the creator of a new world. In the course of it, he changes not only the world around him, but also his own nature. All qualities and abilities of people are of a concrete historical nature, i.e. they change during the course of activity. In this regard, K. Marx noted that all five external senses of man were created by the history of labor and industry. Thanks to activity, a person is a plastic, flexible being. He is an eternal unfinished possibility, he is always in search and in action, in breaking through his restless spiritual and physical energy.

Man has a mechanism of not only biological, but also social inheritance. Social inheritance takes place in society during socialization. Socialization is the process of personality formation, which occurs primarily through education as a special type of activity.

Man has a collective way of life. Only within the framework of such activities can he form and develop his qualities. The richness of a person’s mind and emotional world, the breadth of his views, interests and needs largely depend on the breadth of his communication and interaction with other people.

A person also has a number of other qualities. People know how to create tools and constantly improve them. They are able, based on moral standards, to regulate their own relationships.

In the philosophical study of man, there is also a biosocial problem. She has great importance for the practice of education, since it characterizes human nature.

The biosocial problem is the problem of the relationship and interaction of the social and biological, acquired and inherited, “cultural” and “wild” in man.

By biological in a person it is customary to understand the anatomy of his body, the physiological processes in it. The biological forms the natural forces of man as a living being. Biological influences a person’s individuality, the development of some of his abilities - observation, forms of reaction to the outside world. All these forces are transmitted from parents and give a person the very possibility of existence in the world.

By the social in man, philosophy understands, first of all, his ability to think and practically act. This includes spirituality, attitude towards the outside world, and civic position. All this together constitutes human social forces. They are acquired by him in society through the mechanisms of socialization, i.e. introduction to the world of culture as the crystallization of the spiritual and practical experience of humanity, and are realized in the course of various activities.

There are three common positions on the issue of the relationship between the social and the biological.

The first approach is the biologizing interpretation of man (S. Freud, F. Galton). It is proposed to consider his natural qualities as the main ones in a person. Everything in people's behavior and action is due to their inherited genetic data.

The second approach is a predominantly sociological interpretation of man (T. More, T. Campanella). Its supporters either completely deny the biological principle in man or clearly underestimate its importance.

The third approach to solving a biosocial problem tries to avoid the above extremes. This position is characterized by the desire to consider a person as a complex synthesis, an interweaving of biological and social principles. It is recognized that a person simultaneously lives according to the laws of two worlds - natural and social. But it is emphasized that the basic qualities (the ability to think and act practically) still have a social origin.

In the 20th century The biological principle in a person changes very quickly under the active influence of unfavorable social, technological and environmental factors. These changes are increasingly negative.

What is natural in a person is a necessary condition for the development of an individual social qualities. The essence of the biosocial problem is that a person, in order to remain human, must preserve his biological nature as the basis of existence. The task is to combine the natural and social in a person, to bring them into a state of agreement and harmony.

The essential forces of a person create for him all the necessary subjective possibilities in order to be free, i.e. act in the world as you wish. They allow him to put himself and the world around him under reasonable control, stand out from this world and expand the scope of his own activities. The origins of all the triumphs and tragedies of man, all his ups and downs, are rooted in this opportunity to be free.

Freedom was considered in relation to necessity (laws), arbitrariness, anarchy, equality and justice. The range of human freedoms was also studied: political, economic, spiritual, cognitive and other freedom. The positive result of these reflections is that freedom cannot be a purely negative, meaningless concept, an arbitrariness of choice, a fact that violates the laws of nature and social life.

By the logic of his existence and the nature of his own activity, each person is immersed in the flow of history. The existence of man in this stream is contradictory and ambiguous. Man is free and unfree.

Man is not free because there is an external world that persistently dictates to people the choice of forms and methods of activity, their sequence. He is not free because there are always restrictions on his activity - the level of physical strength and mental abilities, technical capabilities, the nature of the social system, etc. He is also unfree because there is a so-called alienation of man, which manifests itself at all times and exists in various forms.

Alienation means that the products of human activity go out of his control and turn into an external force beyond his control. Alienation means foreignness, the appearance of the world and even its hostility. Alienation is like the loss of the world by man and the transformation of this world into an inhuman world. The problem of alienation is an eternal problem for human society.

At the same time, man is free. Freedom is a person’s independent control over his own destiny, the choice of his own path in life. Briefly speaking, freedom is non-slavery, the emancipation of man. It means his liberation from the dictates of external forces and circumstances, both natural and social. Freedom presupposes the ability to act in accordance with one’s interests and ideas.

Freedom is a fundamental value for humans, but it must have limits. Otherwise, it will turn into arbitrariness, self-will and anarchy, into tyranny and violence against other people, i.e. into negative freedom. The boundaries of freedom are the interests of another person, social groups and society as a whole, as well as nature as the natural basis for the existence of society.

When the interests of the individual and society coincide in gaining freedom, the concept of freedom must be supplemented by the idea of ​​regulating people's activities. The state should do this not by methods of violence and coercion, but with the help of an economic mechanism and strict observance of human rights. The state is obliged to guarantee respect for human rights, recognizing that the value of the human person is higher than any values ​​of a nation, class, group of people, etc. This is a guarantee against totalitarian suppression of human rights. Ignoring or belittling individual rights leads to inevitable degradation of both the individual and society.

Freedom is impossible without the responsibility and duty of a person to the world in which he exists. Responsibility is the inevitable price of freedom, the payment for it. Freedom requires reason, morality and will from a person, without which it will inevitably degenerate into arbitrariness and violence against other people, into the destruction of the surrounding world. The measure of a person’s responsibility is always specific, within the limits of his competence and range of capabilities.

Culture is material and spiritual values. By value we mean the definition of a particular object of material or spiritual reality, highlighting its positive or negative significance for man and humanity. Real facts, events, properties are not only perceived and cognized by us, but also evaluated, causing in us a feeling of participation, admiration, love or, on the contrary, a feeling of hatred or contempt. These various pleasures and displeasures precisely constitute what is called taste, such as: good, pleasant, beautiful, delicate, tender, graceful, noble, majestic, sublime, intimate, sacred, etc. We, for example, experience pleasure when we “see an object that is useful to us, we call it good; when it gives us pleasure to contemplate an object that is devoid of immediate usefulness, we call it beautiful.” This or that thing has a certain value in our eyes due not only to its objective properties, but also to our attitude towards it, which integrates both the perception of these properties and the characteristics of our tastes.

Thus, it can be said that value-it is a subjective-objective reality. That is why, while claiming that there is no arguing about tastes, people actually argue about them all their lives, defending the right to priority and objectivity of their own taste. “Everyone calls pleasant what gives him pleasure, beautiful - what he only likes, good - what he values, approves, that is, what he sees as objective value.” There is nothing to say about how significant value judgments are for a person’s reasonable orientation in life.

Every thing involved in the circulation of public and personal life or created by man, in addition to its physical nature, also has a social existence: it performs a historically assigned human function and therefore has social value, for example, a table is not just a board resting on four legs, and a thing, sitting at which people eat or work. Values ​​are not only material, but also spiritual: works of art, achievements of science, philosophy, moral standards, etc. The concept of value expresses the social essence of the existence of material and spiritual culture. If something material or spiritual acts as a value, this means that it is somehow included in the conditions of a person’s social life and performs a certain function in his relationship with nature and social reality. People constantly evaluate everything they deal with in terms of their tastes, needs, and interests. Our attitude towards the world is always evaluative. And this assessment can be objective, correct, progressive or false, reactionary. In our worldview, scientific knowledge of the world and the value attitude towards it are in inextricable unity. Thus, the concept of value is inseparable from the concept of culture.

The social purpose of science is to make life and work easier for people, to increase the reasonable power of society over nature, to contribute to the improvement of social relations, and the harmonization of the human personality. Modern science, thanks to its discoveries and inventions, has done a lot to make people's lives and activities easier. Scientific discoveries and inventions led to increased productivity and an increase in the mass of goods. But the treasures of science have not yet brought happiness to all people equally. “Science is a double-edged, omnipotent weapon, which, depending on whose hands it is in, can serve either to the happiness and benefit of people, or to their destruction.” Science without man is powerless; moreover, science without man is aimless. It is necessary not only to promote the development of the sciences themselves, their mutual enrichment and greater practical impact, but also to ensure that their achievements are adequately perceived by people, whose development of social activity is a decisive condition for social progress. Most discoveries and inventions have two sides - fruitful and destructive - and because of this they are fraught with enormous opportunities and dangers. It all depends on who and how they will be used.

1 Vavilov SI. Collected works. M., 1956. T. 3. P. 607.

I. Kant, being himself an outstanding scientist, was reserved and critical of both science and scientists. Following J.Z. Rousseau, he saw the contradiction of social progress, including scientific progress, and was afraid of the accumulation of knowledge without taking into account whether it brings benefits to people. History shows that even at a time when the gloomy consequences of scientific discoveries were not so obvious, individual thinkers sensed the disastrous danger lurking in them. The idea expressed by the brothers E. and J. Goncourt prompts deep thought: “They said that Verthelot predicted that in a hundred years scientific development a person will know what an atom is and will be able to moderate the sunlight at will, extinguish it and light it again. Claude Bernard, for his part, declared that after a hundred years of studying physiology it would be possible to control human life and create people. We did not object, but we think that when the world comes to this, an old white-bearded God will descend to earth, with a bunch of keys, and say to humanity: “Gentlemen, we are closing!” .

2 Goncourt E. and J. de. Diary. M., 1964. T. 1. P. 623.

Until recently, scientists did not think about the dramatic and tragic consequences of their discoveries. Every increment of scientific knowledge was seen as a benefit and was justified in advance. After Hiroshima the situation changed: the problem of moral value arose scientific discovery, which can be used to harm humanity. It turned out that truth does not exist outside of goodness, outside of value criteria. To an aesthetically developed person they open up more fully. A new understanding of truth has emerged: truth is not just reliable knowledge, but something more. He who moves forward in science, but lags behind in morality, goes backward rather than forward.

Humanity is now at a point in its history when the solution to a truly Hamletian question depends on it: to be or not to be? A fatal challenge for the fate of humanity was such a level of knowledge, mastery and “control” of man over nature, which made it possible to explode an atomic bomb, thereby opening the ominous prospect of a suicidal nuclear missile world war and giving rise to an arch-global (among other global problems that have already faced humanity) problem - the problem of war and peace. Not only good, but also evil developed in the world. Unfortunately, evil is improving and, under certain conditions, turns out to be, in the words of A. Toynbee, Moloch, devouring an ever-increasing share of the increasing products of human industry and intellect in the process of collecting an ever-increasing toll on life and happiness.

In other words, the progressive development of science inevitably gives rise to many problems that are of a vital, moral nature.

1 How can ethics ignore the problem of cloning, especially if they are trying to implement this idea on humans? This not only belittles, but grossly insults human dignity. One involuntarily recalls Shakespeare’s words about man: “The beauty of the universe! The crown of all living things!” God created man not as a laboratory rat, but as his own likeness, and all attempts to clone him are a grave sin against a sacred gift, before the proud light of the universe in an endless variety of never-repeatable uniquenesses. It would be not only dramatic, but also tragic if people, both spiritually and physically, turned out to be the same. Let's imagine that biochemists, in alliance with doctors, find a way to self-proclaimed regulation of the birth of children at will. This mechanism is given by nature and cannot be replaced by self-will: I want only boys, and now only girls. What can happen with human intervention in this process? Most likely, complete chaos: either an overabundance of boys or girls. The mind of nature strictly maintains the balance of the sexes - both in the animal world and in the social world. Apparently, the secrets of life must be kept not only by security agencies, but also by all rational-minded humanity from scientific and technological fanatics with ill-directed interests. After all, apparently, there are also morally justified ones, i.e. wise, ways to use the achievements of science, including genetic engineering, to maintain human health, prolong, within the limits of the possible, his life and much more, and not the mechanical stamping of the same type of “doll people”.

One involuntarily recalls the words of A.I. Herzen says that we stand on the edge of an abyss and see how it is crumbling, and we will not find a haven except in ourselves, in the consciousness of our freedom. One can only add - intelligently directed and responsible before the destinies of man and humanity.

Sharing features characteristic of all sciences, Social sciencies, however, have their own characteristics, associated primarily with specificity of social cognition.

14.10.1. First of all, in the field of social cognition researcher myself is part of the reality being studied, due to which social cognition is not the study external to man object, but a special form of self-knowledge. In other words, unlike the natural and technical sciences, in the very object of social research the knower himself is initially present subject. From this feature it follows that research results in this area are inevitably influenced by both the general worldview of the era and the ideas of those social groups and classes to which the researcher himself belongs. This fact determines the fundamental problem of the possibility of objective knowledge in the field of social science, which is still debatable to this day.

14.10.2. Since every historical event is unique And unique, within the framework of social cognition we are faced with the problem possibility of repeated observation of similar events. Moreover, in this area it turns out to be fundamentally impossible to state a potentially unlimited, as in natural science, quantity experiments(a ball falling under the influence of gravity, for example, we can observe a potentially infinite number of times, while repeating the capture of Rome by barbarians or the October Revolution is fundamentally impossible). Based on this feature, many scientists generally deny the applicability to the study of society of methods similar to those of the natural sciences, aimed at identifying certain universal, stable patterns.

14.10.3. In social research we always deal with historically variable object research, and, therefore, must study not only the laws of its functioning, but also the laws development.

14.10.4. In the sphere of social cognition, we are dealing with an object that has a special structural complexity, which, in particular, explains the relatively recent emergence of scientific knowledge about society.

14.10.5. Finally, when studying society, the researcher always deals with the activities of conscious, free subjects, which makes it very difficult to clearly identify and substantiate the area of ​​objective laws, the operation of which would not depend on the will and desire of individual people.

14.10.6. Social cognition, like any scientific cognition in general, begins with facts. However, facts in themselves do not represent knowledge - a necessary condition its occurrence is a certain explanation of the facts, that is, their interpretation. However, since the social phenomena being studied have a certain significance for a person, the researcher forms his own, positive or negative, attitude towards these facts, called assessment. Although the assessment expresses a person’s subjective attitude, however, if in its formulation he relies on socially significant values, the assessment can claim a certain generally valid status.