Man in the system of social relations. Social connections

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Introduction

1. Social relations and the social structure of society. Types of social relations

2. Classes and their role in the system of social ties. Basic concepts of social differentiation of modern society

3. Social differentiation in the information society

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

The relevance of the topic "Man in the system of social connections and relations" is due to the essence of social relations that connect people, things and ideas into a single whole, i.e. consists in the fact that the relationship of a person to a person is mediated by the world of things, and vice versa, the contact of a person with an object means, in fact, his communication with another person, his forces and abilities accumulated in the object. In addition to their natural, physical, bodily qualities, any phenomenon of culture, including a person, is characterized by a system of social qualities that arise precisely in the process of activity in society.

Social qualities are supersensible, immaterial, but quite real and objective, and very significantly determine the life of a person and society. social society class differentiation informational

The object of research is a social society. The subject of research is the existence of human society as a phenomenon of social consciousness, its essence, structure, functions, forms of manifestation.

Social philosophy is not identical to sociology, which is an empirical science that studies social life in its various aspects, using all sorts of specific methods and particular techniques to analyze specific events in social life and generalize them. Social philosophy is based on sociological research and carries out its own philosophical generalizations. Similar relationships exist between the philosophy of history and history as a specific field of knowledge: the philosophy of history forms a special facet of social philosophy.

Social relations develop between people in the process of their joint activities.

Many socio-political concepts and philosophical views of society recognize both the importance of material production and the objective social relations that arise in this process, and the need for a central idea that unites different elements of society into a single value.

1. Social relations and the social structure of society.Types of social relations

The richness and complexity of the social content of the individual is due to the diversity of its connections with the social whole, the degree of accumulation and refraction in its consciousness and the activities of various spheres of society. That is why the level of development of the Personality is an indicator of the level of development of society and vice versa. However, the individual does not dissolve in society. It retains the significance of a unique and independent individuality and contributes to the social whole.

In the process of the development of labor and the enrichment of social relations on its basis, a differentiation of the social functions of people takes place. Acquiring personal rights and obligations, personal names, a certain degree of personal responsibility, people more and more stood out from the original weakly divided social whole as independent figures. The person becomes a person.

In a feudal society, the individual, first of all, belonged to a certain class. This determined the rights and obligations of the individual. The problem of the individual in society was posed in two ways: in the legal, determined by feudal law, and as the ratio of divine providence and free will of the individual.

During the formation of capitalism, the struggle for the freedom of the individual begins, against the hierarchical estate system. At first, the demand for individual freedom was reduced mainly to the demand for freedom of thought. Then it grew into a demand for civil and political freedom, freedom of private initiative. The heyday of capitalism is the era of individualism. Expressing the egoistic psychology of individualism, A. Schopenhauer, for example, emphasized that everyone wants to rule over everything and destroy everything that opposes him; everyone considers himself the center of the world; prefers his own existence and well-being to everything else; he is ready to destroy the world in order to support only his own I a little longer.

A person can be free only in a free society. A person is free where it not only serves as a means for the implementation of social goals, but also acts as an end in itself for society.

Only a highly organized society will create the conditions for the formation of an active, all-round, amateur personality and will make precisely these qualities a measure of assessing the dignity of a person. It is a highly organized society that needs such individuals. In the process of building such a society, people develop a sense of self-worth. In philosophical science, society is characterized as a dynamic self-developing system, that is, such a system that is capable of seriously changing, at the same time retaining its essence and qualitative certainty. The system is defined as a complex of interacting elements. In turn, an element is some further indecomposable component of the system that is directly involved in its creation. Thus, we can say that society is a social community of people united by the specific historical conditions of their life, the economic, socio-psychological and spiritual way of their joint existence.

social community- a set of people, which is characterized by the conditions of their life, common to a given group of interacting individuals; belonging to historically formed territorial formations, belonging to the studied group of interacting individuals to one or another social institution.

All spheres of society's life function in the closest relationship, at the same time, all spheres perform certain functions in society and are complex social subsystems. They have, in turn, a complex structure, which includes elements of different levels of complexity, united by social relations.

Public relations, on the one hand, are the main feature of the social system, and on the other hand, its most important element.

All the structures that, in their totality and interaction, constitute the social structure of society have a dual origin. Two of them - ethnic and demographic - are rooted in the biological nature of man and to the greatest extent, although under the auspices of the social, represent this biological in public life.

The other three - settlement, class, professional and educational - are social in the full sense of the word, that is, civilizational, and have developed as a result of the three great social divisions of labor, the transition to private property and class formation.

The pre-class society has developed its own, ultimately determined by technological and economic reasons, forms of community of people - clan and tribe.

The clan was the main cell of the first socio-economic formation in history, and a multifunctional cell: not only ethnic, but also industrial and social. The economic basis of the clan was communal ownership of land, hunting and fishing grounds. Such relations of production (including the egalitarian distribution of products) corresponded to an extremely low level of productive forces.

A higher historical form of community of people within the same primitive communal formation was a tribe - an association of clans that came out of the same root, but subsequently separated from each other. Like the genus, the tribe continues to be an ethnic category, since it continues to be based on blood and family ties.

The basis of the next, higher form of community - nationality, was no longer kinship, but territorial, neighborly ties between people. V. I. Lenin once criticized N. K. Mikhailovsky, who did not understand this fundamental difference between a nationality and a tribe. According to Mikhailovsky, a nationality is simply an overgrown tribe. A nationality is a historically formed community of people that has its own language, territory, a certain common culture, and the beginnings of economic ties.

First, peoples undergo a real metamorphosis in the course of their development. The proposal found in the literature to distinguish between the primary nationality, which arose directly from the decomposition of tribal communities, and the secondary, which is a further development of the primary, allows us to approach the analysis of nationalities in a concrete historical way.

Secondly, a nationality has a certain historical place between tribal communities and nations from the point of view of such a criterion as the degree of development of intra-community economic ties. The evolution of a purely subsistence economy into a subsistence-commodity economy expresses these shifts in the best possible way.

The formation of the next, even higher form of community of people - the nation - is quite rightly associated both in Marxist and non-Marxist literature with the development of capitalism.

If such prerequisites for the consolidation of nationalities into nations, such as a common territory, a common language, certain features of a cultural community, the rudiments of economic integrity, can be found even under feudalism, then the formation of a common economic life is already connected with the process of the genesis and establishment of capitalism.

So the nation is character characterized by the following features:

Firstly, is the totality of the territory. People and even relatively large groups of people, spatially separated from each other for a long time, can in no way belong to the same nation.

Secondly, to the commonality of the territory, in order to be able to talk about a nation, the commonality of the language must also be added. The national language is the common spoken language, understandable to all members of the nation and firmly entrenched in literature. The commonality of the language must necessarily be considered in close connection with the commonality of the territory, although these two signs in themselves are also not enough to conclude that the socio-ethnic community under consideration is a nation. These signs must be supplemented by one more.

Third the main feature of a nation is the community of economic life. The commonality of economic life arises on the basis of the economic specialization of the various regions of the country and the strengthening of trade and exchange ties between them. This process of specialization of various regions, their growing economic dependence on each other, was at the same time a process of economic consolidation of nations.

On the basis of the historically long commonality of territory, language, and economic life, the fourth sign of a nation is formed - the general features of the mental warehouse, fixed in the mentality of a given people.

Particular attention should be paid to such a sign that forms the concept of "nation" as national self-consciousness.

This sign is subjective in nature, and it is this subjectivity that often serves as an argument against its materiality. One can speak of a nation as a really existing and normally functioning community only when the objective signs are supplemented by a clearly expressed national self-consciousness. Otherwise, one can only talk about the ethnic origin of people, and not about their nationality.

There are indicators that make it possible to fairly accurately determine the level and degree of national self-consciousness. But the main, integrating, obviously, are self-distancing, recognition of differences between oneself and representatives of other nationalities, on the one hand, and awareness of the inextricable links of one's "I" with the life and destinies of this ethnic group.

The general community of the demographic structure of society is the population - a continuously reproducing totality of people. In this sense, they talk about the population of the entire Earth, a separate country, region, etc.

Population density also has a significant impact on the economy. In regions with a sparse population, the division of labor is difficult, and the tendency to preserve subsistence farming remains dominant, while building up the information and transport infrastructure (building roads and railways, laying cable communications, etc.) is economically unprofitable.

Population growth rates are among the most actively influencing the economy, especially since this is a complex factor, determined not only by indicators of natural population growth, but also by its sex and age structure, as well as by the pace and direction of migration. For the normal development of society and, above all, its economy, both tending to a minimum and tending to a maximum rate of population growth are equally harmful. At extremely low growth rates, the reproduction of the personal element of the productive forces occurs on a narrowing basis, which also affects the value of the total national product, and hence the national income. With excessively high population growth rates, economic development also slows down, because an increasingly significant part of the total product and national income is torn away simply for the physical preservation of the newly born.

The result in both cases is the same - increased migration, damaging the economy.

The impact of demographic factors makes itself felt not only in the economy: it is difficult to name a component of society in which it would not be found.

The most sensitive in this respect of all superstructural spheres is, perhaps, morality. Any failure in demographic relations, and even more so in the demographic structure as a whole, immediately responds in the practice of moral relations and - in a reflected form - in moral psychology and ethics. Suffice it to recall the moral consequences of the Patriotic War associated with the collapse of the family structure of society, the disintegration of many millions of families. In a certain sense, migration also acts in the same direction, especially if it takes on an exaggerated character.

Difficulties in professional and socio-cultural adaptation, everyday disorder, getting out of the moral control of the former social microenvironment and the possibility (especially at first) of anonymous behavior in the new one serve as the soil and background for sexual promiscuity, drunkenness and criminal offenses.

Demographic characteristics affect the image of society as a whole, facilitating its progressive development, or, on the contrary, causing its degradation. Thus, following the decline in population to a critical minimum, society becomes unable to reproduce social relations in their entirety.

So, the laws of population are a vivid example of how the biological form of the movement of matter is transformed, being part of the social one. In this regard, the laws of population would be more accurately called biosocial. The disclosure of their complex content remains an important task of interdisciplinary research, including both the philosophical understanding of the interaction "society - population" and the reconstruction of the specific development of the demographic structure of society by the efforts of historians.

The ethnic and demographic structures of society that we have considered are biological in origin and primary concrete historical forms. In this respect, the settlement structure, being a product of purely social causes - social divisions of labor, differs fundamentally from them.

The settlement structure is a spatial form of organization of society. This concept expresses the relationship of people to the territory of their habitat, and more precisely, the relationship of people to each other in connection with their belonging to the same or to different types of settlement (intra-village, intra-urban and inter-settlement relations).

Here we find a difference that differentiates the settlement structure from other structures: people belonging to different ethnic groups, different classes, different age and professional and educational groups, as a rule, are not separated from each other spatially, on the contrary, it is coexistence in a single space that makes interaction possible. between them and the normal functioning of society as a whole. According to the settlement principle, individuals are separated in space - they, depending on the type of settlement, are either townspeople or villagers.

Each of the main types of settlement - village and city - can be correctly understood only in terms of correlative consideration, when they are scrupulously compared with each other. At the same time, the city can be chosen as a mirror in which society looks in order to understand what it has gained and what it has lost as a result of the separation of cities from the once absolutely rural social space.

All connections, relationships, interactions, elements and spheres of society are in the process of changes and transformations of different nature and nature. Society, being a product of social relations, is at the same time an active subject of relations, actions and interactions between the elements that make up its structure.

2. Classes and their role in the system of social ties. Basic concepts of social differentiation of modern society

The doctrine of social classes arose in the pre-Marxian period. In a letter to K. Weidemeyer dated March 5, 1852, K. Marx noted: “... as for me, I do not own either the merit that I discovered the existence of classes in modern society, or that I discovered their struggle between yourself. Bourgeois historians, long before me, outlined the historical development of this class struggle, and bourgeois economists outlined the economic anatomy of classes. However, all pre-Marxian conceptions of classes suffered either from metaphysics, the absence of a historical approach, and then classes turned into an eternal category, a natural and enduring sign of society (among the classics of English political economy), or idealism, an inability to see the economic essence of classes (among French historians).

Comparing his views with the views of his predecessors, Marx wrote in the above-mentioned letter to Weidemeier: “What I did new was to prove ... that the existence of classes is connected only with certain historical phases in the development of production.”

It turned out that classes did not always exist and will not always exist, that they are associated only with those economic modes of production based on private property. The deepest reason for the emergence of classes is due, first of all, to a certain level of development of the productive forces and the nature of the production relations corresponding to them.

The formation of classes is based on the social division of labor, the assignment of certain types of activity to large social groups. This does not mean the technological division of labor (which existed in certain forms in primitive society and will continue in the foreseeable future), but the social division of labor, which, unlike the technological one, is formed not in the process of direct production, but in the sphere of exchange of activity.

Exchange establishes links between already existing, but still quite independent spheres of human activity, gradually turning them into cooperation of branches of total social production dependent on each other (agriculture, cattle breeding, handicraft, trade, mental labor).

The institution of private property is also “connected” to the process of class formation. If the social division of labor assigns people to a certain type of activity, then private property separates people in relation to the means of production and the appropriation of the results of labor, and those who own the means of production have real opportunities to exploit those who are deprived of them.

Marx's concept of classes had an indelible influence on all subsequent socio-philosophical and sociological thought. Explaining the reasons for this, Anthony Giddens (Cambridge) writes: "Marx's concept of class leads us objectively to structured economic inequality in society, class is related not to people's beliefs, but to objective conditions that allow greater access to material rewards."

The most complete definition of classes in the socio-philosophical literature of Marxism was given by V. I. Lenin in his work “The Great Initiative”: "Classes are large groups of people who differ in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their relationship (for the most part fixed and formalized in laws) to the means of production, in their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, in the methods of obtaining and the size of the share of social wealth that they have.

Note that V. I. Lenin referred classes to large groups of people. This is their generic feature, since there are other large groups in society - age, gender, ethnic, professional, etc. And then in Lenin's definition, intraspecific differences between classes are listed. Of course, the characteristics of this or that class are not limited to these signs: the characteristics of the political and psychological qualities of classes are very important. And if Lenin, in his definition, limited himself to only four main economic features, it is because they are the basic, primary, and political, psychological, etc. - superstructure, secondary.

All attributes of classes must be considered in their organic unity, in a system. Each of them, taken separately, not only does not give a complete description of the class, but is also capable of distorting it. By the way, many non-scientific class theories are built precisely on the extraction of a single class-forming feature from a coherent system.

At each stage of socio-economic development based on private property, there are basic and non-basic classes. The main classes of such a society are the classes that are generated by the dominant mode of production in it and by their relationships (both struggle and cooperation), express the essence of this mode of production, its main contradiction. Such are slave owners and slaves, feudal lords and serfs, bourgeois and workers. Each class formation also knows non-basic classes, which are either the remnants of the former or the embryos of a new mode of production.

Relations between classes represent an integral system, within which we can distinguish:

1. Relations between classes regarding ownership of the means of production and the entire chain of relations that follows from here in direct production, distribution, exchange and consumption (economic relations).

2. Relations between classes regarding state power and state administration (political relations).

3. Relations between classes about the rule of law (legal relations).

4. Relations between classes in connection with the implementation of moral norms (moral relations).

5. Relations between classes regarding the creation and consumption of ideological, artistic and other spiritual values (spiritual relations in the narrow sense of the word).

When analyzing the social structure of society, it is very important to take into account not only interclass but also intraclass differences. The identification of layers, components, detachments within a particular class makes it possible to better understand the conditions of their social existence and interests, to predict their social and political behavior.

And these contradictions in real social reality, as historical experience shows, turn out to be very significant (contradictions between financial capital and industrialists, between small businesses and corporations, between workers employed in production and the reserve army of labor).

The class approach is not a simple invention of the "great sorting machine" - the human head, trying to put everything "on the shelves": it adequately reflects the historical past and present. Moreover, the class approach cannot be regarded as a mere invention of the Marxists. As noted in the literature, the Marxist concept of class struggle, social revolutions and dictatorship as a way to solve social problems arose in the context of the values of technogenic culture.

Social differentiation is an important attribute of society, especially modern society.

Social differentiation of society - the dismemberment of the social whole or part of it into interconnected elements.

In non-Marxist sociology, predominantly formal aspects were developed. theory at the end of the 19th century. put forward by the English philosopher G. Spencer, who borrowed this term from biology and proclaimed social differentiation as the universal law of the evolution of matter from simple to complex, manifested in society as a division of labor.

The French sociologist E. Durkheim considered social differentiation as a result of the division of labor as a law of nature and linked functions in society with an increase in population density and the intensity of interpersonal and intergroup contacts.

The German philosopher and sociologist M. Weber saw social differentiation as a consequence of the process of rationalization of values, norms and relations between people.

The modern structural-functional school in non-Marxist sociology (the American sociologist T. Parsons and others) considers social differentiation as the current state of the social structure and as a process leading to the emergence of various types of activities, roles and groups specializing in the performance of certain functions necessary for self-preservation of the social system.

However, within the framework of this school, the question of the causes and types of social differentiation remains unresolved.

The founders of Marxism-Leninism analyzed the process of social differentiation in society, linking it with the development of productive forces, the division of labor, and the increasing complexity of the social structure. The most important stages in the social differentiation of society are the division of agricultural and pastoral labor, handicrafts and agriculture, the spheres of production and the family, and the emergence of the state.

Marxism requires a concrete study of the processes of social differentiation in society as a whole - the emergence and formation of classes, social strata and groups, the identification of individual spheres of society (production, science, etc.), as well as differentiation within classes, social spheres.

Such a concrete analysis shows, for example, that if the social differentiation of society under capitalism is connected with the growth of social inequality, then under socialism there is a movement of society towards social homogeneity, overcoming class differences.

In pre-capitalist formations, the differentiation of society into two peculiar poles was clearly revealed: material-production and political-spiritual activity. The social sphere, I think, did not declare itself quite definitely at that time as a separate independent sphere; some of its components in terms of their structure, development trends, etc. those who gravitated toward the material-production sphere were the working classes, while others gravitated towards the political and managerial sphere - the ruling classes.

And only in the period of capitalism did a visible demarcation of the material-production, social and political spheres take place. Thus, the differentiation of the main spheres of social life is not a one-time historical act, but a long historical process. At each stage of this process, transformations take place, some areas develop and deepen, some collapse and merge with others. And there is no reason to believe that this process will ever be exhausted.

The concept of differentiation in the modern world in sociology with the evolutionary theory of Herbert Spencer of the development of society from incoherent homogeneity to coherent heterogeneity.

Later, Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, T. Parsons, and Niklas Luhmann were important proponents of the concept. Other social thinkers, such as Karl Marx and Max Weber, who did not use the term differentiation prominently, nevertheless contributed to a correct understanding of social structure, and the dynamics it denotes.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the theoretical and empirical debates about social differentiation continue. Social differentiation is considered as a dynamic process, which leads to changes in the given structure of differentiation.

Therefore, the functional differentiation of the modern "world community" is a high-risk result of social evolution. No alternative to this type of social differentiation is seen as an option for the future.

But whether modern society cannot survive in this way or will destroy itself sooner or later is an open question that sociological theories of social differentiation cannot answer. Theorists can only observe what happened earlier and get a warning from that.

3. Social differentiation in the information society

One of the main values is information that circulates through communication channels and unites people into a new social whole. In practice, it is a kind of symbolic capital, the struggle for the production, distribution and appropriation of which is carried out just as stubbornly as for money. The most important means of owning "information capital" are modern communications. TV and a computer equipped with various set-top boxes are "revolutionary" symbols of modernity.

They open up new unprecedented possibilities, combine music, painting, literature, science, philosophy, and politics together. Masterpieces of music and painting are available through the Internet, they are included as components in video clips and various entertainment programs. Complex works of art, scientific theories, political ideologies - in a word, what used to require an appropriate education, social status, free time and material resources, has become publicly available, and is served by the mass media in a simplified form. Information from all over the world, published in the press, connects people to the global community. Today everyone knows everything. This situation also leads to qualitative changes in the style of thinking, in the way of seeing, evaluating and understanding reality. The former linear way of perceiving the world, understanding based on logical sequence, argumentation and justification, gives way to a complex holistic coverage of the meaning of what is happening. So, freedom, creativity, accessibility, privacy are undoubtedly positive consequences of modern mass media.

On the other hand, there are obvious and dangerous consequences. The seemingly positive interweaving of scientific, artistic, political, religious languages in modern popular mass printed publications turns into syncretism, which was inherent in ancient myths. Unity and synthesis are not always virtues. First of all, the circumstance that power dissolves in modern mass media, becomes invisible and at the same time all-pervading, causes concern.

It captures any information and penetrates the consciousness in the form of both scientific and entertainment programs, and at the same time leaves the control of the public. Although modern mass media bring together all the previous techniques for describing the world, and photography is combined with reporting and evaluation, the principle of montage leads to such a selection and interpretation of what is happening that the world perceived by the user turns out to be a fictional, illusory world or a simulacrum. Not only shows, but also political reports turn out to be dramatizations. Multimedia not only open a window to the world, but also narrow the creative possibilities of the person himself. If the reader of the classical press, which translates typographic signs into the world of images and concepts, did a huge amount of independent work, which, of course, was prepared and directed by previous education, today the press actively uses comics, and video technology provides ready-made images that almost do not require independent interpretation, seeming reality itself. The content of newspapers and television programs also turns out to be ideologically loaded and severely censored.

Already the discovery of radio gave rise to theories according to which electronic means of communication make information more widespread and accessible. Without the high costs associated with book publishing, radio messages quickly and efficiently reach everyone and have the desired effect.

Press is not only the content, but also the structure. First of all, it is an institution that coexists in space with other "places" - the market, the temple, the university. Each of them produces certain properties of human nature. The market is aggression, the temple is love, the university is knowledge. Mass media is a place of places, that is, a space where the heterogeneous meets and communicates. Therefore, the functions of the press and TV are to be mediums, mediators of communication. Mass media should become a meeting place for morality and business, knowledge and poetry. It was the creation of such meeting places for the heterogeneous that served as an incentive for the development of European culture.

Having conquered the peaks of scientific and technological progress and having gained unprecedented power over nature, the overwhelming majority of people have not learned how to build the socio-political and spiritual space of their habitat, to foresee the immediate and long-term consequences of their activities. Scientific progress is clearly ahead of spiritual progress.

And in these conditions, the mass media should be the conductors of the ideology of social justice, promote the achievements of modern culture, generalize the best experience in organizing socio-economic and spiritual-political life, promote progress in the transformation of various forms of human life. Modern mass media are far from realizing these tasks. The focus of their activities is mainly inhumane and destructive.

Man of the future- this is a reasonable, humane, active person, having high ideals. He is a holistic, comprehensively developed personality, embodying his physical and spiritual perfection, acting on the basis of moral meaning. The information civilization creates the necessary conditions for the formation of such a person, but it requires new forms of social life, strict control in the use of mass media, and the responsibility of power structures.

In the conditions of a post-industrial society, in the process of deep intraformational changes taking place at the end of the 20th century. in the economically developed countries of the world community, the following main classes were defined: the upper or ruling class, the class of production and non-production workers (wage labor) and the middle class. It is they in their totality that constitute the main content in the system of social class differentiation, determining the social structure and appearance of the leading countries of the world.

The upper or ruling class includes the owners of the fixed means of production and capital, as well as persons occupying a leading position in the management of firms, state structures, etc. Previously, the generally accepted designation for this group was the term "bourgeoisie", which was understood as a group of owners of the means of production employing hired labor. The inclusion of a group of top managers in its composition led to the use of the category "ruling class", which means a class community that unites both large owners and wage laborers performing administrative and managerial functions.

In the 70s - 90s. the development of this community was characterized by a further strengthening of the positions of large owners, who occupy a leading position in the economy of post-industrial countries and operate in various areas of material and non-material production, a significant increase in the role of senior employees and managers, whose social status is determined by their position in the field of management and the corresponding level of income, intensive enrichment of the ruling class as a whole with super-high incomes of its upper strata.

So in the early 90s. the share of income of the 5% of the richest Americans exceeded the share of income of the 40% of the poor and poor citizens. The ruling class is characterized by a high level of political activity. Up to 77% of the group of administrators and managers took part in the 1996 presidential election in the United States; 57.6% of individuals with an annual income of over $50,000. Representatives of the ruling class predominate in the upper echelons of power and in the sphere of big politics.

These features of the social identification of the ruling class largely determined the direction of the transformation of post-industrial society in recent decades. The size of this class can only be approximated. So in the US, most sociologists estimate it as 3 - 4% of the economically active population, of which 1 - 2% falls on the economic and political elite. At the same time, it was the ruling class that occupied and occupies leading positions in the ownership structure, organization of production and management structures. The class of large entrepreneurs and managers is the main subject of political power, ensuring relatively stable social development.

A class of production and non-production workers, uniting wage laborers who do not have ownership of the means of production or have it on a limited scale, and are mainly engaged in performing work in various areas of material and non-material production. Previously, this community was referred to as the "working class" or "proletariat", and it included hired workers engaged in physical labor in the branches of material production.

At present, up to 75% of the composition of this class is represented by low-ranking employees who do not perform supervisory functions, whose sphere of application of labor is mainly in the service-producing industries.

In this regard, in order to adequately define the new social composition, the term "class of production and non-production workers" is used.

The main trends in the development of this class community include: a constant and significant increase in its numbers (in the United States in the early 90s it amounted to over 80 million people - over 60% of the American labor force), an increase in the proportion of functions of the non-physical and mental labor in the content of professional functions, a sharp increase in the quantitative characteristics of industry strata and groups employed in the service-producing sector of the economy (in the United States, the number of hired labor in the sphere of non-material production increased from 30.6 million people in 1970 to 58.4 million people in 1993). Among the important characteristics of this class are a general increase in the general educational and qualification level, an increase in the number of a rather significant layer of workers with limited ownership of the means of production, an impressive increase in the living standards of this class and, accordingly, the level of consumption. The characteristic features of the political identification of this class are a rather low level of electoral activity, the presence of a significant number of intraclass groups occupying an intermediate position in the party and ideological choice, the absence of a direct correspondence between class and party identifications, etc.

The social status of the intelligentsia is determined by the position in the system of division of labor, however, its representatives do not have a single relationship to the means of production (groups of self-employed and hired intelligentsia), differ in their position in the management hierarchy (groups of intelligentsia that carry out the functions of leadership and control, and groups that are not connected with them). They differ significantly in terms of size and methods of generating income. As for the group of employees, in this case it is represented by managers and managers of lower and middle levels, whose professional functions include certain elements of control.

Taken together, these diverse intermediate communities now account for more than 30% of the labor force in post-industrial countries.

The leading trends in the development of the middle strata in recent decades have been: an increase in the number of small entrepreneurs employed in the service-producing sector of the economy, while reducing the quantitative parameters of farmers, a significant increase in the number of intelligentsia, the complication of their social composition and increased mobility. The wide spread of small businesses and the intellectualization of all spheres of public life make it possible to predict both the further numerical growth of intermediate groups and the increase in their importance in the social structure of modern society.

All this indicates that the information civilization that is taking shape in the modern world objectively dictates new patterns in the development of the social sphere. Shifts in the content of wage labor, a change in the content of labor functions associated with an increase in the volume of mental activity, form the basis for the development of a new type of social relations of people at all levels that characterize the process of reproduction of the information society. This largely predetermines its relatively stable development. On the basis of the growth of national wealth and the ever-wider consolidation of natural and civil human rights, class relations, although developing contradictorily, are gradually losing their antagonistic orientation and are carried out within the framework of social partnership.

The contradictions of modern society are being overcome on the basis of shifts in the structure of property and labor, the comprehensive development of small business, the growth of social mobility, and the development of a new type of people's social ties. Their relations are increasingly built not on external determinants of class affiliation, but on the basis of their own choice, participation in informal mass movements, depending on the nature and content of their activities and spiritual interests. Shifts in the structure of wage labor, its organization and management, changes in the content of labor functions associated with an increase in the volume of mental labor and the growth of culture determine changes in the intellectual and psychological qualities of people using modern technology.

All this forms the basis for the development of a new type of social ties at all levels: from the family to interethnic ties and relations.

Analyzing the dynamics and content of the modern social structure, some researchers conclude that with the overcoming of technogenic civilization, a huge period in the history of mankind associated with the division of society into classes ends. Anthropogenic civilization, based on the growing scale of intellectual activity in its various forms and forms, creates conditions for the formation of a socially diverse classless society.

But all these processes taking place on the basis of information technology in economically developed countries are not carried out by gravity, but involve the implementation of scientifically developed programs for the transformation of an industrial society into an information civilization, including the appropriate mechanisms for this implementation.

Conclusion

Thus, we can rightly say that a person acts as the creator of his own social relations. However, this is a creation of a special kind. Being engaged in the activities necessary for the maintenance of life and its arrangement, people with the same objective necessity enter into relations with each other, "produce" them. This creation is quite specific and often serves as a clear confirmation of the principle "I don't know what I'm doing." As beings, conscious people are aware of their needs, set specific goals for themselves, create an ideal model of the desired result, and in most cases achieve it: otherwise, no social progress would be possible. But this prevailing coincidence of purpose and result concerns mainly the content side of human activity, but now we are talking about the formal side, since social relations, as already mentioned above, are a necessary form of our activity.

Summing up the consideration of the nature of social relations, we can conclude that social relations are an objective reality, independent of the will and consciousness of people who produce and reproduce them in the course of their activities. Their objective nature makes it possible to better understand the already analyzed thesis, according to which a person in essence is a totality (that is, a reflection) of the corresponding social relations.

In conclusion, let us generalize that man is a social, biological and cosmic being: he is inconceivable without society, since not only he himself as something finite, but also the whole of society, the whole history of mankind, relates to the reality of his being; further, it is unthinkable outside of its biological, psycho-physiological organization; he is also inconceivable outside the Cosmos, the influence of which he experiences every second and in which he is “inscribed” with his whole being.

Society as a complex self-developing system has the followingdriving specific features:

1. It is distinguished by a wide variety of social structures, systems and subsystems. This is not a mechanical sum of individuals, but a complex system in which various communities and groups, large and small, are formed and function - clans, tribes, classes, nations, families, collectives, etc. In this regard, society has a super-complex and hierarchical character.

2. Society is not reducible to the people who make it up - it is a system of outside and supra-individual forms, connections and relationships that a person creates through his active activity together with other people.

3. The most important feature of society is its self-sufficiency, i.e. the ability of society, through the active joint activity of people, to create and reproduce the necessary conditions for their own existence.

4. Human society is distinguished by dynamism, incompleteness and alternative development.

5. A feature of human society is also unpredictability, non-linearity of development. The presence in society of a large number of subsystems, the constant clash of interests and goals of various people creates the prerequisites for the implementation of various models of the future development of society.

List of used literature.

1. Balashov L. E. Philosophy: Textbook. 2nd edition, with changes and additions. Electronic version - M., 2005. - p. 672.

2. Barulin V.S. Social Philosophy: Textbook. - Ed. 2nd. - M.: FAIR-PRESS, 2000. - 560 p.

3. Dobrenkov V.I., Kravchenko A.I. Sociology. - M.: Infra-M, 2001. - 624 p.

4. Polikarpov B.C. Introduction to philosophy. Textbook for students of technical universities. Rostov-on-Don-Taganrog: Publishing House of the SKNTS VSh, Publishing House of the TSURE. 2003.-260 p.

5. Polyakov L.V., Ioffe A.N. Social science: global world in the 21st century. Grade 11: Methodological guide. - M.: Enlightenment, 2008. - 176 s

6. Tokareva E.M. Sociology: Lecture Notes. - M.: MIEMP, 2005. - 70 p.

7. Rosenko MN Fundamentals of modern philosophy: Proc. for universities /M. N. Rosenko, A. S. Kolesnikov, Yu. A. Sandulov and others - 3rd ed., add. - St. Petersburg: Lan, 2001. - 382 p.

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Personality and factors influencing its formation

Personality - a human individual who can act as a subject of social relations, and also has the property of conscious activity. In a narrower sense, a person means a system of human qualities that allow him to participate in the life of society.

The formation of personality is influenced by two factors: biological and social. The biological factor influences the formation of human habits, addictions to certain types of food, music, etc. The social factor forms in a person his role in social relations, his attitude towards other social individuals, as well as towards himself.

Many scientists also distinguish a third factor - mental. Thanks to the mental factor, a person synthesizes information received from outside, and accepts or rejects it.

Self-awareness and self-realization

Self-awareness is the process of a person's awareness of himself as a mature personality that can interact with other members of society, make his own independent decisions and be responsible for them.

Self-realization is the practical application of self-awareness. Self-realization can be expressed in the use by a person of his talents, abilities, as well as the purposeful use of opportunities.

social behavior

Social behavior is the action of a certain individual, which he directs to other members of society. Human social behavior develops in three main directions - communication, activity and self-awareness. The formation of social behavior is influenced by such factors as traditions, morality and morality.

The unity of freedom and responsibility of the individual

In the course of his social realization, a person independently chooses the types of social activity. This process is called "social freedom". Any manifestation of freedom, including social freedom, entails responsibility.

The freedom of the individual lies in the ability to foresee the limits beyond which his activity should not go. In the sociology of the 20th century, freedom was interpreted not as a privilege of the individual, but as a social burden that limits his needs.

From such a theory, negative and positive perceptions of individual freedom were derived. The responsibility of the individual is a kind of regulator that does not allow directing one's actions to the detriment of society.

Social ties and relationships develop between people in the process of their joint activities. In the materialist interpretation of society, they are divided into primary (material, basic) and secondary (ideological, superstructural). The main and leading are material, economic, production relations that determine political, legal, moral, etc. The totality of these relations determines the essence of a particular socio-economic formation and is included in the concept of human essence.
The idealistic understanding of social ties and relationships comes from the primacy of the spiritual principle as a unifying, backbone principle. This may be the idea of a single God, race, nation, etc. In this case, the state ideology plays the role of the skeleton of the social organism. "Corruption" of the idea leads to the collapse of the state and the degradation of man. The authors of social utopias of the past and present are looking for a magic formula, following which ensures the well-being of society and every person.
In many socio-political concepts and philosophical views of society, both the importance of material production and the objective social relations arising from this, and the need for a central idea that unites the different elements of society into a single whole, are recognized. Modern philosophical knowledge draws attention to the analysis of the social process in which people, things and ideas participate. In things, the social process acquires the stability of its existence, where the cultural tradition is fixed, people are the driving force of the historical process, and ideas play the role of a connecting principle that gives meaning to the objective activity of a person and unites people and things into a single whole. The essence of social connections and relations that connect people, things and ideas into a single whole is that the relationship of a person to a person is mediated by the world of things, and vice versa, a person’s contact with an object means, in fact, his communication with another person, his strengths and abilities. accumulated in the subject. Here, the qualitative duality of a person and all objects and phenomena related to the world of culture is revealed. In addition to their natural, physical, bodily qualities, any phenomenon of culture, including a person, is characterized by a system of social qualities that arise precisely in the process of activity in society. Social qualities are supersensible, immaterial, but quite real and objective, and very significantly determine the life of a person and society.
In the relationship between a person and society at a certain stage of their development, a phenomenon of alienation may arise, the essence of which is the dissolution of a person in abstract social qualities, in the loss of control over the results of his activity, over its process, and ultimately the loss of his identity, his I. A person can also be alienated from family, clan, culture, education, property, etc. Overcoming alienation in the modern world is associated with the development by the individual of various conditions and forms of activity, its fruits and results, which have become extraordinarily complicated in the information technology society. To do this, it is necessary to imagine the main stages of interaction between man and society.
Historically, the system of personal dependence of people appeared first in connection with the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, which required the unification of the efforts of many people (irrigation systems, etc.) into a common technological chain. Thus, the prerequisites for the formation of the state and the apparatus were created. A system of social ties is formed, characterized by personal dependence of a person on a person and tradition as the main form of social production.
The second stage was society as a system of material dependencies, when the world of machines formed a special subject layer of sociality, through which interhuman connections and relationships began to be realized. This is associated with the development of capital, when a person himself turns into a commodity of a certain kind, and his forces and abilities are more and more subject to the logic of the reproduction of things. This contributes to the dominance in the worldview of the idea of the progress of production and consumption, with an extensive type of development, which leads to the "one-dimensionality" of a person.
Modernity has shown the internal exhaustion of the idea of steady progress associated with the continuous growth of production, which has led to global problems and exacerbation of inhumane tendencies in the world, a human crisis that is characteristic of all social systems. Now we can talk about the personal reconstruction of sociality, about the relationship of "free individuals", which can give a new impetus to the development of human qualities. The material dependence of people on each other can be overcome on the paths of intensive personal development, because a developed individuality becomes a "node" of all types of social organization.

Man is the main element of the social system.

In everyday and scientific language, the terms “man”, “individual”, “individuality”, “personality” are very common.

Most often, these words are used as synonyms, but if you approach the definition of these concepts, then a difference is immediately revealed between them.

Human is a general generic term. "Homo sapiens" is a reasonable person. This is a biological individual, the highest level of living organisms on Earth, the result of a complex and lengthy evolution. Man is born into the world as a man. The structure of the body of the born baby determines the possibility of upright walking, the structure of the brain - a potential developed intellect, the structure of the hand - the prospect of using tools, etc., and with all these possibilities the baby differs from the cubs of the animal, thereby affirming the fact that the baby belongs to the human race, fixed in the concept of "man".

The concept of "person" is closely related to the concept of "individual". The fact that a born child belongs to the human race is also fixed in the concept of "individual", in contrast to the cub of an animal, from birth to the end of life called an individual.

Individual is understood as a separate, specific person, as a single representative of the human race, regardless of its social and anthropological characteristics (for example, a child in a maternity hospital, a person on the street, in a stadium, in the army).

However, each individual is endowed only with his characteristic features of appearance, properties of the psyche; the specificity of the social conditions of life and the way of human activity also determines the features of its individual features and properties. All this is fixed in the concept of "individuality".

Individuality can be defined as a set of features that distinguish one individual from another; and distinctions are made at various levels:

Biochemical (skin color, eyes, hair structure);

Neurophysiological (body structure, figure);

Psychological (character traits, level of emotionality)
etc.

The concept of "personality" is introduced to highlight the "supernatural", or social essence of a person and an individual.

The concept of "personality" helps to characterize in a person the social beginning of his life, those properties and qualities that a person realizes in social relations, social institutions, culture, i.e. in social life and in the process of interaction with other people.

Personality- this is a single person as a system of stable qualities, properties realized in social relations, social institutions, in culture, in social life. A personality is any person, and not just an outstanding, talented person, because all people are included in social relations.

Personality is a set of social properties of a person, the result of social development and the inclusion of an individual in a system of social relations. The main problems of the sociological theory of personality are connected with the process of personality formation in connection with the functioning of social communities, the study of the relationship between the individual and society, and the regulation of the social behavior of the individual.

Two subsystems are distinguished in the structure of the personality: relations with the external environment and the inner world of the personality. The totality of connections with the external environment is the basis of the personality, it determines the formation and development of its inner world. Sociology considers a whole set of elements of the internal structure of the personality, which determines the readiness for a particular behavior: needs, interests, goals, motives, value orientations, attitudes, dispositions.

The concept of "personality" is used only in relation to a person, and, moreover, starting only from a certain stage of his development. We do not speak of the identity of the newborn, understanding him as an individual.

Unlike an individual, a personality is not determined by a genotype: one is not born a personality, one becomes a personality. The personality traits of an individual have long been attributed to heredity in science. However, this turned out to be incorrect. For example, innate genius does not automatically guarantee that a person will be an outstanding personality. The decisive role here is played by the social environment and the atmosphere in which a person finds himself when he was born.

5. The problem of preserving human individuality in the modern world.

Modern society involves a person in the cycle of various processes, connections, relationships, imposing certain patterns, standards of life and activity on him. Under these conditions, it is very important to protect and further develop the uniqueness and originality of the human personality, to preserve the individuality of a person.

The concept of "individuality" plays a large role in social cognition, in revealing the essence of social phenomena, the mechanism of the functioning of social laws. The interests of modern science and practice require a comprehensive study of human individuality, since it is a special form of human existence in society, and the development of society ultimately depends on its development.

The concept of the stages of socio-historical development put forward by K. Marx, where history looks like the activity of people pursuing their goals, established the dependence of social ties, structures, institutions on the interdependent existence of people, on the forms of their isolation, individualization, self-affirmation. How many people, so many individual goals, which, according to Marx, are somehow determined by the social conditions of being. K. Marx noted that, considering human history, one can find that the development of society appears in some (and, perhaps, ultimately) as a process of formation and improvement of human individuality. Only with the separation of human individuality from the initial social fusion and indistinguishability does history actually begin, and in the future is inextricably linked with the process of individualization. Marx singled out three stages of the historical improvement of human individuality in connection with the development of society. The initial stage is characterized by relations of personal dependence, characteristic of the first forms of society, in which the productivity of people develops only to a small extent and in isolated points. In the second major form, which is characterized by personal independence based on material dependence, a system of general social metabolism, universal relations, all-round needs, universal potencies is formed for the first time. At the third stage, a free individuality appears, based on the universal development of individuals and on the transformation of their collective, social productivity into public property.

According to this concept, the evolution of social ties between people passes from direct dependencies between people to mediate-material dependencies, suggesting individual independence, and then to ties due to the development of human individuals. In this regard, the historical process appears as the result of the individual activity of people, as the result of the development of human individuality. And the social history of people is always only the history of their individual development, whether they are aware of it or not.

Thus, society is interested in the growth of a person's individuality and should direct all possible means and forces to this growth. First of all, education should be involved in this, which directly affects the formation of a person as a whole, his self-determination and self-affirmation. A person from the early years of his life should be aware of the importance of his individuality, strive for self-improvement and self-development.

In this regard, it is of interest to consider what exactly constitutes human individuality.

In the dialectic of the individual and the general as a special form of existence, individuality is inherent not only in man, but also in other phenomena of nature and society. Individuality is a special property of both organic and inorganic matter. The world, in a certain sense, is a collection of individuals as a kind of closed systems of various levels and degrees of complexity. According to V.M. Bekhterev, "the world is built in the form of closed systems, representing closed individuals. Each individuality can be of varying degrees of complexity, but it always represents a certain harmony of parts and has its own form and relative stability of the system." Life creates naturally isolated systems - individuals closed in themselves.

Thus, individuality is a special form of the existence of the common, and individualization is due to the existence of objective reality itself and constitutes one of the conditions for the development of the world, being one of the types and one of the indicators of this development. Reflecting the fundamental fact of being, individualization is one of its principles and an internal pattern of the development of matter.

Individuality manifests itself in different ways in the objective world, organic nature and human society. Various forms of individuality - subject, organic and human, respectively, have both general and specific features, due to the characteristics of different structural levels of matter. The most common features of individuality include: isolation, integrity, originality, originality, activity. The properties of human individuality are significantly different from similar properties of other forms of individuality. In addition, human individuality also has such properties that other forms do not have.

The definition of a person's individuality (hereinafter simply individuality) through the indication of its individual features is only partial, characterizing individuality only from one side. Such a definition does not make it possible to reveal its integral structure, to reveal the general mechanisms of its functioning. Let's try to analyze individuality from the point of view of its integrity.

In modern science there is no unambiguous definition of human individuality. The run-up in various interpretations of this concept is quite wide - from reducing individuality to an individual to identification with a person. Meanwhile, the essence of individuality is associated with a holistic view of the individual, taken in the unity of all its properties and characteristics. It is noteworthy that the term "individuality" itself means "the unity of the manifold" (many in one), indivisible. B.G. Ananiev believed that individuality should be approached as "the integration of all the properties of a person as an individual, personality and subject of activity ...". He wrote that in order to consider individuality from the point of view of the whole, a person must be presented not only as an open system, but also as a "closed" system, closed due to the internal interconnectedness of its properties (personality, individual, subject). But it should be emphasized that individuality is only a relatively closed system. Both "openness" and "isolation" are equally necessary for its normal functioning. For its stability, individuality must be, in a certain sense, a closed system, impenetrable each time to the external environment. In turn, its "closedness" can only be relative, otherwise it loses the objective basis of its stability as a system.

I.I. Rezvitsky notes that, as an integral system, individuality includes, firstly, common features inherent in an individual as a representative of a biological species and human society; secondly, the special features that are inherent in him as a member of a certain socio-economic formation; thirdly, individual signs due to the specificity of its biological organization and social microenvironment. He gives the following definition of individuality.

Individuality is an integral concept that expresses a special form of being of individuals, within which they have internal integrity and relative independence, which gives them the opportunity to actively (creatively) and in a peculiar way express themselves in the world around them based on the disclosure of their inclinations and abilities and in accordance with public needs.

As an individual, a person is an autonomous and unique subject of consciousness and activity, capable of self-determination, self-regulation, self-improvement in society.

Man is a complex multifaceted and multi-qualitative phenomenon. He is a natural being, a product of social relations, a subject of socio-historical activity and culture, a creator of his own life.

The concept of a person expresses the generic features inherent in the human individual, indicates his belonging to the human race. This concept gives the most general and therefore abstract characteristic of an individual, devoid of his concrete image, and therefore needs to be supplemented by the concepts of "individual", "personality", "individuality".

The concept of an individual denotes a person as a single representative of the human race, belonging both to nature and to human society, which is fixed, respectively, by the concepts of "organism" and "personality". The first of them expresses the totality of the biological properties of a person, the second characterizes his social, concrete historical appearance. The concept of individuality in this series reveals a person as an integral being, in the unity of his individual and general, natural and social properties and defines him as a specific individual.

All people live in society, but at the same time everyone lives his own individual life, isolates himself into a relatively independent point of being. This allows him to actively, creatively express himself in the world around him. The individual appears as individuality when he is taken in his self-existence. The individuality of a person lies not so much in the fact that he is unique, but in the fact that the human individual is a separate, original world, which, being included in the world around him, in one or another social structure, retains his relative independence. But each individuality acquires its independence as an element of the genus due to the role that it plays in its being, therefore individuality cannot be understood as absolute independence from the external world. The essence of individuality is the originality of the individual, based on his constant relationship with the outside world, with society.

The concept of personality captures the socially significant features of a person that are characteristic of him as a separate individual. But if the essence of personality is the personification of social relations, then a particular personality can express its social essence in the form of individuality. Individuality appears here as an essential characteristic of a particular personality, expressing the way of its being as a subject of independent activity. As an individual, a person creates his own image, is the "author" of his actions. The individual "I" is the center of the personality, its inner core. "If personality is the 'top' of the entire structure of human properties, then individuality is the 'depth' of the personality and the subject of activity."

Personality, taken out of touch with individuality, is an abstraction and does not really exist. If the human individual cannot become a person without assimilating his social essence, then a person cannot acquire his individual being without becoming an individual. Thus, the personality is social in its essence, but individual in the way of its existence. It represents the unity of the social and the individual, essence and existence.

Personality and individuality are not only interconnected, but also mutually condition each other. The formation of a person's personal qualities is in close connection with his individual self-awareness. It depends not only on the position of the individual in society, but also on his individual attitude to this position. This explains the fact why different social personality types can exist in the same social environment. The behavior of a particular person and his attitude to his social roles and functions depends on his individual consciousness, features, level of development of his individuality.

All this suggests that individuality is not only associated with personality, but also forms its essential feature, and therefore should organically enter the definition of the very concept of personality.

But the concept of individuality does not entirely coincide with the concept of personality. If the concept of personality characterizes a person from the side of his social conditioning, social content, pointing to his social positions and orientations, then the concept of individuality reveals the form, the way of his being. It was from this position that Hegel approached the difference between these concepts, who wrote: “After all, personality is the main definition of law: it acquires existence primarily in property, but is indifferent to the specific definitions of the living spirit with which individuality deals”

The natural features of an individual in themselves do not form a human individuality, because they do not make him an independent subject of activity. The born child is also a human individual, a single representative of the human race, but he is not yet a human individual. The human individual becomes an individual to the extent that it ceases to be only a "unit", "an instance" of the genus and acquires the relative independence of its existence in society. But for this he must become a person. This means that a person acquires his individuality only at the social level of development.

Each person is objectively an individual. Man has an infinite number of properties and characteristics. The system of properties of an individual, starting from the biochemical characteristics of the organism and ending with the social status of a person in society, is peculiar. Each individual property in its manifestation, depending on certain conditions, is individually original, unique. The uniqueness of a person is one of the properties of his individuality. The individuality itself is not reduced to the concept of the uniqueness of a single concrete individual, but taken as an integral system, it represents a special form of human being in the world around him.

The approach to individuality put forward by I.I. Rezvitsky, allows you to reveal the internal structure and mechanisms of its functioning and development. On this basis, it is possible not formally, but organically to include individuality in general connections, to show its place and role in the system of which it is an element. Pointing to the individuality of a person as a social way of his existence, this concept makes it possible to subject it to social analysis, to connect it with the processes and trends of social development.

6. The essence and purpose of man. The meaning of human life.

Considering this complex problem, it should be noted that there is

two fundamentally different ways of explaining the eternal questions of life and death.

The first approach can be described as objectivist. It is associated with names

such philosophers as B. Spinoza, P. Holbach, G. W. F. Hegel, P. Lafargue, with

dogma of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and, in part, with

19th century natural science It is based on the idea of the original

The world order, in which all acts of any

public and personal fate, all the events of world history are “painted”. AT

in this case, it is not so important who "rules" the world - God, Spirit,

Cosmic mind, objective reality, the laws of Nature, etc. It is important

that a person should only realize this Order and find in its depths, in its

device clearance for "relative independence", which he will

The second approach focuses on the subjectivity of a person, his

self-activity, creativity. Its essence is well expressed by aphorisms:

“Man is the measure of all things” (Protagoras), “Man is the creator of himself”

(Pico della Mirandola), "Man continuously outgrows man" (B.

Pascal).

Of course, in their "pure form" these approaches characterize the polar

being and with the world of their subjective, creative potentialities. Man in one

at the same time can be considered as an object (and sometimes even as a toy in

hands of forces alien to him), and as a subject, as unique and unrepeatable (and

bodily and spiritually) the creation of Nature and Society.

The great German philosopher I. Kant formulated at the end of the 18th century.

Four basic questions that every thinker needs to answer

comprehending the essence of man and humanity:

What can I know?

What should I know?

What can I hope for?

What is a person?

He believed that the first question should be answered by metaphysics (i.e.,

philosophy), on the second - morality, on the third - religion, on the fourth -

anthropology. The philosopher, first of all, should identify the sources

human knowledge, the scope of the possible and useful application of any

knowledge and, finally, the limits of reason. Let's try, if not to answer, then

indicate the limits of answers to Kantian questions for a person standing on

threshold of the XXI century.

A person in the modern world, preserving everything that was inherent in people

past eras, there is no less becoming more and more aware of

the uniqueness of the situation at the end of the century. The modern world, weighed down by global

problems, puts all of humanity and every single person in

a situation where one must either adopt fundamentally new ways of survival,

existence and development, or degrade as a species. Not a gift item

reflections of scientists, philosophers, sages are increasingly becoming

unpredictable processes, deviations from the “norm”, instability, etc.

This is one of the features of modernity, which has become the subject of study.

So, what can a person know and how can he use his knowledge?

At first glance, it may seem that any modern student knows

more than the illustrious sages of the past. Indeed, humanity

I learned about the world and myself in the 20th century. Immeasurably more than all previous

centuries. However, the greatest thinkers of our time, Tolstoy and

Gandhi, Freud and Jaspers, Einstein and Russell, Vl. Solovyov and Berdyaev, Schweitzer and

Sakharov experienced the deepest dissatisfaction with the level of knowledge

humanity, saw that knowledge not only did not bring him happiness, but also

brought to the brink of an abyss. It is no coincidence that ignorance continues to remain

"demonic force" at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. and can destroy the world. Breakthrough

to the unknown depths of knowledge, to the sphere of the unconscious and intuitive

fraught with new shocks for man. Goddess of Wisdom Minerva now

clearly not respected. Mankind, as it were, was horrified by the abyss that

opened before the knowing mind. “All the labors of a man are for his mouth, and

his soul is not satisfied,” King Solomon said three thousand years ago.

The fruits of man's knowledge of the world turn against him, for, as

said the evangelist Mark, “what good is it for a man if he gains all

the world, but harm his soul?

Knowing the truth really makes a person free, which was known

still the ancient sages, but the question is to determine what is

Even the ancient philosopher Heraclitus remarked that “much knowledge cannot be taught to the mind”

and the task of man is to comprehend wisdom and to know the world and himself.

“Everyone walk according to the assurance of his mind,” advised the apostle Paul.

Christianity proceeds from the fact that "God's not wise is wiser than men",

for it is not given to people to comprehend the true meaning of things and gain knowledge. Mind

the human is imperfect and, as one of the heroes of F. M. Dostoevsky said,

"If there is no God, then everything is permitted." This danger was felt in

mid-twentieth century prominent scientists and thinkers Russell and Einstein. realizing

the possibility of self-destruction of mankind as a result of discoveries in the field

thermonuclear energy, they issued a call: “Remember that you are people, and

forget everything else." In the minds of people of our time, more and more

the idea that the scientific, technical and

technological progress, knowledge itself and knowledge do not yet guarantee

a happy future, and it is necessary to develop a human, humanistic

measures of progress.

Understanding this leads to the consideration of the range of problems of the second question.

The question of what a person should do (or what he should not do)

never and under no circumstances) is one of the most important. Still ancient

understood that faith without deeds is dead, and the essence of a person is revealed in his deeds

do it with your strength, because in the grave where you will go, there is neither work nor

reflection, neither knowledge nor wisdom." However, the main thing is not the scale.

human activity and not the area in which he works, but the meaning of his

activities in which the "vanity of vanities" of everyday life is overcome. AT

history of human thought, one can find different approaches to the definition of meaning

renunciation of activity, of active intervention in life. This position

developed by the sages of ancient China and India, some thinkers of ancient

peace (Pyrrho). They believed that the ideal of human life should be

ataraxia (serenity) and apathy, or "silence". In Russian literary

In the classics, this approach is expressed in the image of Oblomov. The Japanese have a proverb:

“Before you write something, think about how beautiful a clean slate is.

On the other hand, in the XVIII - XIX centuries. formed in European thought

approach based on the idea of active transformation, reworking

nature, society and man on the basis of a rational method of knowing the world.

Brought to its logical conclusion, it was transformed into the concept of "conquest"

nature, which led to an ecological crisis at the end of the 20th century.

This problem has not only a pragmatic, but also a much more important

moral significance, because in an act, first of all, you need to see a certain

moral purpose. In terms of moral assessment, a distinction is made between good deeds and evil deeds,

although, of course, there are morally neutral actions that are not subject to

evaluation in terms of good and evil. Even at the dawn of civilization, mankind

developed the "golden rule" of morality. It is found in teachings.

Confucius, in the ancient Indian Mahabharata, in Buddhism, in the Bible and the Koran, in

Homer's "Odyssey" and other literary monuments. His most

common phrase: “(do not) act towards others in a way that

how you would (not) want them to act towards you.” Developing

this idea, Kant believed that a person can never be a means of achieving

some goals, he himself should be the goal of social development.

according to such a maxim (rule), guided by which you at the same time

you can wish it to become a universal moral law (i.e., to

all people could follow it). The limits of human activity are marked

accurately enough - you can not cause harm and damage to yourself or other people,

and the basis of all life should be mutual love in the spirit of evangelical

commandments of Christ. Man also cannot encroach on the integrity of Nature,

can "host" it at will. Anyway, this position

requires the recognition of either God as the Creator, whose will cannot be

arbitrarily violate, or absolute universal human values that have

the same status.

Of course, all the wise men were aware that there is

"cunning of the mind" and the irony of history, expressed in the maxim that the road to

hell is littered with good intentions. That purpose and design, even the wisest and

beautiful, tragic do not correspond to the result obtained, never

was a secret. People have always tried to understand how and why a good design

turned to evil even against their will; why activities aimed at

creation turned into destruction. For example, scientific and technical

a revolution capable of providing mankind with the means for a prosperous

existence, brought him to the brink of the abyss due to the emerging global

problems. The creative potential of many social revolutions based on

beautiful ideas of justice, often turned into a total

destruction of both man and society. That's why right now it's so acute

the eternal problem: the limits of human activity, his intervention in nature,

space and yourself. More and more scientists, politicians, religious figures

comes to the conclusion about the need for the transition of mankind from unrestrained

expansion to conscious self-restraint in all spheres of activity. More

it is more difficult to answer Kant's third question: what can I hope for?

This is especially true now for Russians who are going through one of the most difficult

periods in its history. The essence of the question is simple - is it possible to hope for

own mind, will, labor, solidarity of people, or one must rely on

Here we are faced with the problem of the relationship between man and God, faith and

reason, science and religion. The tragedy of many life situations and fear

the imminent impending death led to the hope of immortality in the other world,

the afterlife, where everyone will be rewarded according to their deserts, where God's Judgment

establish, at last, the highest justice. Obviously, the uncertainty

the outcome of many deeds and human undertakings, the unpredictability of events and the action

forces independent of man are a powerful basis for hope for

if not in the earthly world, then in the heavenly.

On the other hand, a tendency was maturing and gaining strength that rejected

hope and trust in a higher power. Freethinking and atheism were offered in

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