Development of world history.

A thought that history needs a sort of alternatives is quite popular in the present day philosophy. The idea of diversity of social and historic paths of humanity contains quite a few productive and valuable moves of thought. The modern world is moving towards informational civilization. But how will it look like? Won’t there be any other “designs” of future? Will all the countries get involved in this process? These questions bother many if not all modern philosophers.

In the historical periodization of the social process there are several approaches: formational, civilization, wave, informational and axial ones.

Formational approach is intrinsic to linear and progressive conceptions of studying history as an integral process of mankind’s progressive development with the unity of interdependent stages of social-cultural development. According to

K. Marx history is a natural-historical process of law-governed changes of social-economic formations consistent of three basic elements: productive forces, production relations and superstructure. There are five such formations: primitive-communal, slave-owing, feudal, capitalist and communist. Marx also had a category of “Asian mode of production” but it was never developed. The laws of the formations development and changes – is a social manifestation of general laws of materialistic dialectics in human activity of particular classes in the sphere of material production, in distribution, exchange and assumption of material wealth. History – is a continuous process of class struggle, the realization of class struggle law.

Civilization approach states the existence of self-sufficient historical formations with their own history. English philosopher J.Toynbee considered that in the world history there were 21 civilizations, 13 of them were the most significant. At the present time only five civilizations remained: Chinese, Indian, Islamic, Russian and the West. Each civilization passes five stages of its development: 1) rise, 2) growing, 3) fracture, 4) decay and 5) destruction. The motive force of civilization development is the minority of creative people, who are the bearers of creative impulse and who lead the whole of society. Spengler regarded civilization - the death of culture, the way of history existence which is different from that of natural causality. Real history as for Spengler does not have any laws.

Other conceptions that help to highlight certain points and stages in historical process are also discussed in present day philosophy.

The American sociologist Daniel Bell had admitted that he had agreed with the main principles of Marxist division of history into formations, with each of them being characterized by its own mode of production, production relations form, etc. But he also wondered if it was the only division of world’s history. He supported the model of the evolutional development of the mankind’s history: beginning with a traditional society that is primitive-communal and agrarian, then through machine-industrial stage to the modern – postindustrial, or technological society. D. Bell initiated the term of a postindustrial society, while other philosophers consider it informational, cybernetic or the society of governing. Bell divides society into three spheres: social structure, politics and culture. Social structure includes economics, technology and professional system. Politics regulates the division of power. Culture accumulates spiritual wealth. The conception of a postindustrial society is characterized first of all by changes in the social structure, in economics, professional sphere and in information. The basic attributes of the postindustrial society as Bell stated are as follows: 1) the creation of social services economy, 2) the predominance of technical specialists and people of “free professions” , 3) the dominant role of theoretical knowledge as a source of innovations and political decisions, 4) the postindustrial society seems to be capable to reach a new stage in the social progress, planning and control over technical development, 5) the creation of ultimately new kind of intellectual technique.

Waves of history.

The given scheme of a historical progress, including the theory of the post-industrial society, was supported and developed by another American sociologist Elvin Toffler (born in1928). He also underlined the direct connection between the change of technology and way of life. Technology, as he said, stipulates for the type of a society and culture. The influence of technology has a wave-like character.

The first agricultural wave lasted for centuries. It corresponds to a traditional society according to Bell's scheme, in which the open and closed, traditional and contemporary societies are compared. Toffler notes, that from China and India to Benin and Mexico, from Greece to Rome there appeared and went into decay different civilizations. Everywhere the land was the basis of economy, life, culture, family structure and politics. About 300 years ago the industrial revolution began and its shock-waves destroyed the ancient societies and gave birth to a new civilization.

The main content of the second wave was industrial production. It is a reign of power machinery. It resembles the muscle work of a human and its working sequence is broken into separate monotonous operations. People's way of life corresponds to the given image of machinery and work - it is characterized by centralization, gigantism and uniformity. Life in such a society is accompanied by oppression, poverty and ecological decadence.

A current wave - the third one - is associated with "an information society". It is triggered by the universal spread of computers, jet aviation, flexible technologies. Informational society is home for new types of family, new styles of work, living and forms of politics, economy and consciousness. The World does not look like a machine any longer; it is filled with innovation, for the comprehension of which one needs constant development of cognition ability. The symbols of the third wave are integrity, individuality, and a pure humane technology. Services, science and education take the leading part in such a society. Corporations have to give way to universities and businessmen - to scientists. Bell thought that in a traditional society life was a game between man and nature, where humans interacted with natural habitat - land, water, forests while working in small groups. In an industrial society work is the game that goes on between man and artificial habitat, where humans are repressed by machines that manufacture goods. In an informational society work becomes the game between man and man (an official and a visitor, doctor and patient, teacher and student). So nature is excluded from the frame of working and everyday life. People learn to live beside each other. Bell believed that this was a new thing to the history of a society - a thing with no parallel positions. So the social structure is represented by four big spheres: cultural, political, social and economical. Every sphere is a mandatory, permanent part of social life. Some factors may be determinative in social development. Knowledge and technology are obviously claimed to be such factors in the modern society. But a society may only develop successfully if all the spheres and factors are developed simultaneously and effectively. Otherwise its development becomes one-sided, slows down, or even stops entirely.

Bell thought that social institutes and relations, spiritual processes are not determined by a single factor, for instance economy, as it was thought by Marx.

Bell introduced a new category into social science - the "axial principle". He said that some social processes are situated along one axis, some other processes - along another one. Everything in a society depends on a chosen axial principle.

Bell noted that feudalism, capitalism and socialism were forming a series of schemes in Marxist system, which was based upon the axis of property relations. Bell thinks that nowadays the social development is not determined by the way of production properly, but only by science and technology. If this axial principle is recognized, the history of humanity will be composed of only three stages - traditional, industrial and post-industrial. Bell believed that a cardinal part of the postindustrial society was the central position of theoretical knowledge, as an axis around which the new technology, economic grows and the exfoliation of society is organized.

The direction of cultural-historical process always has a number of alternative possibilities. It depends on many factors which of possibilities will be realized. The human creative activity both conscious, unconscious and even unrealized, their goals and spontaneous freedom stimulate the development of the World history.

Questions for self-control

1. Give your reasons on the subject and tasks of social philosophy.

2. Describe the classic approach principles for consideration of society.

3. Prove that society is self-developing and self-organizing system.

4. Clear out basic differences between people and nation.

5. Describe the civilization approach of the development of society.

6. Name the main features of postindustrial society.

Slide 2

BASIC LITERATURE

BORCHERT Donald M. Encyclopedia Of Philosophy, Gacl., 2006

HARRISON-BARBET A. Mastering Philosophy. – PALGRAVE, 2001.

PARKINSON G. Routledge History of Philosophy: 10 Volume Set. – Routledge, 2003

PHILOSOPHY: The Power of Ideas, by Barnett D., Moore B.N., Bruder K. – California, London, Toronto, 1996

PHILOSOPHY: The Quest for Truth By Louis P. Pojman Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2005

REAL PHILOSOPHY: An Anthology of the Universal Search for Meaning /Ed. By J. Needleman, D. Appelbaum, London, 1990

SPIRKIN ALEXANDER Fundamentals of Philosophy.-M.: Progress Publishers, 1990.- P. 267, 298-303

ADDITIONAL LITERATURE

PHILOSOPHY and CHOICE. Selected Reading from Around the World /Ed. by Kit R. Christensen. – Lnd., Toronto: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1999

THEORIES of MODERNITY and POSTMODERNITY /Ed. By Bryan S. Turner. – Lnd.: SAGE Publications, 1991

BASIC PRIMARY SOURCES

KOZLOVSRI P.: Postmodernism Culture, Moscow: Republic, 1997,

MARCUSE HERBERT One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon, 1964)

ORTEGA y GASSET Revolt of the Masses

FRANK S. The Spiritual Basis of the Society. Moscow: Mir. Rogers K. (1995)

SPENGLER O. The Decline of the West (Oxford Paperbacks) by Oswald Spengler, Helmut Werner, Arthur Helps and Charles Francis Atkinson. Paperback.-Febr.14, 1991.- P.76-79.

TOYNBEE ARTHUR A Study of history. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.- P.123-125