Introduction…………………………………………………………………………3

1. Biography of P. A. Sorokin…………………………………………………..5

1.1 Life and work of P. A. Sorokin in Russia…………………………5

1.2 The life and work of P. A. Sorokin in America……………………….9

2. Basic theories of P.A.

2.1 "Basic and guiding principles" of sociology………………… 11

2.2 Theoretical and practical sociology. Neo-positivist sociology……………………………………………………………………………………………12

2.3 Theory of social stratification and social mobility…………15

2.4 Cyclic theory…………………………………………………….17

Conclusion………………………………………………………………….22

Literature…………………………………………………………………..25

Introduction

Pitirim Alexandrovich is referred to in the encyclopedic literature either as a Russian-American sociologist and culturologist, or, as I. A. Golosenko writes, an American sociologist of Russian origin. In addition, P. A. Sorokin, a lawyer by education, can also be called a Russian-American jurist, because he paid quite a lot of attention to the consideration of the philosophy of law, focusing on moral and psychological aspects - legal pain, legal feeling, moral and legal criteria.

Sorokin spent the first part of his life in Russia, then was expelled from the country and lived in the United States. The sociological teaching of P. Sorokin proceeded on the whole from the same principles, so the separation of the Russian and American periods in it is very conditional.

Sorokin's idealistic concept is based on the idea of ​​the priority of a superorganic system of values, meanings, "pure cultural systems", which are carried by individuals and institutions. The historical process, according to Sorokin, is a cyclical fluctuation of culture types, each of which is a specific integrity and is based on several main premises (ideas about the nature of reality, methods of its cognition). Sorokin identifies three main types of culture: sensual - it is dominated by directly sensual perception of reality; ideational, in which rational thinking prevails; idealistic - the intuitive type of knowledge dominates here.

Each system of "truths" is embodied in law, art, philosophy, science, religion and the structure of social relations, radical transformations and changes of which occur as a result of wars, revolutions, crises. Sorokin associated the crisis of modern “sensual” culture with the development of materialism and science, and saw a way out of it in the future victory of religious “idealistic” culture.

Sorokin criticized the prevailing empirical trend in the United States and developed the doctrine of an "integral" sociology, covering all the sociological aspects of a broadly understood culture. Social reality was considered by Sorokin in the spirit of social realism, postulating the existence of a supra-individual socio-cultural reality, irreducible to material reality and endowed with a system of meanings. Characterized by an infinite variety that surpasses any of its individual manifestations, sociocultural reality embraces the truths of feelings, rational intellect and suprarational intuition. All these methods of cognition should be used in the systematic study of sociocultural phenomena, however, Sorokin considered the intuition of a highly gifted person to be the highest method of cognition, with the help of which, in his opinion, all great discoveries were made.

In Western sociology, both Sorokin's concept of sociocultural dynamics and his empirical studies of social mobility and social stratification are highly valued. His authority is also significant as a criticism of excessive enthusiasm for quantitative methods and other formal procedures in sociology to the detriment of meaningful analysis.

1. Biography of P. A. Sorokin

1.1 Life and work of P. A. Sorokin in Russia

The future Russian and American sociologist was born in the village of Turya, Yarensky district, Vologda region (now Zheshart, Komi) on January 21, 1889. His father was a craftsman, engaged in church restoration work (he named his son in honor of the local bishop, recognized as a saint in those places), and his mother - a peasant woman from the Zyryans, as the Komi people used to be called. At the age of 11, the boy was completely orphaned.

In the capital of the empire, a 15-year-old ignorant ignoramus, who only a year before had mastered the letter, arrived with a specific education - “unfinished lower” and “revolutionary higher”. In other words, the future sociologist was expelled from the church teacher's school, located in the village with the wonderful name Khrenovo, in connection with the arrest - of course, not for criminality, but for the very "politics".

It was hard to expect that on the eve of the first Russian revolution the young man would do something else in Petersburg. And so it was: Marxist circles, the works of Bakunin and Nietzsche, barricades, three months in prison, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the right wing of which he eventually headed ... However, the young socialist revolutionary also did not forget about his incomplete education: he graduated from evening school, already in At the age of 20, he passed the exams for the gymnasium course, and in 1909 he entered the Psychoneurological Institute at the Faculty of Sociology, created by the famous Bekhterev. But, not having studied for a year, he transferred to the law faculty of the university. The reason for such a sharp change of interests was not ideological, but purely utilitarian: Pitirim Sorokin was threatened with conscription, and his institute did not give the right to deferment from military service - unlike the metropolitan university. So the future sociologist had to “mow down” in the most vulgar way, as they would say now.

Already in the third year, student Sorokin, who showed considerable ability, published a scientific monograph. True, the fact that this essay was written by a student all the same gives out a too non-academic title - "Crime and Punishment, Feat and Reward." In all other respects, it was a real scientific work, expressing the original philosophical system of the author.

The fact that a nugget from the Far North is a talent, if not stronger, became clear relatively quickly. Having defended his diploma in 1914, Pitirim Sorokin, through the efforts of the faculty professors, was left at the department and two years later passed the oral exam for a master's degree in criminal law. If you follow the dates, it is easy to figure out what followed: it was 1917 in the yard.

In short, Sorokin defended his master's thesis only in 1922. And during this time he managed to participate in two revolutions. After the victory of February, he was elected to the Constituent Assembly, worked as a secretary for the very chairman of the Provisional Government, A.F. Kerensky, and was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Volya Naroda. And after the victory of October, he fought ideologically with the new winners, literally “went into the forests” and was repeatedly arrested. Once he was even sentenced to be shot, but he passed, otherwise the sociology of one of his founding fathers would not have been seen!

In general, there were dashing times - and Pitirim Sorokin fully corresponded to them, stubbornly not fitting into the image of an armchair scientist in a black cap and pince-nez in a gold frame. By the way, he wore pince-nez - without taking it off even during interrogations in the Cheka, which alone could pull him to the highest measure: an intellectual, contra, in a word!

And with such far from academic baggage, the philosopher Sorokin returned to the university again - to defend his dissertation, which was postponed due to "leaving for the revolution." Only this time, as a dissertation, the future master of law presented, oddly enough, a book that had a very indirect relationship to jurisprudence - the two-volume "Systems of Sociology". Since then, this one, like many subsequent works of Sorokin (in total, he wrote more than three dozen books translated into 17 languages), has become a classic of a relatively young scientific discipline - sociology.

After the February Revolution, it also received official recognition in Russia, and even the Bolsheviks at first maintained a certain tolerance towards the future "bourgeois pseudoscience". Perhaps they were impressed by the fact that the new humanities, in contrast to the "reactionary-idealistic" old ones, were emphatically and even aggressively materialistic. Sociologists of the beginning of the last century proposed not to fill their heads with higher abstractions such as “soul”, “ideals”, “truth”, “culture”, “value system”, but to approach the study of society and personality, roughly speaking, with a ruler and other tools of natural scientists . It was suggested that society and the individual be questioned, measured and calculated, coldly and objectively, not asking crafty questions “why?”, but only answering the extremely specific question “how?” Based on the results of the experiment.

Of course, in this approach to social phenomena there was an obvious bias. Obvious to us today - but in the first half of the 20th century, it was Pitirim Sorokin who was one of the first to understand the internal inferiority of the mechanistic approach to man. However, he also firmly realized something else: without reliable methods of the exact sciences, the sociologist would not get far either. Therefore, he began to look for a compromise - to create a kind of alternative sociology - not positivist, but "culturological", "value", "historiographic".

In the early 1920s, the former Socialist-Revolutionary, and now a newly minted Soviet professor, Pitirim Sorokin, quite legally led first the inter-faculty department, and then the corresponding department of Petrograd University. By this time, he had finally retired from active political activity, broke with the Social Revolutionaries, but continued to argue with the Bolsheviks from time to time - mainly on philosophical issues. That he then no longer had illusions about where the new government was leading Russia (not to mention who heads this government), is proved by a small article by Pitirim Sorokin, published already in exile, - not at all philosophical, but rather journalistic: political obituary on the death of the leader of the world proletariat.

Meanwhile, back in 1921, a conference was held at the Petrograd House of Writers on Dostoevsky's social philosophy. The whole color of the then Russian humanities spoke - Berdyaev, Karsavin and ... Sorokin. The latter, of course, spoke about sociology in Dostoevsky's novels, but he constantly quoted from The Brothers Karamazov (the legend of the Grand Inquisitor) and The Possessed, which sounded unusually relevant against the backdrop of what was happening in the country: "Where they try to find salvation in bare violence, where there is no love and freedom, religion and morality, there can be nothing but blood, murders and crimes ... Without love, without moral perfection, people will not be saved even by a change in the social system, a change in laws and institutions.

As for the aforementioned obituary for the leader, in Soviet Russia to publish such a thing, even just write it, meant simply signing a death sentence for oneself. The second time it would definitely not be canceled! But by that time, the sociologist Sorokin, along with the same Berdyaev, Karsavin and other domestic intellectuals, had already been pushed out of Russia - they were all taken to a foreign land of sad memory by the “philosophical steamer”. On board it, for many years, free thought itself left Russia, not bound by dogma and political conjuncture (although in reality Sorokin himself left his homeland in a train car - but this is so, for historical accuracy).

It was in September 1922. Pitirim Sorokin then walked, as they say, the age of Christ. For the next nearly half a century, he will spend mainly at a desk and a university chair - as befits a philosopher: he will write, read, think. Although there were enough of their own dramas and conflict situations in the second - true science is also not alien to everything human.

1.2 Life and work of P. A. Sorokin in America

For the first year and a half in exile, Sorokin worked in Prague, and then was invited to lecture in America - scientific fame flew ahead of him.

The universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota were only preparation for the main thing in his scientific career - an invitation to take the post of head of the department of sociology created specially for Sorokin at the prestigious Harvard. And then the corresponding faculty, which the Russian scientist always headed from the moment of its foundation in 1931 to 1942.

By that time, however, he was already a US citizen, although he never became a true American in his soul. Calling himself a “conservative Christian anarchist” and a “lone wolf,” Harvard University professor and president of the American Sociological Association, Pitirim Sorokin, hardly fit into the world of American humanities, which gravitated precisely towards positivism and, like the devil incense, was afraid of all sorts of “spiritual values” and “cultural characters." Namely, a scientist from Russia built his building of sociology on them, whose main work of life, published in four volumes in 1937-1941, was called "Social and Cultural Dynamics". That's right - inextricably linked.

To imagine how difficult Sorokin's relations with the American sociological establishment were, it is enough to quote the title of another of his famous books - Fads and Fallacies of Modern Sociology and Related Sciences (1956). In it, he goes over American "scientism" and "empiricism" in a rather venomous way, in other words, the view of the social sciences as particular applications of natural sciences.

Sorokin, by the way, considered himself a believer, but did not want to join any of the existing religious denominations, all his life he was looking for some kind of “his” god.

He himself called his own original - and it must be said, very difficult for a non-specialist - theory "an integral system of philosophy, sociology, psychology, ethics and personal values." Here it seems that each element is clear in itself - but their totality ...

However, among the scientific achievements of Sorokin there were quite a few quite applied developments, later adopted by both American and world sociology. Now even a non-specialist is familiar with such terms as "social stratification" (stratification of society) and "social mobility" - and one of the first to develop these theories was Pitirim Sorokin.

Nevertheless, his main sociological revelations for the majority of American colleagues, who were accustomed to "calculate" and not "hover in abstractions", seemed to be something too abstract and amorphous. And after, on the initiative of one of the gurus of American sociology, Talcott Parsons (whose scientific interests were just mathematical, formalized methods in sociology), the department of sociology at Harvard was abolished, and the department of social relations was created in its place, Sorokin was no longer invited there.

On December 31, 1959, at the age of 70, he resigned from all posts at Harvard. In the last decade of his life, he continued active scientific and teaching work, lecturing at various universities, working on books and articles. Pitirim Sorokin died on February 10, 1968 in Winchester, USA.

2. Basic theories of P. A. Sorokin

2.1 "Basic and guiding principles" of sociology

In The System of Sociology, P. Sorokin explains in detail the scientific principles, the principles of sociology on which this work is based. He believes that (1) sociology as a science should be built along the lines of the natural sciences. There can be no question of any opposition between the "sciences of nature" and the "sciences of culture". The objects of study of those and other sciences are different, but the methods of studying these objects are the same; (2) sociology must study the world as it is. Any normativism, i.e. subjective intervention in science from the standpoint of moral and other norms should be expelled from sociology. In this sense, Truth must be separated from Goodness, Justice and similar principles and norms; (3) sociology must be an "objective discipline", i.e. to study real interactions of people, accessible to objective measurement and study; (4) since sociology wants to be an experimental and exact science, it must stop all "philosophizing" in the sense of creating speculative constructions that have not been proven by science. In this regard, wrote P. Sorokin, a good statistical diagram is worth any socio-philosophical treatise; (5) the break with philosophizing also means a break with the idea of ​​monism, i.e. reduction of any phenomenon to a single beginning. For, as M.M. Kovalevsky argued, monism in sociology is an attempt to solve infinitely complex problems of social phenomena using the equation method with one unknown. Instead of monism, Sorokin proclaimed consistent sociological pluralism.

These are the "basic and guiding principles" of Sorokin's sociology. Reliance on real experience and scientific data are the starting positions of sociological positivism, justified by O. Comte, E. Durkheim and other representatives of this trend. P.A. Sorokin always defended them and developed them in the new historical conditions of the 20th century. at a new level of scientific knowledge.

2.2 Theoretical and practical sociology.

neopositivist sociology.

P.A. Sorokin divided sociology into theoretical and practical. He divided theoretical sociology into three divisions: social analytics, social mechanics, and social genetics. Social analytics studies the structure (structure) of a social phenomenon and its main forms. The subject of social mechanics (or social physiology) is the processes of human interaction, in other words, the behavior of people and the forces that cause and determine it. Social genetics studies the development of social life, its individual aspects and institutions. "The task of genetic sociology is to give the main historical trends in the development of people's social life." It is clear that the development of a social phenomenon is determined by its structure (structure) and interaction with other phenomena, so that social genetics, as it were, contains social analytics and social mechanics.

Practical sociology is characterized by P. A. Sorokin as an applied discipline. Based on the laws that theoretical sociology formulates, it should help society and the individual to manage social forces in accordance with the goals set. Practical sociology manifests itself essentially as social policy, directs and substantiates it.

"This discipline should be an applied discipline, which, based on the laws formulated by theoretical sociology, would give humanity the opportunity to control social forces, to utilize them in accordance with the goals set." In the doctrine of the structure of society, P.A. Sorokin writes: "Before proceeding to describe the structure of a population or society in the complex form in which they exist, we must study them in their simplest form." He shows that the simplest model of a social phenomenon is the interaction of two individuals. In any phenomenon of interaction there are three elements: individuals, their acts, actions, conductors (light, sound, heat, object, chemical, etc.). The main forms of interaction of social groups are:

1) the interaction of two, one and many, many and many;

2) interaction of similar and dissimilar persons;

3) interaction is one-sided and two-sided, long-term and instantaneous, organized and unorganized, solidary and antagonistic, conscious and unconscious.

The entire human population breaks up into a series of closer groups, formed from the interaction of one with one, one with many, and one group with another. Whatever social group we take, whether it be a family or a class, or a state, or a religious sect, or a party, all this represents the interaction of two or one with many, or many people with many. The whole endless sea of ​​human communication is made up of interaction processes, one-sided and two-sided, temporary and long-term, organized and unorganized, solidary and antagonistic, conscious and unconscious, sensory-emotional and volitional.

The objects of study of Sorokin's neopositivist sociology are, first of all, the social behavior and activities of people, social groups and the structure of society as a whole, as well as the social processes taking place in it. At the same time, all social life and all social processes can be decomposed, according to Sorokin, into phenomena and processes of interaction between two or more individuals. It is these interactions of people that they declare to be the direct subject of study of sociology. We are talking about the "psychic-reflex" interaction of individuals, which manifests itself externally in their behavior and activities.

This is the essential difference between Sorokin's neo-positivist sociology and Comte's classical positivism. If Comte's positivist sociology is primarily aimed at studying society as an integral social organism, then the subject of direct study of Sorokin's neopositivist sociology is the interaction of two or more persons forming so-called small groups. From this kind of elementary interactions, as he believed, all sorts of social processes are formed.

The interaction of two individuals is characterized by Sorokin as the simplest social phenomenon. It takes place when "when a change in mental experiences or external acts (actions) of one individual is caused by the experiences and external acts of another." Such interactions are called by Sorokin "social cells", from which all other, more or less complex social phenomena are formed.

The entire first volume of P. Sorokin's System of Sociology is devoted to the analysis of the simplest social interactions. Its second volume explores "complex social aggregates", various kinds of social groups, their structure and interactions.

P. Sorokin proposed his own criteria for classifying social groups - unilateral and multilateral. In accordance with these criteria, social groups are distinguished according to one characteristic, for example, language, territory, gender, age, or according to many characteristics. Classes, nations and other complex, often socially heterogeneous groups are distinguished by many features.

2.3 Theory of social stratification and social mobility.

The heterogeneity of society, its objective division into different social groups are reflected in the theory of social stratification and social mobility by P.A. Sorokin. According to this theory, the whole society is divided into different layers - strata, which differ from each other in terms of income, types of activity, political views, cultural orientations, etc. The main forms of social stratification (or stratification of society) Sorokin attributed economic, political and professional. In his opinion, social stratification is a natural and normal state of society. It is objectively conditioned by the existing social division of labor, property inequality, different political orientations, and so on.

Changing profession or type of activity, his economic situation or political views, a person moves from one social stratum to another. This process is called social mobility. Sorokin divides social mobility into horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal mobility means the transition of a person from one social group to another, which is generally at the same level of social stratification, for example, when a rural resident becomes an urban one, but his profession and income level remain the same. Vertical mobility is the transition of people from one social stratum to another in a hierarchical order, for example, from the lower stratum of society to a higher stratum or vice versa - from a higher stratum to a lower one.

The objective basis for the existence of vertical mobility is, in particular, the economic inequality of people, "which is expressed in the difference in income, living standards, in the existence of rich and poor strata of the population."

At the same time, people who belong to the upper stratum in one respect usually belong to the same stratum in other respects, and vice versa. Representatives of the highest economic strata simultaneously belong to the highest political and professional strata. The poor, as a rule, are disenfranchised and are in the lower strata of the professional hierarchy. This is the general rule, although there are many exceptions.

According to Sorokin, social mobility is as natural and inevitable as the social stratification on the basis of which it exists. This applies to both upward and downward social mobility, in which people move up or down the social ladder. He substantiated such a concept as “social space”, the essence of which is revealed through the concepts of “upper and lower classes”, “moving up the social ladder”, “social distance”, etc.

PA Sorokin attached great importance to the issues of social equality. In 1917, his book The Problem of Social Equality was published in Petrograd. He constantly addressed this problem in his subsequent works. Pointing to the complex and multifaceted nature of the problem of social equality, he believed that the main thing in it is the provision of material and spiritual benefits to each person "according to his merits", i.e. "according to the degree of his personal socially useful work." However, the problem of social equality is not exhausted by this economic content. It is important, Sorokin wrote, that the equality of all before the Law, equality for holding public office, the right to equal political benefits - suffrage, freedom of speech, press, unions, conscience, etc. become a reality. Of exceptional importance is "a more or less even distribution of knowledge and education", without which, in his opinion, an egalitarian, i.e. based on social equality, a system of society.

2.4 Cyclic theory

The peculiarities of Pitirim Sorokin's views on the periodization of society are that he focuses mainly on the evolution of spiritual life, largely leaving aside the processes of material production. Sorokin was one of the first American sociologists who drew attention to the problem of axiology - the doctrine of values. The concept of "value" appears as one of the most important in his sociology. With the help of this concept, the behavior of individuals and social groups, their interactions in various directions are explained. Great importance is attached to universal human values, on the basis of which cooperation between peoples is possible. At the same time, his concept of values ​​is closely connected with the idea of ​​three higher types of civilizations (“supercultures”): ideational, sensitive and idealistic. These are not “local civilizations”, like those of Spengler and Toynbee, but rather a certain type of worldview that is not inherent in any individual, class or social group, but dominates in a given period in the minds of huge masses of people, society as a whole. A worldview is nothing but a certain system of values.

What types of worldview does Sorokin single out?

1. Religious worldview associated with the ideational supersystem. It, according to Sorokin, characterizes a type of development of human history when religion occupies a dominant position among all other forms of ideology. Judging by the empirical material involved, Sorokin analyzes this type of superculture primarily on the basis of the Middle Ages. During this period, the Catholic Church really had a monopoly on ideology. The influence of this ideology on all other forms of social consciousness and spiritual life - science, philosophy, art, morality - cannot be compared with the influence that it itself experienced from their side. It should be noted that Sorokin does not try to find out the reasons underlying this state of affairs (without touching on the issues of either feudal property or church land ownership), and the factors leading to its change. He simply states the facts and comes to the conclusion that the power of the church in the Middle Ages is determined by the dominance of religious consciousness.

2. Sensitive superculture, on the contrary, is associated with the dominant materialistic worldview. Therefore, it is in many ways the direct opposite of the ideational superculture. This era comes when the religious worldview completely surrenders its positions, yielding to the materialistic worldview. This state of affairs, Sorokin believes, inevitably leads to a change in the whole way of public life. The differences between ideational and sensitive supercultures are primarily differences in ideals. People of an ideational superculture focus all their interest on eternal, enduring values ​​(and, above all, on religion). Representatives of a sensitive superculture direct all their attention to values ​​that are of a temporary, transitory nature, their material interest always prevails over the ideal, religious. Sensitive superculture, Sorokin argues, prevailed in ancient civilization from the 3rd to the 1st century BC. e. And in modern Western society, it came only in the 16th century and is currently leaning towards its final (or next?) sunset.

3. Another phase in the development of society is the idealistic supersystem. Its dominance is not associated with some new kind of worldview (of which there can be only two - either religious or materialistic). It is a transition from one to another. It is a mixed culture, and the direction of its development depends on the direction of the transition - from a sensitive superculture to an ideational one, or vice versa. At present, Sorokin argues, humanity is once again on the verge of the emergence of a new ideational superculture, for the dominance of the sensitive supersystem is coming to an end.

Pitirim Sorokin identifies the following properties of "cultural supersystems":

Reality;

Individuality;

The general and special dependence of their main parts on each other and the general, as well as the general on the parts;

Individuality or "selfhood" even when parts change;

Structure variability;

Internal, self-governing change and self-determination of destiny;

Selectivity;

limited variability.

Each supersystem, despite its broad character, is a finite phenomenon and as such has limits to its ability to change. As soon as these boundaries are overcome, it loses its individuality and decays.

Each ideological supersystem corresponds to a certain type of culture. There are, according to Sorokin, two main and two intermediate types. In culture, there is an alternation of the main types focused on the worldview of a person: ideational and sensual; and intermediate: idealistic and eclectic. In an ideational culture, the worldview is aimed at the supersensible and superintelligent comprehension of the Absolute, based on the dominant ideas. Analyzing this type of culture on the example of the European Middle Ages, Pitirim Sorokin wrote: “The architecture and sculpture of the Middle Ages were the “Bible in stone”. Literature is also permeated through and through with religion and the Christian faith. The painting expressed the same biblical themes and lines in color. Music was almost exclusively religious in nature... Philosophy was almost identical to religion and theology and centered around the same basic value or principle, which was God. Science was just a servant of the Christian religion. The political organization in its spiritual and secular realms was predominantly theocratic and based on God and religion. The family, as a sacred religious union, expressed the same fundamental value. Even the organization of the economy was controlled by religion… The prevailing morals and customs, way of life, thinking emphasized their unity with God as the only and highest goal, as well as their negative or indifferent attitude towards the sensual world, its riches, joys and values.”

The sensual type of culture is characterized by sensibility: attention is transferred to sensually tangible objects, empirical experience, secularism and correspondence to the earthly world. It is the recognition that objective reality and its meaning are sensory “proclaimed by our modern culture in all its main components: in art and science, philosophy and pseudo-religion, ethics and law; in social, economic and political organizations, in the way of life and mentality of people”. The idealistic type of culture is characterized by the fact that the meaning of ideas and sensually tangible objects becomes equal, there is a kind of harmonious merging of two types of worldview into a single whole (an example in European culture can be the era of antiquity and the Renaissance).

And, finally, the eclectic type of culture involves the opposition of sensual and ideational elements of the worldview. In an ideational culture, art tends to be conventional, symbolic, created in accordance with certain canons, and most often impersonal. In a sensuous culture, the style of art becomes naturalistic. A harmonious combination of two types of attitude underlies the achievements of the art of the Greek classics and the Renaissance, when the ways of embodying artistic images were partly symbolic, partly realistic.

In an ideational culture, the perception and cognition of the world is mainly carried out through revelation, intuition, and mystical experience. Rational knowledge is rejected, a person does not trust his mind, thinks more about the end of the world than about the natural order of things and the possibility of transforming reality. People of culture of the ideational type do not strive for natural science knowledge, on the contrary, their attention is focused on mystical experience, which reveals the secret of the existence of another world. A striking example of such a worldview and type of culture is the European Middle Ages of the 9th-12th centuries, where religion occupied a dominant place in consciousness. Sensory culture is characterized by the perception of the world as given in sensory experience, through hearing, sight, touch and smell. The ideal of a person of sensory culture is personal happiness. This cultural type was implemented by Europe in the era of modern times, when science arises that cognizes the world by experience. Moreover, experience is the only criterion of truth, rational knowledge is absolutized. Since that time, technical and natural science knowledge began to develop rapidly, and inductive philosophy arose. Between the two main cultural types described, according to Sorokin, either an idealistic or an eclectic type of culture can be realized. In them, both main types of worldview are presented either in a harmonious unity (idealistic type), or in a fragmentary, eclectic piling up and opposition to each other.

In general, the idea of ​​such a cyclic development is quite in the spirit of the general views of P. A. Sorokin on the direction of social development as a kind of non-linear progress. Of all the curves illustrating developmental processes, he prefers the sinusoid. A pendulum could also serve as a model for such a movement: the two extreme phases of its oscillation reflect the presence of society in an ideational and sensitive state, while the lower point - in an idealistic one.

Conclusion

Pitirim Sorokin (1889 - 1968) is the name of the most outstanding scientist that Russia has given to world sociology. In terms of the universality of the coverage of sociological issues, the significance of the theoretical and methodological contribution to world sociology, Sorokin can only be compared with Weber. It was this thinker, who was born in Russia and died in the USA, who glorified our sociology.

After emigrating from Russia in 1922, Sorokin rose to prominence in Western sociology. Having settled in the United States, he made a brilliant scientific and teaching career there: lecturer in sociology, president of the American Sociological Association, professor and dean of the sociological department at Harvard University. The theoretical activity of Sorokin is distinguished by extraordinary productivity - he created hundreds of works devoted to various problems.

The main feature of Sorokin's work is globalism, an attempt to comprehend the sociological aspects of culture, which he broadly understands. His book Social and Cultural Dynamics (1937) is an unprecedented scientific work, surpassing Marx's Capital in volume. Another book - "Social Mobility" is recognized as a world classic. Sorokin stated the crisis state of modern culture, analyzed its various causes and forms. As a way out of the crisis, the scientist proposed the moral and religious revival of mankind on the basis of "altruistic love" as the main and absolute value.

Sorokin is the creator of the most thorough and detailed theory of stratification. A summary of this theory is contained in the collection of his works "Man, Civilization, Society", translated into Russian. Sorokin considers the surrounding world as a social universe, i.e. a certain space filled not with stars and planets, but with social connections and relationships of people. They form a multidimensional coordinate system, which determines the social position of any person. In a multidimensional space, two main coordinate axes are distinguished: the X axis is for measuring horizontal mobility; the Y-axis is for measuring vertical mobility. In other words, it turned out to be a kind of classical Euclidean space.

Sorokin considers stratification as a way to change the status of a particular social group in various spheres of society. He proposes to make stratification changes in three social spaces - economic, political and professional. Social stratification generally describes the stratification of people into classes and hierarchical ranks. Its basis is the uneven distribution of rights and privileges, responsibilities and duties, power and influence.

Economic stratification, i.e. economic stratification means the unequal economic status, in other words, the presence of economic inequality, which is expressed in the difference in income, living standards, in the existence of the rich and the poor. For economic stratification, two phenomena are indicative, which Sorokin calls fluctuations: first, the enrichment and impoverishment of a particular social group or society as a whole; secondly, the decrease and increase in the height of the economic pyramid. Using vast statistical material, he proves that there is no family, village, city, region or country that would only get richer or only poorer year by year. There is no stable trend of this kind in history. In the development of any society, periods of enrichment are followed by periods of impoverishment. So it was in ancient Egypt, and so it is in contemporary American society. Aimless vibrations (fluctuations) occur cyclically. The theory of fluctuations refutes the idea of ​​human progress.

P. A. Sorokin was deeply convinced that all problems arising in society should be solved on the basis of reasonable management, conscious resolution of social contradictions and providing every person with opportunities for creative self-expression. He was opposed to any social upheavals, including revolutions, and advocated a normal, as he wrote, evolutionary path of development. In his work “The Sociology of Revolution”, he argued that the more or less prosperous development of society after the revolution that destroys it comes due to its “return to its values, vulgar instincts and traditions, creative work, cooperation, mutual assistance and unity of all its members and social groups” .

By the beginning of the 60s, P. Sorokin had been “an American sociologist for about forty years, firmly occupying one of the places in the top ten leading sociologists of the world. Many prominent American sociologists were his students, and he made an enormous contribution to theoretical sociology. Sorokin developed the doctrine of "integral" sociology, covering all sociological aspects of culture. He considered social reality as a supra-individual socio-cultural reality, not reducible to material reality and endowed with a system: values ​​- norms - symbols. Culture as a system of symbols, motivators, patterns of action, sets the maximum general orientation for individuals, freeing them from internal contradictions. The systems of sociocultural phenomena of many levels differ. The highest systems of them (supersystems) are based on the most fundamental prerequisites of reality - worldviews. From supersystems, Sorokin singled out the “sensory supersystem” (reality is perceived by the senses), “speculative” (reality is known with the help of intuition), “idealistic” (a combination of the first two). In different periods of history, these supersystems are at different phases of development. At the same time, in any period of history, along with supersystems of culture, 5 main cultural systems of a lower level coexist in society: language, ethics, religion, art, science.

Literature

1. Afanasiev VV Historical sociology of Danilevsky, Spengler and Sorokin. // SOCIS. - 2005. - No. 5. - with. 129-137.

2. Volkov Yu. G., Mostovaya I. V. Sociology: a textbook for universities / Edited by prof. V. I. Dobrenkova - M .: Gardarika, 1999 - 432 p.

3. Gakov V. Pitirim Sorokin: one of the founders of sociology. // Knowledge is power - 2004. - No. 9. - p. 110 - 114.

4. Dobrenkov V. I., Kravchenko A. I. Sociology. Textbook - M .: Infra, 2003 - 624 p.

5. Kravchenko A. And Sociology. Textbook - M .: T.K. Welby, Prospekt Publishing House, 2004. - 536 p.

6. Olsevich Yu. Sociology P. Sorokin and economic transformation // Questions of Economics - 1999. - No. 11. - p. 63-71.

7. Modern Western Sociology: Dictionary - M .: - Politizdat, 1990. - 432 p.

8. Sociology: a textbook for universities / Edited by prof. V. N. Lavrinenko - 3rd edition, revision and addition - M .: UNITI - DANA, 2005 - 448 p.

9. Toshchenko Zh.T. Sociology. General course. 2nd edition, revision and addition - M .: Prometey, Yurayt, 1999 - 511 p.

Pitirim Sorokin is the name of the most outstanding scientist that Russia has given to world sociology.

Sorokin was born in the village of Turya, Yarensky district, Vologda region on January 21, 1889. His father was a craftsman, and his mother was a peasant woman from the Zyryans. At the age of 11, the boy was completely orphaned. At the age of 15, he arrived in the capital of the empire with an "incomplete lower" education. Sorokin graduated from night school, at the age of 20 he passed the exams for the gymnasium course, and in 1909 he entered the Psychoneurological Institute at the Faculty of Sociology. Not having studied even a year, he transferred to the law faculty of the university in order to “mow down” from the army. Sorokin defended his master's thesis only in 1922. And during this time he managed to participate in two revolutions. After the victory of February, he worked as a secretary for the chairman of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky, was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Will of the People". In the early 1920s, Pitirim Sorokin first headed the inter-faculty department, and then the corresponding department of Petrograd University.

In September 1922, Sorokin was expelled from the country. For the first year and a half in exile, Sorokin worked in Prague, and then was invited to lecture in America. Having settled in the United States, he made a brilliant scientific and teaching career there: lecturer in sociology, president of the American Sociological Association, professor and dean of the sociological department at Harvard University. On December 31, 1959, at the age of 70, he resigned from all posts at Harvard. In the last decade of his life, he continued to give lectures, worked on books and articles. Pitirim Sorokin died on February 10, 1968 in Winchester, USA.

According to Sorokin, sociology should be an "objective discipline", i.e. to study real interactions of people, accessible to objective measurement and study. P.A. Sorokin divided sociology into theoretical and practical. He divided theoretical sociology into three divisions: social analytics, social mechanics, and social genetics. Social analytics studies the structure of a social phenomenon and its main forms. The subject of social mechanics is the processes of human interaction. Social genetics studies the development of social life, its individual aspects and institutions. Practical sociology is characterized by P. A. Sorokin as an applied discipline. Based on the laws that theoretical sociology formulates, it should help society and the individual to manage social forces in accordance with the goals set.

Sorokin is the developer of the theory of social stratification and social mobility. According to which the whole society is divided into different layers - strata. The main forms of social stratification include economic, political and professional. Sorokin divides social mobility into horizontal and vertical. Horizontal mobility means the transition of a person from one social group to another, which is at the same level. Vertical mobility is the transition from one social stratum to another in a hierarchical order.

The historical process, according to Sorokin, is a cyclical fluctuation (aimless fluctuations) of culture types (supersystems). Sorokin identifies three main types of culture: sensual - it is dominated by directly sensual perception of reality; ideational, in which rational thinking prevails; idealistic - the intuitive type of knowledge dominates here. At the same time, 5 main cultural systems of a lower level coexist: language, ethics, religion, art, science.

P. Sorokin was “a sociologist who firmly occupied one of the top ten leading sociologists of the world. Many prominent American sociologists were his students, and he made an enormous contribution to theoretical sociology.

Sorokin Pitirim Alexandrovich (1889-1968) - American sociologist and culturologist. Born on January 23 (February 4), 1889 in the village of Turya, Yarensky district of the Vologda province of the Russian Empire (Komi Territory), in the family of a rural craftsman. He graduated from the law faculty of St. Petersburg University (1914), and was left at the university to prepare for a professorship (since January 1917 - Privatdozent). In 1906-1918, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (Socialist-Revolutionaries), before the February Revolution, he participated in the Socialist-Revolutionary agitation, was arrested. After the February Revolution, deputy of the 1st All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Deputies, secretary (together with a friend of his youth N.D. Kondratyev) of the head of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky, Member of the Pre-Parliament. After the October Revolution in 1917-1918, he participated in anti-Bolshevik organizations; conducts agitation against the new government, is arrested. At the end of 1918, he retired from political activity. In 1919, he became one of the organizers of the department of sociology at St. Petersburg University, professor of sociology at the Agricultural Academy and the Institute of National Economy. In 1920, together with I.P. Pavlov founded the Society for Objective Studies of Human Behavior. In 1921 he worked at the Institute of the Brain, at the Historical and Sociological Institutes. In 1922 he was expelled from Soviet Russia. In 1923 he worked at the Russian University in Prague. In 1924 he moved to the USA. In 1924-1930 professor at the University of Minnesota, from 1930 until the end of his life - professor at Harvard University, where in 1930 he organized the Department of Sociology, and in 1931 - the Department of Sociology.

The main works of P.A. Sorokina: "Remnants of animism among the Zyryans" (1910), "Marriage in the old days: (polyandry and polygamy)" (1913), "Crime and its causes" (1913), "Suicide as a social phenomenon" (1913), "Symbols in social life", "Crime and Punishment, Feat and Reward" (1913), "Social Analytics and Social Mechanics" (1919), "System of Sociology" (1920), "Sociology of Revolution" (1925), "Social Mobility" (1927 ), "Social and Cultural Dynamics" (1937-1941), "Society, Culture and Personality: Their Structure and Dynamics; System of General Sociology" (1947), "Restoration of Humanity" (1948), "Altruistic Love" (1950), "Social Philosophies in an Age of Crisis" (1950), "The Meaning of Our Crisis" (1951), "The Ways and Power of Love" (1954), "Integralism is My Philosophy" (1957), "Power and Morality" (1959), "The Mutual Convergence of the United States and the USSR to a Mixed Socio-Cultural Type" (1960), "The Long Road. Autobiography" (1963), "Main Trends of Our Time" (1964), "Sociology Yesterday, Today and avtra" (1968).

Scientific interests of P.A. Sorokin covered a truly huge layer of problems in the study of society and culture.

According to P.A. Sorokin, attempts to radically crush social differentiation only led to the belittling of social forms, to the quantitative and qualitative decomposition of sociality.

Sorokin considered historical reality as a hierarchy of variously integrated cultural and social systems. Sorokin's idealistic concept is based on the idea of ​​the priority of a superorganic system of values, meanings, "pure cultural systems", which are carried by individuals and institutions. The historical process, according to Sorokin, is a fluctuation of the types of cultures, each of which has a specific integrity and is based on several main philosophical premises (the idea of ​​the nature of reality, the methods of its cognition).

Sorokin criticized the prevailing empirical trend in the US and developed the doctrine of an "integral" sociology, covering all the sociological aspects of a broadly understood culture. Social reality was considered by P.A. Sorokin in the spirit of social realism, postulating the existence of a supra-individual socio-cultural reality, irreducible to material reality and endowed with a system of meanings. Characterized by an infinite variety that surpasses any of its individual manifestations, sociocultural reality embraces the truths of feelings, rational intellect and suprarational intuition.

All these methods of cognition should be used in the systematic study of sociocultural phenomena, however, Sorokin considered the intuition of a highly gifted person to be the highest method of cognition, with the help of which, in his opinion, all great discoveries were made. Sorokin distinguished systems of sociocultural phenomena of many levels. The highest of them is formed by sociocultural systems, the scope of which extends to many societies (supersystems).

Sorokin identifies three main types of culture: sensual - it is dominated by direct sensory perception of reality; ideational, in which rational thinking prevails; idealistic - the intuitive method of cognition dominates here.

I "Russian" period of life and work of P. Sorokin……….…..3

1. Youth………..……………………………………….……….3

2. Revolutionary activity, student years.……...…3

3. Scientific and teaching activities…………….…..5

a) “System of Sociology”………………………………….…….5

4. The last years of life in Russia…………………….…..…..10

II "American" period of P.Sorokin's life……………….…12

Literature………………………………………………………….14

Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (1889-1968) - the greatest sociologist of the 20th century. Sorokin's creative activity is divided into two periods - Russian (from the beginning of the 1910s to 1922) and American. By the beginning of the 60s, P. Sorokin had been “an American sociologist for about forty years, firmly occupying one of the places in the top ten leading sociologists of the world.

P.A. was born Sorokin in January 1889 in the village of Turye, Yarsensky district, Vologda province. His father was Russian, a craftsman, his mother was a Komi, a peasant woman. He was christened Pitirim in honor of Saint Pitirim, whose feast falls in January. He spent his childhood working with his father and older brother on the restoration of churches, and doing peasant work. He taught himself to read. He graduated from a rural school in the village of Palevitsy. Then he studied at the Gamskoy second-class school. Upon graduation, he entered the Khrenovskaya church and teacher school. In the winters he studied, and in the summer he was engaged in peasant work, helping his aunt, a peasant woman, in the village of Rimier, Yares district. He joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1905. Later, he recalled: “I met a bunch of people: peasants, workers, officials, clergymen, officials, doctors, writers ... representatives of various political movements - Socialist-Revolutionaries, Social Democrats (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks), monarchists, anarchists, liberals and conservatives of all stripes. Through contact with these people, I learned many new ideas, learned new values ​​and began to understand social conditions. ... My intensive reading of books, magazines and newspapers hitherto unknown to me expanded and deepened my horizons.

In 1906 P. Sorokin was arrested, spent half a year in prison in the village of Kineshma and was expelled from there after his release. Four months after his release, he worked as a propagandist in the Volga region. In 1907 "Hare" traveled to Petrograd. In 1909 passed the matriculation exam externally and entered the Psychoneurological Institute, where there was the only department of sociology in the country. Since 1910 he began to publish in scientific journals such as the Knowledge Bulletin, the Bulletin of Psychology, Criminal Anthropology and Hypnotism. In 1910 Sorokin was made an offer to become a part-time lecturer in sociology at the Psychoneurological Institute and the Lesgaft Institute. It was an unprecedented case in the history of higher education when a student was a lecturer.

During all this time, Sorokin did not leave revolutionary work among students, workers and peasants. In 1911 he was forced, in order to avoid arrest, to flee from Petrograd, first to Podolia, then abroad. In 1913 he was arrested again. During all this time, Sorokin published a number of scientific works, of which many, in particular the book Crime and Punishment, Feat and Reward, attracted the attention of both Russian and European science. In 1917 he wrote a whole series of political essays, among them such as "The Anatomy of Nationalities and the Unity of the State", "Forms of Government", "Problems of Social Equality", "Fundamentals of the Future World", etc.

In 1914 Sorokin graduated from the university and was left to prepare for a professorship. After passing the exams at the end of 1915, from the beginning of 1917. he becomes a "privat docent". The defense of the master's thesis was scheduled for March 1917, but it had to be postponed due to the February Revolution of 1917. Sorokin found himself in the whirlpool of political events in the country. 1918 - the most turbulent year in the life of P. Sorokin. After his arrest in January 1918. he spent about three months in the Peter and Paul Fortress, together with former ministers of the Provisional Government. After his release, he arrived in Moscow, and then, as a member of the Constituent Assembly and the Union for the Revival of Russia, at the end of May he went on an anti-Bolshevik mission to Veliky Ustyug, Vologda and Arkhangelsk. His mission was unsuccessful, and he was forced to hide in the North Dvina forests for 2 months. Here, far from civilization, he thought a lot about politics, revolution and himself, and got rid of many "seductive illusions." It was then, probably, that he wrote his "repudiation" - an open letter in which he admits the defeat of the Socialist-Revolutionary program and announces his withdrawal from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

After that, Sorokin surrendered to the authorities. In prison, sentenced to death, he stayed until mid-December 1918. On December 12, he was summoned for interrogation and acquainted with Lenin's article "Valuable Confessions of Pitirim Sorokin." By personal order of Lenin, Sorokin was taken to the prison of the Moscow Cheka and released here. This ended Sorokin's political activities. A few days after his release, he returned to Petrograd and began lecturing at the university. Only at the end of 1920, at a special meeting of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Sorokin was elevated to the rank of professor without a master's degree. In 1922 Sorokin's work "The System of Sociology" was published, which was presented for public debate as a doctoral dissertation.

In the "System of Sociology" P.A. Sorokin puts forward the basic principles on the basis of which he proposed to create sociology. He developed the structure of sociology, its main directions and the main tasks of each of them.

"Sociology is a science that studies the life and activities of people living in a society of their own kind, and the results of such joint activities." Sociology studies society from three main points of view:

1) its structure and composition

2) data in it processes or its vital activity

3) the origin and development of society and social life - these are the main tasks of the study of sociology"

P.A. Sorokin wrote: “Our need for sociological knowledge is enormous. Among the many reasons that cause our moods and bad social life, our sociological ignorance plays a significant role ... Hunger and cold, debauchery and crime, injustice and exploitation continue to be companions of human society. Only when we study the social life of people well, when we know the laws that it follows, only then can we count on success in the fight against social disasters ... Only knowledge here can indicate ... how to arrange a common life so that everyone is and well-fed and happy... It is from this practical point of view that sociology acquires tremendous significance.”

Sorokin divided sociology into theoretical and practical. theoretical sociology studies the phenomena of human interaction from the point of view of being. Theoretical sociology is subdivided into:

1. social analytics, studying the structure of both the simplest social phenomenon and complex social unities formed by one or another combination of the simplest social phenomena.
2. social mechanics, which studies the processes of interaction between people and the forces by which it is caused and determined.
3. social genetics; "The task of genetic sociology is to give the main historical trends in the development of people's social life"

Sociology practical studies the phenomena of human interaction from the point of view of due.

Practical sociology, according to Sorokin, includes social policy. “The tasks of practical sociology are clear from the name itself,” wrote Sorokin. "This discipline should be an applied discipline, which, based on the laws formulated by theoretical sociology, would give humanity the opportunity to control social forces, to utilize them in accordance with the goals set."

In the doctrine of the structure of society, P.A. Sorokin writes: “Before proceeding to describe the structure of a population or society in the complex form in which they exist, we must study them in their simplest form.” He shows that the simplest model of a social phenomenon is the interaction of two individuals. In any phenomenon of interaction there are three elements: individuals, their acts, actions; conductors (light, sound, thermal, subject, chemical, etc.). The main forms of interaction of social groups are

1) the interaction of two, one and many, many and many

2) interaction of similar and dissimilar persons

1. interaction one-way and two-way, long and instantaneous, organized and unorganized, solidary and antagonistic, conscious and unconscious

The entire human population breaks up into a series of closer groups, formed from the interaction of one with one, one with many, and one group with another. Whatever social group we take - whether it be a family or a class, or a state, or a religious sect, or a party - all this represents the interaction of two or one with many, or many people with many. The whole endless sea of ​​human communication is made up of interaction processes, one-sided and two-sided, temporary and long-term, organized and unorganized, solidary and antagonistic, conscious and unconscious, sensory-emotional and volitional.

"The whole complex world of people's social life breaks down into outlined processes of interaction." “A group of interacting people represents a kind of collective whole or collective unity ... The close causal interdependence of their behavior gives grounds to consider interacting people as a collective whole, as one being made up of many people. Just as oxygen and hydrogen, interacting with each other, form water, which is sharply different from the simple sum of isolated oxygen and hydrogen, so the totality of interacting people is sharply different from their simple sum. "Any group of people interacting with each other, we will call a collective unity or, in short, a collective."

Then Sorokin considers in detail the conditions for the emergence, preservation and disintegration of collective unities. He divides the conditions for their emergence, existence and decay into three groups:

1. space or physico-chemical
2. biological
3. socio-psychic

Further, Sorokin points out two main ways (conscious and unconscious) of establishing the organization of the group and the usual methods of maintaining and preserving this organization. “Social life is nothing but a continuous stream of arising, lasting and disappearing collective unities. "Collective unity ceases to exist only when the interaction between part or all of its members ceases." “The cessation of collective unity leads to the disappearance of its organization. But the fall of one organization and its replacement by another does not at all mean the disappearance and disintegration of the collective unity, but only means that the form, order and organization of the latter has changed!”

Then Sorokin considers the structure and stratification of the population. He emphasizes that "the population is stratified into a number of groups, that it is made up of many collective unities, and does not represent something integral, unified, all members of which are equally connected with each other." “Of the multitude of groups into which the population breaks up, the most important simple stratifications of the latter will be the stratifications:

a) family affiliation

b) according to the state

c) by race

e) professional

f) property

g) according to religious

h) according to the volume-legal

i) according to the party

Complex groups are formed from combinations of simple bundles (groupings). Complex groups are:

a) typical and not typical for a given population.

Of the typical, class and nationality are important.

b) internally antagonistic and internally solidary. "The fate of any population and the course of history are determined not by the struggle or agreement of any one group, but by the relationship of all these simple and complex social groups." To explain historical processes "one has to take into account the relationships and behavior of all these groups."

Next, Sorokin makes the transition to the study of people's activities, behavioral factors and the mechanics of social processes. “All the forces that influence the behavior of people and determine the nature of their life together can be reduced to three main categories:

1. the discharge of cosmic (physico-chemical) forces

2. the discharge of biological forces

3. category of socio-psychic forces

To the category space forces P.A. Sorokin classifies simple stimuli, such as light, sound, temperature, color, humidity, etc., and complex ones, such as the climate of a given place, the composition and nature of the soil, the change of seasons, the alternation of day and night.

To the main biological forces(irritants) Sorokin attributes the following:

1. the need for nutrition

2. sexual need

3. the need for individual self-defense

4. the need for group self-defense

5. unconscious imitation

6. the need for movement

1. other physiological needs (sleep, rest, play, etc.)

Socio-psychic factors are divided by Sorokin into simple and complex. The simple ones are:

2. feelings-emotions

1. unrest of people

Difficult ones include:

1. material culture surrounding a person

2. spiritual atmosphere of the social environment

3. Socio-political organization of groups, phenomena of power, wealth and money, division of labor, etc.

In his work, P.A. Sorokin shows in detail the degree of influence of all these factors on human behavior and social life. “Man, like all phenomena of the world, is not exempt from the laws of necessity, that there is no “absolute free will” ... Dependence on external (cosmic and biological) conditions is perceived and experienced by us as a lack of freedom ... The dependence of our behavior on socio-psychic stimuli is perceived by us as the absence of dependence, as "freedom of will" and behavior! ... The growth of the influence of socio-psychic factors "on our behavior will be perceived by us as an increase in our freedom, as a decrease in our dependence on conditions that are extraneous and alien to our "I". That is why the socio-psychological stimuli of behavior seem to us to be liberating. This subjectively inevitable fact was the reason for the emergence of theories of "free will". The only meaning that "free will" can have means objectively a decrease in the dependence of our behavior on cosmic and biological conditions and an increase in our dependence on socio-psychological conditions - dependence that we subjectively experience as freedom, as the absence of constraint ... With the course of history the influence of socio-psychic forces is growing, and therefore our “freedom” is also growing. So it seems to us subjectively and this is the only acceptable concept of "free will". “Each of us, being born into the world, carries with him only a biological organization, biological impulses and a number of hereditary traits. The luggage is small, the figure is indefinite. What will come out of it, a genius or an ignoramus ... is determined by the totality of the influences of the social environment. It forms a person as a socio-psychological individuality.

April 22, 1922 in a dispute by secret ballot, the Academic Council recognized Sorokin as deserving of a doctorate in sociology. He was the first doctor of sociology in the history of Russian science. By the time of the defense, P. Sorokin had already published 126 works. Many of them were directed against the Soviet regime and Marxist theory. Lenin sharply criticized P. Sorokin's article "The Influence of War on the Composition of the Population, Its Properties and Social Organization", published in 1922. in the first issue of The Economist. In particular, in this article, Sorokin provided statistical material on the development of family and marriage relations and divorces. Lenin wrote that Sorokin "distorts the truth to please reaction and the bourgeoisie."

In a letter to Dzerzhinsky dated May 19, 1922. Lenin wrote about the Economist magazine: “This, in my opinion, is an obvious center of the White Guards. N3 has a list of employees printed on the cover. These, I think, are almost all - the most legitimate candidates for deportation abroad. Among the 53 people involved in cooperation in the "Economist" there is the name of P.A. Sorokin.

In February 1922 P. Sorokin spoke at a solemn meeting in honor of the 103rd anniversary of St. Petersburg University. Addressing the youth, he declared that the "faith of the fathers" turned out to be "bankruptcy." “Their experience in the form of the traditional worldview of the intelligentsia turned out to be insufficient, otherwise there would be no tragedy. Willy-nilly, you have to push off from the shore of this worldview: it did not save us, it will not save you either. He disappeared for a long time in the glow of wars, in the roar of revolutions and in the dark abyss of graves, ever growing and multiplying on the Russian plain. If not ourselves, then these graves cry out about the incompleteness of the experience of the "fathers" and the fallacy of their patented saving recipes. Advising young people to acquire a "new faith", Sorokin first of all recommends that they "take with them on the road" knowledge, pure science, love and the will to productive work.

Due to the fact that after the revolution neo-Marxist sociologists continued to work as actively as before, and many even openly opposed the Soviet regime, in 1922 Lenin raised the question of communist control of programs and the content of courses in the social sciences. As a result, many professors, including P.A. Sorokin was banned from teaching. Under pressure from the authorities, in September 1922. Sorokin and his wife E.P. Baratynskaya, were forever forced to leave Russia. “Whatever happens to me in the future,” he wrote in his diary, “I am sure that three things will forever remain the beliefs of my heart and mind. Life, no matter how hard it is, is the highest, most beautiful, most wonderful value in this world. Turning it into a service to duty is another miracle that can make life happy. I am also convinced of this. And finally, I am convinced that hatred, cruelty and injustice cannot and never will be able to build the Kingdom of God on earth. Only one path leads to it: the path of selfless creative love, which consists not only in prayer, but above all in action. After a long stay in Berlin, and then in Prague, in the fall of 1923, having accepted the invitation of prominent American sociologists E. Hayes and E. Ross to give a series of lectures on the Russian revolution, Sorokin moved permanently to the United States of America.

In the historical and sociological literature, it is traditionally customary to distinguish between two periods of Sorokin's work - Russian and American. For the "American" sociologist Sorokin, the "Russian period" of creativity is a kind of incubation, "years of study", very interesting and productive in its own way. However, it was during these ten years that Sorokin matured the ideas of all his further themes, and, what is especially important, those stages of his creative evolution were visually outlined, which he did during his subsequent life. If he began quite traditionally for the social thought of the turn of the century, then in the Harvard period he turned into a powerful macrosociologist, considering civilization as the atomic unit of his analysis. It took P. Sorokin less than a year for cultural and linguistic acclimatization and already in the summer semester of 1924. He began lecturing at the University of Minisota. In 1924 His first printed book, Leafs from a Russian Diary, is published, describing and analyzing the Russian events of 1917-1922. In 1925 His "Sociology of the Revolution" is published in 1927. "Social Mobility". Sorokin is one of the founders of the theory of social stratification and social mobility. The theory of social stratification, which puts forward certain criteria for dividing society into social strata, groups, serves as a methodological basis for the formation of the theory of social mobility. This is a change by an individual or group of social status, a place occupied in the social structure of society. P. Sorokin considered social mobility as any change in social status, and not just the transition of individuals and families from one social group to another. According to his views, social mobility means moving along the social ladder in two directions: 1. Vertical - moving up and down, 2. horizontal - moving at the same social level.

In 1928 The book Modern Sociological Theories was published in 1929. – “foundations of urban and rural sociology”. In 1930 The world famous Harvard University offers Sorokin to head the established department of sociology. P. Sorokin accepted this offer and worked at the university until 1959. In 1956 His new work "The Quirks and Shortcomings of Modern Sociology and Allied Sciences" was published in 1956. The work "Modern Sociological Theories" was published. In 1964 in recognition of the merits of the scientist, 75-year-old Sorokin is elected chairman of the American Sociological Association.

February 11, 1968 at the age of 79, after a serious illness P.A. Sorokin died. P. Sorokin belongs to that rare type of scientists, whose name becomes a symbol of the science he has chosen. In the West, he has long been recognized as one of the classics of sociology of the 20th century, standing on a par with O. Comte, G. Spencer, M. Weber.

LITERATURE

1. P.A. Sorokin, "Public textbook of sociology", Moscow, Nauka, 1994.
2. I. Gromov, A. Matskevich, S. Semenov, "Western Sociology", St. Petersburg, 1997
3. S. Novikova, "The history of the development of sociology in Russia", Moscow-Voronezh, 1996

Pitirim Sorokin - President of the American Sociological Association

Pitirim Sorokin Alexandrovich. Biography

• Sorkin Pitirim Alexandrovich (January 23, 1889, Turya village, Yarensky district, Vologda province - February 10, 1968, Winchester, Massachusetts, USA) is an American sociologist and culturologist. Founder of the theories of social stratification and social mobility.

  Pitirim entered the village literacy school in the village of Palevitsy (by that time his mother, Pelageya Vasilievna, a Komi-Zyryan native of Zheshart, had died of cancer). And from his father, a wandering artisan "master of gold, silver and icon decoration", but a drunkard and rowdy, he and his older brother Vasily left. One was 10 at the time, the other 14.

  Having completed his elementary school studies in the spring of 1901 and by chance found himself with his brother in the village of Gam, Pitirim was accepted, “victoriously having passed all the tests”, to the new, just opened, Gamskaya second-class parochial school, which he graduated with honors in 1904. After graduating from it and under the patronage of his teacher A. N. Obraztsov, Pitirim entered the Khrenovskaya church and teacher school in the Kostroma province.

  In 1905, Sorokin joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, in December 1906 he was arrested for campaigning, spent 4 months in a prison in the city of Kineshma. Naturally, he was expelled from the seminary.

  In 1907, Pitirim Sorokin moved to St. Petersburg, where he met a fellow countryman from the Komi region, Professor Kallistrat Zhakov, and under his patronage entered the Chernyaev courses. Then, in February 1909, in Veliky Ustyug, he passed all the exams for gymnasium courses externally and in the same year entered the paid St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Institute (K. F. Zhakov also taught here). But at the beginning of 1910, having failed to pay off the debt for his studies, he was suspended from school along with his fellow sufferer Nikolai Kondratiev (the future Soviet economist who substantiated the NEP).

  In July 1910, Pitirim Sorokin was enrolled in the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. In the same 1910, Sorokin's first publications appeared (the article "Remnants of Animism Among the Zyryans", the story "Rit-pukalom"), in which he summarizes the results of his ethnographic expeditions. After graduating from the university in 1914, which, by the way, he graduated with a diploma of the first degree, Pitirim was left at the department of criminal law of the university, since 1916 he was a Privatdozent.

  In 1917, Pitirim Sorokin took part in the revolution on the side of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly on the list of this party. After February 1917 - Kerensky's secretary and one of the editors of the Socialist-Revolutionary newspaper The Will of the People. In 1918, he was arrested twice by the Bolsheviks, and he was on the verge of execution. Only complete renunciation of political activity saved him - he refuses the title of member of the Constituent Assembly and announces his withdrawal from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Since 1919, P. Sorokin has been teaching again at Petrograd University. In January 1920, he was awarded the title of professor without protection.

  In 1922, P. Sorokin, along with other prominent scientists and philosophers, were expelled from Soviet Russia at the direction of Lenin. Exiled from Russia, P. A. Sorokin ended up in Germany, later in the Czech Republic, and a year later he moved to the United States, where he managed to find a second homeland.

  From 1923 to 1930, Pitirim Sorokin taught at various universities in the United States, and in parallel published several major works.
  Among the numerous works that appeared from the pen of P. A. Sorokin at a later time, the fundamental four-volume monograph "Social and Cultural Dynamics" stands out, met with great interest throughout the scientific world.

  It is noteworthy that both supporters and opponents of P. Sorokin admitted "that due to the abundance of the most daring hypotheses, there is no other similar book in modern sociological literature." In 1930, at Harvard University, P. Sorokin organized the first department of sociology in the United States, of which he remained dean for twelve years.

  At Harvard, Sorokin brought up a galaxy of brilliant American scientists. Evidence of the merits of Pitirim Sorokin was his election in 1964 as president of the American Sociological Association.

  It is worthy of special attention that, while in America, P. Sorokin did not forget about his native land and his fellow countrymen. P. P. Krotov and A. V. Lipsky, quite recently, managed to find people in Rimier who knew Pitirim Sorokin’s aunt Anisya well and still remember her. “It turned out that Sorokin constantly wrote letters to her, sent dollars and white flour, from which Anisya baked “French buns”, treating her fellow villagers ... One of Sorokin’s messages, according to the recollections of Anisya’s fellow villagers, began like this: leading scientists not only in Europe, but also in America."

  

Pitirim Sorokin. Major writings

• Ryt pukalom: A story about the life of a northern village, - Arkhangelsk provincial sheets 1910 No. 203;
• P Sorokin. Dwelling. Modern Zyrians (1911)
• P Sorokin. Forestry. Modern Zyrians (1911)
• Marriage in the old days: Polyandry and polygamy, Riga, 1913;
• Suicide as a social phenomenon, Riga, 1913;
• Crime and punishment, feat and reward, St. Petersburg, 1914;
• L. N. Tolstoy as a philosopher, Moscow, 1914;
• Autonomy of nationalities and the unity of the state, Petrograd, 1917;
• The problem of social equality, Petrograd, 1917;
• system of sociology. Volumes 1-2. - Petrograd, 1920;
• Hunger as a factor: The impact of hunger on human behavior, social organization and social life. - Petrograd, 1922;
• The current state of Russia, - Prague, 1922;
• Popular essays on social pedagogy and politics. Uzhgorod, 1923;
• Social and cultural dynamics. The main work of Pitirim Sorokin in 4 volumes in 1937-1941. Gained fame as a classic work in the field of sociology and cultural studies.
• Sociocultural Causality, Space and Time, 1943;
• Russia and USA, 1944;
• Society, culture and personality: their structure and dynamics. System of General Sociology, 1947;
• Social Philosophy in an Age of Crisis, 1950;
• The Ways and Power of Love, 1954;
• American Sexual Revolution, 1957;
• The main features of the Russian nation in the XX century, 1967

  Interview with the head of the Pitirim Sorokin Center, Ph.D. Pavel Krotov about the legacy of P. Sorokin, his family and future plans. According to the scientist, the Vym village of Turya, the birthplace of P. Sorokin, and the Komi Republic as a whole, can present tourists not only with beautiful nature, but also with the “pages of the biography” of the outstanding philosopher. He is convinced that "it is impossible to imagine cultural tourism in Komi without Pitirim Sorokin."

• Pitirim Sorokin's autobiographical book "The Long Road", where he describes the years of his life in the Komi region, is being translated into the Komi language. From English into Russian, the translation was carried out by the head. Chair of the Syktyvkar State University Vera Chernykh, from Russian into Komi - philologists of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Oleg Ulyashev and Galina Fedyuneva.
• Video translation. On the business-sound.ru website, you can order a video translation service, for example, translate and voice a video in English and voice it in Russian. And vice versa. And also pick up accompaniment: music and effects, make a script.

P.A. Sorokin as a Russian sociologist.

Introduction.

Brief information about the life of P.A. Sorokin

Scientific interests of P.A. Sorokin.

a) The subject and method of sociology.

b) Social interaction and its structure.

c) Social space.

d) Social stratification and social mobility.

e) Sociology of revolution.

f) Sociology of law.

g) The doctrine of integralism.

h) The doctrine of creative altruism.

i) The doctrine of convergence.

The main works of P.A. Sorokin.

“Life, even if it is difficult, is the most beautiful,

marvelous and delightful treasure."

Pitirim Sorokin.

Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin (1889–1968) – Russian-American sociologist and cultural scientist. Born on February 23, 1889 in the village of Turya, Vologda province, in the family of a wandering church artisan-restorer.

Being seriously engaged in science (in 1910-1914 he published about 50 works), Sorokin graduated from the law faculty of St. Petersburg University and was left to prepare for a professorship. Among his teachers was the famous sociologist M. M. Kovalevsky. In 1917, Sorokin became one of the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, participated in the Socialist-Revolutionary agitation, edited the newspaper "Will of the People", was a delegate to the 1st All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Deputies . Prepared scientific reviews for A.F. Kerensky. Sorokin sharply opposed the Bolsheviks, was hostile to the October Revolution, participated in anti-Bolshevik organizations; campaigned against the new government, was arrested.

At the end of 1918 Sorokin abandoned political activity, announced his withdrawal from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and a return to the work of his life - the cultural enlightenment of the people. In 1919, he became one of the organizers of the department of sociology at St. Petersburg University, professor of sociology at the Agricultural Academy and the Institute of National Economy. In 1920, together with I.P. Pavlov, he organized the Society for Objective Studies of Human Behavior. In 1921 worked at the Institute of the Brain, at the Historical and Sociological Institutes.

Devastating book review N.I. Bukharin"Theory of historical materialism", his rejection of the existing regime led to his arrest, which in September 1922 ended in expulsion from Soviet Russia, along with a large group of figures of Russian culture. Lived in Berlin and Prague. For some time he taught at the Russian University in Prague. He was elected professor of sociology at the University of Prague.

In 1923 he moved to the USA, where he gained fame as an outstanding sociologist of the first half of the 20th century, firmly occupying a place in the top ten leading sociologists of the world. In 1924-1930 professor at the University of Minnesota, from 1930 until the end of his life - professor at Harvard University, where in 1930 he organized the Department of Sociology, and in 1931 - the Faculty of Sociology. In 1964 Sorokin was elected president of the American Sociological Association. Sorokin died in Winchester (USA) on February 11, 1968.

Scientific interests of P.A. Sorokin covered a huge layer of problems in the study of society and culture. Here are just a few of them:

subject and method of sociology;

social stratification and social mobility;

sociocultural dynamics;

the doctrine of integralism;

doctrine of convergence;

sociology of family and marriage;

sociology of altruism and love;

sociology of crime and punishment;

sociology of law;

sociology of religion and morality;

behavior of people in extreme conditions (hunger, devastation);

sociology of revolution;

history of sociology and social philosophy.

Subject and Method of Sociology

P. A. Sorokin gives the following definition: “Sociology is a science that studies the life and activities of people living in a society of their own kind, and the results of such joint activities.” Sociology P.A. Sorokin divides into theoretical and practical. Theoretical sociology includes social analytics (the study of the structure of social phenomena and combinations of social phenomena), social mechanics (studying the processes of interaction between people and the forces that cause these interactions), and social genetics or genetic sociology (historical trends in the development of society). Practical sociology is, in fact, social policy. Its task is to manage social forces in accordance with the goals set, based on the laws of theoretical sociology.

Sorokin considered the interaction of social groups functioning in various historical and cultural circumstances to be the subject of sociology. The sociologist solves the problem of determining the causes of various types of social behavior and must take into account the most diverse motivations, influences, reactions (“pluralism of facts”)

Speaking about the method of sociology, P.A. Sorokin notes that it should be close to the method of natural sciences, that is, it should be based on observation and measurement, and not metaphysical reasoning about "psychic reality", which cannot be directly observed and measured. To do this, sociology must study only acts of behavior that are observable and measurable. The decisive influence on his views was the ideas of O. Comte and G. Spencer

Social interaction and its structure

P.A. Sorokin considers “social interaction” as the initial unit of sociological analysis. All public life, all social processes, from revolution and world war to futurism in art, according to P.A. Sorokin, are combinations of various social interactions, that is, the interaction of two or more individuals

He defines the structure of social interaction as a connection of three elements:

At least two individuals, which enter into an act of interaction and this determine the behavior of each other;

So-called acts, that is, the actions of individuals. Each act is, on the one hand, the result of the internal mental activity of the individual, and on the other hand, it is a stimulus that causes one or another reaction in other people. P.A. Sorokin divides acts into intense and weak, instantaneous and long-term, conscious and unconscious.

Conductors actions of individuals. P.A. Sorokin refers language, writing, painting, music, tools of labor and war, money, clothes, ceremonies, images, monuments, household items, railways, telegraph and telephone communications, etc. to conductors. The presence of certain conductors changes the nature of social interaction, for example, railways and telegraph communications reduce the social space and time of interaction. As P. A. Sorokin notes, if acts of social interaction are carried out and disappear, then the conductors can accumulate, forming a new non-natural environment around the interacting people. Depending on the nature of the conductors, mechanical, thermal, sound, light-color, etc. are distinguished. interactions.

Thus, in his theory of social interactions, P.A. Sorokin relied on the behaviorist scheme “stimulus-response”. Therefore, his cooperation in 1918-1922 was logical. with physiologists, including I.P. Pavlov and V.M. Bekhterev.

social space

social space- system of public relations. A person takes his special place in society in accordance with the coordinate system of social space, by analogy with the coordinate system in mathematics. P.A. Sorokin considered gender, age, race, citizenship, religious affiliation, property status, etc. as such social coordinates. The social space is multidimensional: a person can be simultaneously Russian, Orthodox, a member of the Cadet Party, a journalist by profession, a member of a hunting club, etc. That is, the individual turns out to be a member (subscriber) of many social groups. Thus, social space, according to P.A. Sorokin, is a system of intragroup and intergroup relations of individuals.

P.A. Sorokin rejects simplified attempts to divide society on any one basis (class, national, racial, professional, etc.). It gives a classification of social groups according to many criteria.

First of all, there are elementary groups (identified according to one criterion - gender, age, language, profession, income, religion, etc.) and cumulative (identified according to several criteria - classes, nations, nationalities, elites). The first level of relations in society is relations between people in elementary groups, the second is relations and layers of elementary groups that form a cumulative group, the third level is relations between cumulative groups. Society is a complex formation of elementary and cumulative groups.

closed, belonging to which does not depend on the will of the individual - the primary family, gender, race, caste, nation;

open, belonging to which depends on the conscious choice of the individual and there is a free circulation of individuals - professional groups, political parties, scientific groups, etc.;

intermediate, partially combining the properties of the two previous ones - the secondary family, estate, class.

In addition, P.A. Sorokin also classifies social groups by size, by types of social control, by the duration of the existence of groups, by the ways in which individuals enter and leave the group (for open elementary groups). P.A. Sorokin describes the state as one of the elementary groups, meaning by it, in fact, a group of subjects (citizens) of a certain state.

Social stratification and social mobility

P. A. Sorokin assigned a special role to groups occupying certain positions in a certain hierarchical system of groups. strata- these are large groups of people that differ in their position in the social hierarchy, due to the uneven distribution of rights and privileges, responsibilities and duties in society (the work of P.A. Sorokin "Social mobility", 1927). social stratification- the division of society into strata. P. A. Sorokin considers social stratification to be a natural property of society, and a society without stratification is a myth. There are several forms of social stratification. The most important of them are economic, political and professional. Each of these forms forms a complex hierarchical structure.

social mobility- various movements of people from one stratum to another. P.A.Sorokin considers two vectors of mobility - horizontal and vertical. Horizontal - movement of individuals within one stratum (change of job, place of residence, marital status), vertical - transition from one stratum to another, which can be ascending or descending. There are a number of mechanisms that make it possible to move from one stratum to another vertically, for example, the army, the church, political parties, advantageous marriages.

Vertical mobility (increasing social status) is an indicator of the degree of "openness" of the social system. In a "closed" society, the dynamics of social life is reduced to a minimum, which inevitably leads "closed" systems to a crisis. In the historical process, Sorokin believed, there is a periodic change of various "supersystems", each of which is characterized by a special cultural and historical "style", a unique "value system". The scientist identified three types of "supersystems":

"ideational", in which altruism, mysticism and asceticism play a decisive role;

"sensual", which is dominated by urban features and intellectualism;

"idealistic", characterized by a combination of features of the first two types.

Sociology of revolution

P. A. Sorokin was not only a witness, but also an active participant in the revolutionary events in Russia. Therefore, his scientific interest in the problems of the nature of revolutions in general was natural. In the works Public Textbook on Sociology (1920), Pages from a Russian Diary (1924), Sociology of the Revolution (1925) and others, he sets out his theoretical views on these issues.

Any revolution, according to P.A. Sorokin, is caused by the suppression of the basic instincts of the majority of the population - the need for food (hunger), the need for housing and clothing, the instinct of property (poverty of some against the background of the prosperity of others), the instinct of self-preservation (despotism, reprisals, mass executions), the need for collective self-preservation (family, religious association, party), sexual instinct, self-expression instinct, the need for creative activity, the need for freedom.

The revolution, as P.A. Sorokin notes, leads to devastating consequences for society - the collapse of its legal and moral foundations, cruelty and aggression in society, an unprecedented increase in the scale of crime, the destruction of family values, mass emigration, mass death of people as a result of acts accompanying the revolution violence, famine, epidemics, suicides. Moreover, the consequences of all this continue to affect for many years after the revolution. P.A.Sorokin believes that during the revolution, the most prominent, energetic, gifted people die first of all in comparison with the general mass of the population, morally and biologically defective people suffer to a lesser extent. As a result, the country remains literally bled white.

P.A. Sorokin sees an alternative to the destructive element of the revolution not by the desire to preserve the existing order at all costs, but by changing society through reforms. Reforms should be based on the following principles:

any reform should not belittle human dignity, should not be accompanied by confrontation with the basic needs of people;

each reform should be preceded by deep scientific research aimed at studying the social conditions of society;

each reform must be carried out exclusively by constitutional methods.

Sociology of law

P.A. Sorokin connects the normal development of society with the peaceful, non-violent course of history, without upheavals, accompanied by the destruction of the legal foundations of society. P.A. Sorokin paid attention to questions of the sociology of law throughout his entire creative life.

P.A. Sorokin considers law to be the force that, along with morality, motivates human actions. Law presupposes categorically obligatory volitional foundations of behavior, and morality - recommended and desirable. The official law proclaimed in laws is categorically mandatory requirements for the behavior of members of society on the part of state power (government). Law affects the individual and society in the following ways:

how the motivational force contributes to the formation of a citizen;

how coercive force carries out acts of coercion by the state or society, the threat of punishment or the promotion of a legal reward, and even conducts "social selection" (when using the death penalty);

how the training force contributes to the development of some habits in the members of society and the eradication of others.

The highest degree of manifestation of law is the individual's awareness of his rights and obligations.

In the process of historical development, certain legal ideals are formed, that is, ideas about what legal norms should ideally be. P.A. Sorokin is burning about the law of social illusionism, about the unattainability of the legal ideal in the conditions of domination of arbitrariness and violence. Revolutions, seeking to establish new ideals by violent means, become reactions. P. A. Sorokin sees an alternative to legal ideals implanted by violent methods in the ideal of the right of socially benevolent behavior. Its essence lies in the mutual solidarity and love of people for each other. P.A. Sorokin identifies the following criteria for compliance with this legal ideal:

criterion of the interests of the individual;

criterion of legal equality between persons;

criterion of quantitative and qualitative growth of solidarity and socially benevolent behavior;

the criterion for the fall of punishments and rewards, in particular, the fall in the severity of punishments, the decrease in the number of punished persons;

a criterion of the quality of those means by which socially benevolent behavior is ensured, in particular, the liberation of a person from excessive guardianship by the state or groups.

P. A. Sorokin saw the future of mankind in a gradual approach to this ideal.

Doctrine of Integralism

P.A. Sorokin actively introduced into the social sciences the ideas of integralism or a complex, synthetic, unifying approach to the study of society and man. He proposes to study society both from the point of view of objective changes in socio-cultural supersystems, and from the point of view of the integral essence of man. In his work “Integralism is my philosophy” (1957), P.A. Sorokin considers reality as an infinite number of different qualities and quantities: spiritual and material, changing and unchanging, etc. P. A. Sorokin considers active reasonable creativity to be the highest form of reality.

From the point of view of methods of cognition, P.A. Sorokin distinguishes:

empirical aspect of reality (comprehended by experience);

rational (comprehensible by the mind, that is, through logic and mathematics);

supersensible-suprarational (comprehended by creative insight and intuition);

The most complete is the truth received through all three of these aspects, and not any one of them.

Man himself is also an integral being. He is both a cognizing subject, and a rational thinker, and a supersensible and superrational being. Man is not only a conscious creation, but also a superconscious creator who creates cultural phenomena that differ from the phenomena of inanimate nature and the organic world.

The most important component of the superorganic world is meaning. The highest integral semantic value is the unity of Truth (Truth), Goodness (unegoistic love) and Beauty (aesthetic values, works of art). Thus, the integralism of P.A. Sorokin acts not only as a cognitive, but also as a moral and ethical doctrine. And these concepts are inseparable for him. Each discovered truth, according to P.A. Sorokin, is at the same time a contribution to goodness and beauty. Any act of unselfish love (goodness) enriches the world of truth and beauty. At the same time, P.A. Sorokin states that over the past centuries, the activity of mankind in the field of truth (scientific discoveries) and beauty (works of art) has outstripped the activity in the field of goodness (unegoistic love). Therefore, he failed to open the way for the moral ennoblement of the superorganic world and control over his animal addictions. Hence his interest in the theory of creative altruism, which he developed in the 1940s - 1950s.

The Doctrine of Creative Altruism

Creative altruism, disinterested, creative love, P.A. Sorokin considered as the most important means of overcoming the lack of spirituality of modern civilization. He noted that neither democratic reforms, nor the creation of international instruments such as the UN, by themselves, can lead to the prevention of wars and conflicts. Democracy can be just as aggressive as autocracy. Only a significant increase in the degree of altruism of individuals, institutions or cultures can establish lasting peace and harmony between people. Altruism, altruistic love, as noted by P.A. Sorokin, is a huge force, but on condition that we know how to produce, accumulate and use it.

P.A.Sorokin describes three types of altruistic personalities:

"successful" altruists, who from childhood show insignificant egoistic inclinations and successfully integrate a number of moral values;

"catastrophic" or "late" altruists who became such in adulthood as a result of the disintegration of egoistic values, which is facilitated by the social catastrophes they experienced;

"intermediate" altruists who are in constant search for moral perfection.

P.A. Sorokin studied the personalities of Buddha, Mohatma Gandhi, Christian saints, conducted field research in universities, hospitals, prisons, and on their basis formulated the so-called polarization law. Its essence is that people react to social and personal catastrophes in polar opposite directions (positive and negative moral polarization). In the case of positive moral polarization, altruistic reincarnation takes place, in the case of negative - the search for hedonistic, self-oriented, pleasure, bitterness, aggression, or stupid resignation to fate, or suicide. Part of modern humanity is moving towards positive polarization and resists the destructive process of demoralization of another part of humanity, moving towards negative polarization. The tasks of mankind's survival, P.A. Sorokin believes, require altruistic re-education, both of the rulers and the masses.

Doctrine of Convergence

The foundations of the theory of convergence were outlined by P.A. Sorokin in the work “Russia and the United States”, written in 1944, when the USSR and the USA were allies in World War II. But even later, already during the years of the Cold War, in particular, in the works “Mutual Convergence of the United States and the USSR to a Mixed Sociocultural Type” (1960) and “The Main Trends of Our Time” (1964), P.A. that there is a gradual convergence (convergence) of features that characterize the Soviet and Western societies, the USSR and the USA. He believed that if a new world war could be avoided, then the dominant form of society would be neither capitalism nor socialism, but some integral form that combined the best of both systems. But at the same time, it will be characterized by a new type of personality, new social institutions, new cultural values ​​that cannot be reduced to either "capitalist" or "socialist". For the West, convergence will mean the rejection of the illusory material values ​​of the sensual phase, the limitation of the power of money. For the USSR, convergence will mean respect for human rights and an increase in the material standard of living of the masses. Gradually, both the West and the Soviet Union will come to a mixed type of economy, different from the economy of free enterprise, and from a purely state economy. In the Soviet Union in the 1970s, the ideas of convergence were shared by Academician A.D. Sakharov. In the second half of the 1980s. MS Gorbachev also expressed thoughts about convergence. And although the real ways of development of the United States and especially the USSR turned out to be somewhat different than P.A. Sorokin predicted, the doctrine of convergence had a great influence on various theories of the emerging and future type of human society (models of post-industrial society, etc.).

The main works of P.A. Sorokin:

“Remnants of animism among the Zyryans” (1910), “Marriage in the old days: (polyandry and polygamy)” (1913), “Crime and its causes” (1913), “Suicide as a social phenomenon” (1913), “Symbols in public life ”, “Crime and Punishment, Feat and Reward” (1913), “Social Analytics and Social Mechanics” (1919), “System of Sociology” (1920), “Sociology of Revolution” (1925), “Social Mobility” (1927), "Social and cultural dynamics" (1937-1941), "Society, culture and personality: their structure and dynamics; a system of general sociology" (1947), "The Restoration of Humanity" (1948), "Altruistic Love" (1950), "Social Philosophies in an Age of Crisis" (1950), "The Meaning of Our Crisis" (1951), "The Ways and Power of Love" (1954), Integralism is My Philosophy (1957), Power and Morality (1959), Mutual Convergence of the United States and the USSR to a Mixed Socio-Cultural Type (1960), Long Road. Autobiography" (1963), "The main trends of our time" (1964), "Sociology yesterday, today and tomorrow" (1968).

In 1914 Sorokin published his first work Crime and Punishment, Feat and Reward. A sociological study on the basic forms of social behavior and morality. The ideas of O. Comte and G. Spencer had a decisive influence on his views (Sorokin himself called himself an "empirical positivist"). In Crime and Punishment, crime is considered as a result of the fundamental heterogeneity and even "fragmentation" of the system of social relations, the discrepancy between the "patterns of behavior" of various social groups. In the future, humanity is able to solve the problem of crime by moving to a qualitatively different level of social integration and harmony.

In 1920, his two-volume System of Sociology was published. In 1922, his book "The Current State of Russia" was published in Prague, in which Sorokin stated that the most important consequence of the roar. was the degradation of the population of Russia.

Published work The current state of Russia(1923). In subsequent years, he published a number of works that brought him worldwide recognition ( social mobility, Modern sociological theory and etc.). The last significant work of the scientist is devoted to Russia: The main features of the Russian nation in the twentieth century(1967). Among the students of Sorokin are the largest American sociologists, such as R. Merton, R. Mills, T. Parsons and others.

In the second half of the 1920s, disillusioned with the positivist model of evolution, Sorokin developed a theory of sociocultural cycles, which was substantiated in his works. Social and cultural dynamics(in 4 volumes, 1937–1941) and The crisis of our time(1941). Other works of the scientist are also devoted to the problem of the typology of "crises" in history: Sociocultural causation, space, time (1943), Society, culture and personality: their structure and dynamics. System of General Sociology (1947), Social Philosophy in an Age of Crisis(1950) and others. In the late 1940s, Sorokin was increasingly attracted to the problems of moral relations, in 1949 he created the Research Center for Creative Altruism at Harvard. The roles of love and altruism in human relations are devoted to his research-manifestos: Altruistic love: a study of American« good neighbors» and Christian saints (1950), The ways and power of love(1954) and others.

Sorokin concluded his memoirs - "The Long Road" (M., 1992): "No matter what happens in the future, I now know three things that I will keep in my head and heart forever. Life, even the hardest, is the best treasure in in the world. Duty is another treasure that makes life happy and gives the soul the strength not to change its ideals. The third thing I learned is that cruelty, hatred and injustice cannot and never will be able to create anything eternal either in the intellectual, neither morally nor materially.

Quotations from the works of P.A. Sorokin

"The structure of any society, the perfection of its social life, spiritual and material prosperity, and, finally, its historical destinies depend primarily on the nature, properties and behavior of the members of this society. You cannot build a good building from bad material."

“People are the most important thing. It depends on them whether they turn the palace given to them by fate into a “pigsty” or a simple hut into a clean and comfortable home. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on people.”

"The nature, properties and behavior of both the individual and the whole society are the result of two main reasons - heredity and the environment in which he was born, grew up and lives. If a person or a whole people does not have positively, hereditarily received gifts - no environment can make their talented or outstanding in their properties ... Growth, constitution, strength, health and a number of other anthroposomatic properties of the people depend on the "hereditary fund", and its "spiritual" qualities also depend on it: will, temperament, skills, inclination and mental talent"

Sociology actively ... great merit as sociologist. An important milestone in the development Russian sociological thought were the works of P.A. Sorokin (1889 ...

The main ideas of P.A. Sorokin Man. Civilization. Society

Coursework >> Sociology

Introduction Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin- outstanding sociologist XX century, founder Russian and American ... M .: Politizdat, 1992. -291s. Golosenko I.A. Pitirim Sorokin as historian sociology. // Magazine sociology and social anthropology. 1998. No. 4.