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8Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 4 (2010 3) 593-599
УДК 316.2
Russian Cultural-Philosophical Tradition
as a Factor in the Formation
of Modern Postnonclassic (Universum) Sociology
Valentin G. Nemirovsky* and Tatyana A. Fenvesh
Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041 Russia 1
Received 5.08.2010, received in revised form 12.08.2010, accepted 19.08.2010
The article is devoted to analysis of the influence, which was exerted by Russian cultural-philosophical tradition on the formation of modern postnonclassic sociology. The authors analyze cultural and theoretical premisesfor the development ofhumanitarian school in postnonclassic sociology - universum approach. In this respect special attention is paid to the philosophy of Russian anthropocosmism and All-unity. A wide range of cultural-philosophical opinions beginning with the proto-Slavic period of their development is analyzed. Correspondences between similar points of view and typical features of postnonclassic (universum) sociology are established.
Keywords: Russian culture, Russian philosophy, postnonclassic (universum) sociology, Russian anthropocosmism.
A major feature of the modern period in development of sociology in Russia is its transition state. This is a conversion from classic and non-classic theories and their distinctive methodological techniques to postnonclassic approaches and their distinctive methods. This is true not only of sociology and philosophy. A number of famous scientists suppose that modern scientific knowledge deals with the limitation of classic and non-classic methodological means of research of complex systems in natural sciences, humanities and social sciences. One of responses to the modern situation is a postnonclassic science, which is based on correlations between system objects studied in modern sciences and changes in scientific rationality. Today the place of simple systems, which can be studied by one branch of
* Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
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science, is taken by the problems of complex self-regulating and self-developing systems, which require using of resources of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, non-classic and postnonclassic methodologies [5].
Modern postnonclassic sociology has two main methodologies: Christian Scientist (or mathematically oriented) and humanitarian. The first, for example, is represented by a number of famous works by A.A. Davidov [1]. The second is based on the universum paradigm. In this article we shall consider the influence of Russian cultural-philosophical tradition on the formation of postnonclassic (universum) sociology. In general it is typical of Russian philosophy to pay special attention to the inner moral and spiritual world of a person, his/her existential, religious and moral
problems. It considers both human and society to be an inseparable part of nature and Cosmos, tries to go beyond the limits of everyday life to the limitless world of transcendentality. First of all, we talk about Russian anthropocosmism and philosophy of All-unity. To a great extent they had anticipated the formation of a new scientific outlook [4, p. 22].
Therefore works of A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylin, N.F. Fedorov, K.E. Tsiolkovsky, A.F. Chizhevsky and V.I. Vernadsky play an especially significant role for the development of modern postnonclassic principles in scientific knowledge. In western countries similar principles and approaches are developed nowadays within the framework of synergy and other schools of system analysis.
It is widely accepted that Russian philosophy has one thousand year history, beginning from the time when Russia was baptized. For this period Russian philosophic ideas have got firmly established, have developed in a multitude of schools, keeping at the same time unique original integrity.
The present-day interest in ideas of Russian philosophers, and in historical background in general, concerns not only national cultural traditions, it is linked to moral problems of development of Russian spiritual culture, which have arisen in front of modern Russian society nowadays. It is worth of note here that in the second half of the XIX century in Russian science the ideas of "system thinking" became very popular. Many scientists of that time tried to work out some synthetic structures. So, I.M. Sechenov pointed out the necessity to study human in the unity of his "flesh, soul and nature". This peculiarity of Russian natural sciences provided guidelines for a special frame of mind, which later was called "Russian cosmism". These tendencies in a certain way influenced not only the patterns of priorities of Russian science, but also influenced Russian philosophical thought, which provokes inimitable
and original reflection on the philosophy of all-unity. To understand and to realize oneself "in general world order" (P.Ya.Chaadaev) and to plug into the global world processes is impossible without a fundamental culturological approach to the history of Russian natural sciences and social-philosophical thought, without searching for inner regularities and guidelines for the establishment and development of a special frame of thought, which can be called by one capacious notion "Russian philosophy". Here one should refuse to use selective inquiry into separate schools of social-philosophical thought and refuse to declare that they are the only ones that meet national spirit. Aside from that, one should avoid using unilateral approaches to Russian scientific and philosophical heritage; such unilateralism can be revealed, when scholars show interest only in the conceptual (informative) side of the problem. Russian scientific and philosophical thought have been naturally developing into a combination of nature and society history and its transformation into integrated universal History of the World.
Of course, Russian philosophy has been developing notinanotionalandtheoreticalvacuum. The philosophy of Russian anthropocosmism has experienced substantial influence of Aristotle's ideas developed by Ioann Damaskin (John of Damascus), hesychastic neoplatonism referring to works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, ideas about divine energy by Gregory Palamas. According to St. Gregory's teaching, not only the God (who is virtually incomprehensible) descends its energy to the world, but also Man (as a part of the created world) is able to physically and spiritually rise over his nature, approaching the Creator. In other words, the Creator and his creation are connected in a complex (not in unilateral) way. This idea can be found in a famous quotation by St. Basil the Great: "God became man so that man might become a god". The foundation of Russian philosophy cannot
be separated from the adoption of Christianity by Ancient Russia, which established a close connection to Byzantine Empire. It was Byzantine Empire which provided Russia with philosophical ideas and writings of the antique and west European thinkers. Questions on the universe, human and his place in nature were mentioned in ancient chronicles, legends, novels, teachings and prayings, where they were interconnected with different historical data and took a certain religious form (Illarions "The Treatise on the Law and Grace", "Praying" by Daniel the Cloister). Humanitarian and Social-Philosophical ideas in Ancient Russia were practically oriented. For example, arguments in support of including Russian lands into the global historical process are stated, main rules of human life activity are described (Catechism by Vladimir Monomakh).
It can be said that the development of the philosophy of Kiev Russia eventually resulted in an outlook, regarding the world as God s creation, history of mankind as an arena, where good and evil are absolute opposites engaged in an eternal struggle for dominance. Human was viewed as a double-sided creature, consisting of the perishable body and immortal soul.
In the XVI century Russian philosophical thought experienced substantial influence of a religious school of Hesychasm (Greek hesychos, quiet, silent), which involved the practice of silent ("noetic") prayer. This doctrine concerns the relationship of God and the world and implies a process of advanced study of human spiritual nature; it resulted in the foundation of an outlook, asserting that humans are created in God's image, whose labor is to support harmony and order of the world (Maksim Grek).
The idea of unity of Man and the World with the unconditional complete beginning, their mutual striving one for another have determined basic elements of Russian cultural and spiritual-academic traditions. Nowadays objective
evaluation of the historical past is on agenda, when "serious thought of our time requires, first of all, strict thinking and fair analysis of moments, when nation s life is revealed with a certain depth, when its social principle is revealed in all its clarity, because the future and elements of its possible progress depend on it" [6, p. 175]. It was a long time before the adoption of Christianity in Russia, when a social principle of the Russian nation revealed itself. Embodiments of this principle in spiritual and material culture provided continuity and solidity of its development from philosophical-mythological ideas of our Pre-Christian ancestors to the latest modification of philosophical-cultural knowledge - Russian anthropocosmism.
Every culture acts as a combination of rational and irrational manifestations. To find a precise definition for the notions of rational and irrational is quite difficult, but it is absolutely necessary for us. Our contemporaries look at ancient cultures, certainly, from aside, "from without". This assessment is determined by his or her personal experience and personal outlook. But the subjectivity of outlook is not the only obstacle for finding out what is irrational, unreasonable, illogical or rational in a culture. The problem lies in a tight interconnection existing between these two poles. Irrational points of view of our contemporaries, rituals and cultic festivals could have such a substantial psychological impact on certain people and a society in general that they could overcome barriers, which seemed to be insurmountable and performed heroic deeds. But there were no religions on the earth, which had no any evaluations of reality, which contributed to the rational organization of labor and everyday life.
How a culture in general is able to exist for a long period of time? It can be explained by its reproduction from one generation to another. Children repeat deeds and thoughts of their
fathers, grandfathers, grand grandfathers. This reproduction-related feature is typical for any society, and it provides for maintenance of the society. However within a dialectical framework this tendency is to be balanced by a need of culture for renovation and development. The dialectics of tradition and innovation is reflected in material-reasonable, spiritual-creative, traditional outlook-related aspects of life of a society; they are developed and consolidated by its entire history. A combination of these aspects for every culture forms its national characteristic, which reveals itself as a social principle. The social principle is a tangle of a culture's durability, its embodiment in a social-cultural ambience, providing for its organization, a certain order in life of the society, its production and reproduction. Implementation and specification of the principle is being completed within certain outlook and culture related and outlook and society related frameworks, which have been formed in the process of objective historical development of every social entity and have determined such characteristics of the world, which are to be placed in the focus of human cognitive activity.
As it was stated above, traditionally it is believed that Russia with its first capital Kiev - " the mother of all Russian towns" - was formed in the second half or the IX century A.D., whereas Russian philosophical thought in its development is always associated with the adoption of orthodox Christianity. But when compared to those traditions of Slavic culture, which originate from distant in time antique-Scythian, Hyperborean-Aryan, Sumerian-Arattian cultures, it becomes obvious that the Slavic culture itself traces its roots back to the remote Indo-European past. A solid basis of material-economical, intellectual and spiritual life of Russia was formed in more distant archaic times, a long time ago before the adoption of Christianity in Russia. According to the findings of Russian historians and archeologists (V.N.
Danilenko, B.A. Rybakov, V.N. Toporov, Yu.A. Shilov, B.D. Mikhailov, etc.), Slavonic people -especially eastern - are successors and keepers of the ethnocultural nucleus of Indo-European nations, which created the ancient and "generally optimal global civilization" [7, p. 219]. These scientists (Yu.A. Shilov in particular) assume that the territory of future Russia from the very beginning belonged to the sphere of development of one of ancient agricultural civilizations on our planet. This substantial circumstance provides a new look at the conceptual side and the very essence of the historical process of forming Slavic culture and later cultures, which inherited its traits.
The organization form of social and economic life of the analyzed historical period was a collectivist formation ("primitive communism"), which was determined by objective circumstances. However this collectivist way of existence was a result of not only economic reasons. Yu.A. Shilov supposes that the ordering power of priest rulers ("proto-intellectuals") underlay the collectivist way of existence; the priest rulers were responsible for spiritual order maintenance. Closed corporations of the priest rulers of the Indo-European cultural area created myths and written language, developed calendars and rituals. A system of sanctuaries - an observatory in the Circum-Pontic Region was built under their supervision. The first communal state of Aratta ("Sun-like Aratta") appeared due to the efforts of these "proto-intellectuals" in the Danubian region, the Dnieper region and the plateau region of Iran. Even nowadays traces of Arattian traditions can be found (especially in India). An intellectual dialogue of Man and the World formed the basis of this ancient statehood; the dialogue was aimed at the maintenance and development of natural harmony and contributed to the avoidance of cosmic and social cataclysms.
Maintenance and reproduction of spiritual and social order was provided by the stability of outlook conceptions. A world model underlying these conceptions presented the world as a Universum, where Man acts as a rationalist living creature. This is a reason of high responsibility of human for his thoughts and deeds, which are directly interspersed in the live fabric of cosmic life. Perception of the world and disclosure of its traits within the frame of cosmic model implies the absence of objects and phenomena, which are absolutely isolated from others. Everything is in everything. This principle underlay archaic technological practices, formed on the territory of Indo-European (proto-Slavonic in particular) cultures. When creating a new item a master repeats all operations, which the Creator of the Universe performed at the beginning of the World. Thus, the master reproduces the eternal order, creates a world. Materials used for the creation of new items were raw materials for the creation of the world and human himself. This is why techniques used by gods underlay traditional technologies. The master manufactured an item, it means that he not only created it, but made it "alive", fixed it in accord with the existing everliving world. All these stages took a lot of time, involved a multitude of irrational moments, which, from the point of view of modern people, resulted in redundancy of technological processes. In fact the Master performed a cosmic ritual of creation, creation of a useful and necessary in the world thing, which finishes a natural process of the correct original scheme. Fixing can be viewed as a process of harmonization (in accord with cosmic schemes) of everything material or spiritual created by Man. A sensory image formed by elements of the outer world and the general idea coincided, which resulted in identity of the material world and its reflection, a spiritual image, created by Man. This attitude to reality as a way of perception and explanation of the world
demonstrated by our Indo-European predecessors determined the place of Man in the world; it formed the feeling of confidence, congruence, and harmony of human actions in the general cosmic order. Human strived to avoid contradictions with nature: when creating all necessary things for himself he kept on searching for ways of being in harmony with nature through such notions as life, happiness and purity. Within the material and spiritual production framework it was a way of the least resistance with the maximum outcome of necessary product, since when applying such a production technology Man did not face any natural resistance - human activity was performed in harmony and accord with the world. Consequently, the level of traumatism caused to the natural substance by anthropogenic factors was minimal. Actually, the principle of harmony was a natural and necessary condition of existence and development of proto-Slavs. A type of socially vital activities also developed in full accordance with this principle; major characteristics of the type were cooperation, solidarity, and ability to make friends. Such competent scholars as V.N. Danilenko, Yu.A. Shilov. B.A. Rybakov assume that the primitive communal system in proto-Slavic Aratta was followed by a long period of non-military, sacred democracy - when not warriors, but priests were leaders of a society. It is not a coincidence that within the paradigm of postnonclassic (universum) sociology spirituality is a force, which provides a developmental impetus for moral progress of mankind (not material or scientific and technical progress, but moral). Those societies (even though they had a decent level of scientific and technical development), which trampled down emerging elements of this quality in people, stayed at a level of animal [3, p. 63]. Priests were responsible for keeping the balance between Cosmos and Society, which was being done on the basis of the harmony principle. Social horizon (family, group, ethnic group)
is determined by an uninterruptable process of harmonization, establishment of internal and external correspondences, elimination of contradictions in functioning of the universe and a society. When keeping harmony of Man and the environment, which was complicated by a transition from gathering economy to producing economy, priest-rulers (the intellectual elite of Sun-like Aratta) focused their attention on a contradiction between existence and nonexistence [7, p. 225]. So, guidelines of the institute of Saviorship (self-sacrifice for the common good) were formed in agricultural Aratta. The mythic ritual of Saviorship asserted that human soul was immortal and was inseparable from the cosmic whole; the ritual provided solidity and congruence of creative activities of a society. This Indo-European (proto-Slavic) understanding of God kept by ancient Russia underlay self submission of humans to the objective laws of the universe; God was understood as a piece of Luck - a part - a common destiny, which depends on the Common Whole [7, p. 241]. Thus, it can be assumed that not class struggle or economic violence underlay the development of agricultural primitive communism in proto-Slavic society, but continuous intellectual and spiritual efforts, an intense dialogue of Man and the universe maintained existence and provided a promising, long-term development of proto-Slavic society. Yu.A. Shilov supposes that this is a reason for its optimality, stability of its existence and reproduction of basic principles of sociality in the further historical development of ethnocultural ambience.
Religious aspects of Russian cultural-philosophical traditions have reflected the fact that postnonclassic sociology being atheistic in its essence (without any doubt as any other science)
uses transpersonal approaches and methods. We can't help but agree that as a result of deep changes in modern culture the place that was typical of the Age of Enlightenment and revealed confrontation between scientific ideology and a religious, primitive and common consciousness is now being taken by the understanding of an existing need for their synergetic interaction [5].
Since the emergence of postnonclassic approaches in sociology is connected with the foundation of a new scientific outlook, universum sociology has the following peculiarities:
• development of an interdisciplinary and complex approach to social reality analysis;
• synthesis of humanities, social studies and natural sciences;
• application of polyparadigmal approaches;
• study of social reality in the unity of all its rational and irrational aspects;
• broadening the concept of sociology and erasing interdisciplinary borders with other social and humanitarian sciences;
• application of modern methods of system analysis (synergetics, diatropics, fractal object, etc.;
• application of ideas from traditional oriental philosophy and Russian philosophy, transpersonal psychology;
• analysis of socium dynamics, taking all natural and cosmic factors into account [2, p. 68].
Practically, all these peculiarities in this way or another were predetermined by writings of Russian philosophers, belonging to different schools and trends, but were unified by one common Russian cultural-philosophical tradition.
References
1. Davidov A.A. System Sociology: Ultra Large Scale Holistic Simulation" http://www.isras.ru/ index.php?page_id=1008
2. Nemirovskiy V.G. The Interdisciplinary Perspectives of the Contemporary Post-Non-Classical Sociology / The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. Vol. 2, Num. 1, 2007. pp. 65-77.
3. Nemirovskiy V.G., Nevirko D.D., Grishaev S.V. Sociology. Classic and Postnonclassic Approaches to Social Reality Analysis (Moscow, Russia, 2003) - P. 63.
4. Nemirovskiy V.G. Modern Sociology and Russian Cultural Traditions // Sociological Studies. 1994. № 3. - P. 23-29.
5. Comprehending the World: Philosophy, Religion, Culturology. Edited by L.P. Kiyaschenko and V.S. Stepin. (Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 2009). - 672 p.
6. Chaadaev P.Ya. Apology of a Madman // From the History of Russian Humanitarian Thought (Moscow, Russia, 1993). - P. 173-180.
7. Shilov Yu.A. Prehistory of Russia (Moscow, Russia, 1999). - P. 86.
Русская культурно-философская традиция как фактор формирования современной постнеклассической (универсумной) социологии
В.Г. Немировский, Т.А. Феньвеш
Сибирский федеральный университет Россия 660041, г. Красноярск, пр. Свободный, 79
Статья посвящена анализу влияния русской культурно-философской традиции на становление современной постнеклассической социологии. Рассматриваются культурные и теоретические предпосылки развития гуманитарного направления постнеклассической социологии - универсумного подхода. В этой связи особое внимание уделено философии русского антропокосмизма и Всеединства. При этом в статье рассмотрен широкий спектр направлений культурно-философских воззрений, начиная с протославянского периода их развития. Установлены соответствия между подобными воззрениями и характерными особенностями постнеклассической (универсумной) социологии.
Ключевые слова: русская культура, русская философия, постнеклассическая (универсумная) социология, русский антропокосмизм.
