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Perspectives of Social Philosophy View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Siberian Federal University Digital Repository Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 7 (2014 7) 1104-1111 ~ ~ ~ УДК 316.4:141.201 Perspectives of Social Philosophy Vyacheslav E. Kemerov* Ural Federal University named after the B. N. Yeltsin 51 Lenin, Ekaterinburg, 620083, Russia Received 19.01.2014, received in revised form 28.01.2014, accepted 15.04.2014 Understanding of the problems and perspectives of the Russian society does not fit into the traditional philosophical forms. The Russian culture confronts the task of constructing a social philosophy of a new type. This is what is discussed in this article. Keywords: social philosophy, sociology, social knowledge, philosophical tradition, social pesspectives. Russian philosophy has always stressed its individualism, personality, etc. Thus the concept humanitarian orientation. However its concepts of sociality appears rather not a means of of humanism have always remained extremely concretization of the understanding of people, but vague. That is why its himanitarian orientation an obstacle on this path. was also indistinct, and quite often just illusory. There is only a seeming paradox in In a post-perestroyka peroid Russian this situation. Behind the strange logics of philosophy (and social philosophy in particular) the concepts there is real Russian history, cannot ant longer remain on a level of indistinct in particular the history of the last seventy humanitarian concepts, humanistic slogans and years, when the social forms were not only myths. It is necessary to draw the ideas of man alienated from the living human individuals, and people as close as possible to the reality of but this quasiindependence of them was in human relationships and social forms taking itself interpreted as an expression of the unity shape in these relationships. of individual and group interests, as the focal However this is a very complicated task to a point of the values of a just society. number of reasons. Social philosophy must show society its The first of them – not in importance, but in reality, offer the people perspectives of activity. order – is that the concept of sociality in general But to fulfil its duty it has to rethink the соnсept and of social philosophy in particular turns out of sociality, till it with the Individuals human to be ambiguous. Moreover in the process of a meaning. And this means it has to rethink its consistent analysis it proves both on a common- own sociality itself in the first place. sense and on a theoretical level to be alien, even Let us pose a question: a non-social the opposite to the notions of humanitarianism, philosophy at all possible? © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected] – 1104 – Vyacheslav E. Kemerov. Perspectives of Social Philosophy Of course, nowadays the majority of First of all it is probably important to stress philosophic teachings do talk of man and the the responsiveness of Russian philosophy to some being of man in society in one way or another. social ideas of Marxism. Then it is necessary to But very few philosophic trends can say what bear in mind that Marxism that had overmastered particular man do they have in mind. And it’s Russian social thought, was one the dogmatic understandable. What can one tell a man about versions of a complex and far from uniform set himself and his perspectives operating with on Marx's ideas. It is necessary also to remember abstract notions of history, humanism, society, that the social teaching of Marx was most sociality, etc. actively employed in Russia not in its theoretico- This is particularly true of Russian methodological, but in a politico-ideological part, philosophy, though it is not alone in this. It was that many complicated conceptual systems of invariably inattentive to the social being of real Marx's research were interpreted and propaganded people, unprofessional in the analysis of their (including the education system) in extremely life forecasts. It is hugely responcible for the fact simplified and hackneyed forms: it was true of all that the inhumal conditions of people’s life and the methodology of social analysis, of concepts activity on the level of ideology and psychology of the social process periodization, of the notions were regarded as a noem. of determinism, personality, social systematics, culture, etc. Making even with past Marx's methodology does employ the Clarification of Russian social philosophy’s techniques of reduction of the individual being perspectives is of course closely connected the people to abstract social forms (to cost, with the analysis of its former illusions and public forces reproduction, classes, groups, delusions. And this analysis unlike the kitchen their relationships). In his work the meaning of talks and the heated meeting debates should these techniques is seen first of all in finding of be, if possible, methodologocally accurate. In the original logical carcasses for consideration this case there arises a situation of the social of particular problems, in construction of the philosophy turning oh social philosophy itself original ontologies, or in description of a situation as a special cultural-historical subject. As a which is purely economic, for example, the logic results of such a consideration the tendencies of things when it is posiible and necessary to of practice, thinking, bahaviour of people distract attention from the individual human experessed directly or in a transformed way in content of the events and clarify the general social-philosophy patterns make take shape; outline of the process. social-philosophic dogmas and myths will It is true that Marx himeself had founded the stand out as stable links of the social being tradition of incorrect use of his methology, when of people not overcast by separate figures and in the course of a political polemics he operated names, political campaigns and ideological by such reduced and simplified notions of the «dislocations». people's being. But that belongs to the history of In the last years a dehumanized character of the 19th century. Our task today is to understand Russian social philosophy is a rule explained by why the vulgarized Marxism happened to become subordination to Marxist ideology. To a certain an official ideology in the 20th century Russia, it’s true, and the problem lies exactly in acquiring why on the foreground a concept of abstract, in the means to measure up this extent. dehumanized and deinndividualized sociality was – 1105 – Vyacheslav E. Kemerov. Perspectives of Social Philosophy firmly established, why is it in fact maintained of Marxism closed. But the problem of sociality until today (i.e until the 2Ith century) and what it outgrows the problems of the relationships of is necessary to do understand its nature, to reason Russian culture with Marxism. We have to look it out and overcome methodologically? for some other, deeper (in historical and spiritual In the context of our reasoning it’s good aspects) roots of reproduction of abstract sociality. to remind of «forgetting» by the philosophy of But.... bolshevism of all those aspects of the teaching The scores of Russian social philosophy of Marx, which reflected the nature of alienation with Marx’s concepts and his methodological of individuals from their social bonds, the programs is still intact. Rejection of the dogmatic antihumane nature of the socialized to the extent Marxism has by no means deepen the potentials of a complete break from the individual being that could, for instance, be used for the analysis of men of economics, production, state, ideology, an alienated sociality, for clarification of realistic science. Practically any work that tried to establish perspectives of its humanization (2). Work with a pronounced connection of sociality with the such motives as the «universal» labour and the individual being of the people, and even more creativity of everyday life, sensual-supersensual so that had found that sociality – its life-giving nature and individuality could prove to be quite and perverted forms – in the content of that being useful for rethinking of the existing patterns of itself met with a hidden «inner-science» or an activity and reasoning ... (3). open, official and ideological opposition. Secondly, lack of understanding of Marxism This organized «forgetfullness» (or lack of on the part of Russian philosophy can be interpreted understanding) a number of important aspects of as its generic feature, i.e. as a feature not related Marx’s research, that went on in Soviet philosophy directly to Marxism, but predetermined by the until the mid-eighties looked, especially in the back of a tradition of an in-depth penetration West the works, using the techniques of Marx’s into the logical and methodological «structure» methodology for characterization of the alienated of other conceptions, and the underrating is forms of sociality, power, knowledge, culture general of the logicomethodological aspect of a were widely acknowleged(1) philosophical culture. Questions of this kind even if posed by It is good to remember that philosophy of Russian philosophers of a previous decade, never Dilthey and Rickert did not receive a notable reached the pages of books and magazines on the response in Russia in a pre-October period, though territory of USSR. It was said: philosophers are in those conceptions perspectives of the social silent (i.e. «if they were not, everything could be philosophy of the 20th centure were outlined. It different). happened because the social-philosophical Now these questions can be discussed problems were posed primarily as methodological anywhere without restrictions. But it does not issues, i.e. seemingly irrelevant to the vital mean at all that they are being answered in any social and human problems.
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