The subject of social philosophy. Specificity of social cognition

The object of study of the SF is society as a whole, the subject is the patterns of development of common life. Social philosophy studies the laws according to which stable, large groups of people are formed in society, the relations between these groups, their connections and their role in society. Social philosophy studies general laws, the folding of forms, types, types, etc. political and other management of society, the connection of these forms with each other, the formation of an integral system of political administration, the laws of its development, functioning, the place of political administration in society, its connection with it. Scientific status of social philosophy. In social philosophy, it is obvious to see the social science section of philosophical knowledge in general and most of its elements in particular. social ontology(the doctrine of being) including the problems of social being and its modifications - economic being, social being in the narrow sense of the word, ecological being, demographic being. social Dynamics, considering the problems of linearity, cyclicity and spiraling in social development, the relationship between revolutionary and evolutionary in transitional eras, social progress . social cognition. In his field of vision is the analysis of social consciousness, the specifics of the application of general scientific methods and forms of cognition in the study of society . Functions. The two main specific functions of social philosophy, as well as philosophy in general, are philosophical and methodological. They are called specific because, in a developed and concentrated form, they are inherent only in philosophy. The main method of cognition is yavl-I dialectics (basic principles - universal interconnection, development, internal inconsistency of phenomena, processes as the main source of development). Worldview is a set of the most general views and ideas about the essence of the world around us and the place of man in it. It should be noted that in reality these functions mutually pass, interpenetrate each other. On the one hand, the method is included in the worldview, because our knowledge of the surrounding social world in the most essential moments will be incomplete if we abstract from the universal interconnection and development in it. On the other hand, ideological principles (and, above all, the principles of the objectivity of the laws of social development, the principle of the primacy of social being) are part of the philosophical method. In addition to the main functions discussed above, which only philosophy performs, it is necessary to take into account its enormous importance in the implementation of extremely important general scientific functions. - humanistic and general cultural. Of course, philosophy performs these functions in a specific, only inherent way - the way of philosophical reflection. We also emphasize that the non-specificity of the humanistic and general cultural functions does not at all mean their lesser intra-philosophical, interdisciplinary and social significance compared to specific ones. The humanistic function of philosophy is aimed at educating the individual in the spirit of humanism, real humanism, scientifically substantiating the ways of man's liberation and his further improvement.

knowledge epistemology social truth

Social cognition is one of the forms of cognitive activity - knowledge of society, i.e. social processes and phenomena. Any knowledge is social insofar as it arises and functions in society and is determined by socio-cultural reasons. Depending on the basis (criterion), within social cognition, cognition is distinguished: socio-philosophical, economic, historical, sociological, etc.

In understanding the phenomena of the sociosphere, it is impossible to use the methodology developed for the study of inanimate nature. This requires a different type of research culture, focused on "considering people in the course of their activities" (A. Toynbee).

As the French thinker O. Comte noted in the first half of the 19th century, society is the most complex of the objects of knowledge. His sociology is the most difficult science. Indeed, in the field of social development it is much more difficult to detect patterns than in the natural world.

In social cognition, we are dealing not only with the study of material, but also with ideal relations. They are woven into the material life of society, do not exist without them. At the same time, they are much more diverse and contradictory than material connections in nature.

In social cognition, society acts both as an object and as a subject of cognition: people create their own history, they also cognize and study it.

It is also necessary to note the socio-historical conditionality of social cognition, including the levels of development of the material and spiritual life of society, its social structure and the interests that dominate it. Social cognition is almost always value-based. It is biased towards the knowledge gained, since it affects the interests and needs of people who are guided by different attitudes and value orientations in the organization and implementation of their actions.

In the cognition of social reality, one should take into account the diversity of various situations in the social life of people. That is why social cognition is largely probabilistic knowledge, where, as a rule, there is no place for rigid and unconditional statements.

All these features of social cognition indicate that the conclusions obtained in the process of social cognition can be both scientific and extrascientific in nature. The variety of forms of non-scientific social cognition can be classified, for example, in relation to scientific knowledge (pre-scientific, pseudo-scientific, para-scientific, anti-scientific, non-scientific or practically everyday knowledge); according to the way of expressing knowledge about social reality (artistic, religious, mythological, magical), etc.

The complexities of social cognition often lead to attempts to transfer the natural science approach to social cognition. This is connected, first of all, with the growing authority of physics, cybernetics, biology, etc. So, in the XIX century. G. Spencer transferred the laws of evolution to the field of social cognition.

Supporters of this position believe that there is no difference between social and natural scientific forms and methods of cognition.

The consequence of this approach was the actual identification of social cognition with natural science, the reduction (reduction) of the first to the second, as the standard of any cognition. In this approach, only that which belongs to the field of these sciences is considered scientific, everything else does not belong to scientific knowledge, and this is philosophy, religion, morality, culture, etc.

Supporters of the opposite position, seeking to find the originality of social cognition, exaggerated it, opposing social knowledge to natural science, not seeing anything in common between them. This is especially characteristic of representatives of the Baden school of neo-Kantianism (W. Windelband, G. Rickert). The essence of their views was expressed in Rickert's thesis that "historical science and the science that formulates laws are mutually exclusive concepts."

But, on the other hand, one cannot underestimate and completely deny the significance of natural science methodology for social cognition. Social philosophy cannot but take into account the data of psychology and biology.

The problem of the relationship between the natural sciences and social science is actively discussed in modern, including domestic literature. So, V. Ilyin, emphasizing the unity of science, fixes the following extreme positions on this issue:

1) naturalistics - uncritical, mechanical borrowing of natural scientific methods, which inevitably cultivates reductionism in various versions - physicalism, physiology, energyism, behaviorism, etc.

2) humanities - the absolutization of the specifics of social cognition and its methods, accompanied by the discrediting of the exact sciences.

In social science, as in any other science, there are the following main components: knowledge and the means of obtaining it. The first component - social knowledge - includes knowledge about knowledge (methodological knowledge) and knowledge about the subject. The second component is both individual methods and social research itself.

Undoubtedly, social cognition is characterized by everything that is characteristic of cognition as such. This is a description and generalization of facts (empirical, theoretical, logical analyzes with the identification of the laws and causes of the phenomena under study), the construction of idealized models (“ideal types” according to M. Weber) adapted to the facts, explanation and prediction of phenomena, etc. The unity of all forms and types of cognition presupposes certain internal differences between them, expressed in the specifics of each of them. Possesses such specificity and knowledge of social processes.

In social cognition, general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, analogy) and particular scientific methods (for example, a survey, sociological research) are used. Methods in social science are the means of obtaining and systematizing scientific knowledge about social reality. They include the principles of organizing cognitive (research) activities; regulations or rules; a set of techniques and methods of action; order, scheme or plan of action.

Techniques and methods of research are built in a certain sequence based on regulatory principles. The sequence of techniques and methods of action is called a procedure. The procedure is an integral part of any method.

A technique is an implementation of a method as a whole, and, consequently, of its procedure. It means linking one or a combination of several methods and relevant procedures to the study, its conceptual apparatus; selection or development of methodological tools (set of methods), methodological strategy (sequence of application of methods and corresponding procedures). A methodological toolkit, a methodological strategy, or simply a methodology can be original (unique), applicable only in one study, or standard (typical), applicable in many studies.

The technique includes technique. Technique is the realization of a method at the level of the simplest operations brought to perfection. It can be a combination and sequence of methods of working with the object of study (data collection technique), with these studies (data processing technique), with research tools (questionnaire compilation technique).

Social knowledge, regardless of its level, is characterized by two functions: the function of explaining social reality and the function of its transformation.

It is necessary to distinguish between sociological and social research. Sociological research is devoted to the study of the laws and patterns of functioning and development of various social communities, the nature and methods of interaction between people, their joint activities. Social research, unlike sociological research, along with the forms of manifestation and mechanisms of action of social laws and patterns, involves the study of specific forms and conditions of social interaction between people: economic, political, demographic, etc., i.e. along with a specific subject (economics, politics, population) they study the social aspect - the interaction of people. Thus, social research is complex; it is carried out at the intersection of sciences, i.e. these are socio-economic, socio-political, socio-psychological studies.

In social cognition, the following aspects can be distinguished: ontological, epistemological and value (axiological).

The ontological side of social cognition concerns the explanation of the existence of society, the laws and trends of functioning and development. At the same time, it also affects such a subject of social life as a person. Especially in the aspect where it is included in the system of social relations.

The question of the essence of human existence has been considered in the history of philosophy from various points of view. Various authors took such factors as the idea of ​​justice (Plato), divine providence (Aurelius Augustine), absolute reason (H. Hegel), the economic factor (K. Marx), the struggle of the “life instinct” and “ death instinct" (Eros and Thanatos) (Z. Freud), "social character" (E. Fromm), geographical environment (C. Montesquieu, P. Chaadaev), etc.

It would be wrong to assume that the development of social knowledge does not affect the development of society in any way. When considering this issue, it is important to see the dialectical interaction of the object and subject of knowledge, the leading role of the main objective factors in the development of society.

The main objective social factors underlying any society should include, first of all, the level and nature of the economic development of society, the material interests and needs of people. Not only an individual, but all mankind, before engaging in knowledge, satisfying their spiritual needs, must satisfy their primary, material needs. Certain social, political and ideological structures also arise only on a certain economic basis. For example, the modern political structure of society could not have arisen in a primitive economy.

The epistemological side of social cognition is connected with the peculiarities of this cognition itself, primarily with the question of whether it is capable of formulating its own laws and categories, does it have them at all? In other words, can social cognition claim to be truth and have the status of science?

The answer to this question depends on the position of the scientist on the ontological problem of social cognition, on whether he recognizes the objective existence of society and the presence of objective laws in it. As in cognition in general, and in social cognition, ontology largely determines epistemology.

The epistemological side of social cognition includes the solution of the following problems:

How is the knowledge of social phenomena carried out;

What are the possibilities of their knowledge and what are the limits of knowledge;

What is the role of social practice in social cognition and what is the significance of the personal experience of the cognizing subject in this;

What is the role of various kinds of sociological research and social experiments.

The axiological side of cognition plays an important role, since social cognition, like no other, is associated with certain value patterns, preferences and interests of subjects. The value approach is already manifested in the choice of the object of study. At the same time, the researcher seeks to present the product of his cognitive activity - knowledge, a picture of reality - as “cleansed” as possible from all subjective, human (including value) factors. The separation of scientific theory and axiology, truth and value, led to the fact that the problem of truth, associated with the question "why", was separated from the problem of values, associated with the question "why", "for what purpose". The consequence of this was the absolute opposition of natural science and humanitarian knowledge. It should be recognized that value orientations operate in social cognition in a more complex way than in natural science cognition.

In its valuable way of analyzing reality, philosophical thought seeks to build a system of ideal intentions (preferences, attitudes) to prescribe the proper development of society. Using various socially significant assessments: true and false, fair and unfair, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, humane and inhumane, rational and irrational, etc., philosophy tries to put forward and justify certain ideals, values, goals and objectives of the social development, build the meanings of people's activities.

Some researchers doubt the legitimacy of the value approach. In fact, the value side of social cognition does not at all deny the possibility of scientific knowledge of society and the existence of social sciences. It contributes to the consideration of society, individual social phenomena in different aspects and from different positions. Thus, a more concrete, multilateral and complete description of social phenomena occurs, and therefore a more consistent scientific explanation of social life.

The separation of the social sciences into a separate area, characterized by its own methodology, was initiated by the work of I. Kant. Kant divided everything that exists into the realm of nature, in which necessity reigns, and the realm of human freedom, where there is no such necessity. Kant believed that the science of human action, guided by freedom, is in principle impossible.

Issues of social cognition are the subject of close attention in modern hermeneutics. The term "hermeneutics" comes from the Greek. "explain, interpret" The original meaning of this term is the art of interpreting the Bible, literary texts, etc. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. hermeneutics was considered as a doctrine of the method of cognition of the humanities, its task is to explain the miracle of understanding.

The foundations of hermeneutics as a general theory of interpretation were laid by the German philosopher F. Schleiermacher in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Philosophy, in his opinion, should not study pure thinking (theoretical and natural sciences), but everyday life. It was he who was one of the first to point out the need for a turn in knowledge from the identification of general laws to the individual and individual. Accordingly, the "sciences of nature" (natural science and mathematics) begin to be sharply opposed to the "sciences of culture", later the humanities.

For him, hermeneutics is conceived, first of all, as the art of understanding someone else's individuality. The German philosopher W. Dilthey (1833-1911) developed hermeneutics as a methodological basis for humanitarian knowledge. From his point of view, hermeneutics is the art of interpreting literary monuments, understanding the manifestations of life recorded in writing. Understanding, according to Dilthey, is a complex hermeneutical process that includes three different moments: intuitive comprehension of someone else's and one's own life; its objective, generally significant analysis (operating with generalizations and concepts) and the semiotic reconstruction of the manifestations of this life. At the same time, Dilthey comes to an extremely important conclusion, somewhat reminiscent of Kant's position, that thinking does not derive laws from nature, but, on the contrary, prescribes them to it.

In the twentieth century hermeneutics was developed by M. Heidegger, G.-G. Gadamer (ontological hermeneutics), P. Ricoeur (epistemological hermeneutics), E. Betty (methodological hermeneutics), etc.

The most important merit of G.-G. Gadamer (born 1900) is a comprehensive and profound development of the key category of understanding for hermeneutics. Understanding is not so much knowledge as a universal way of mastering the world (experience), it is inseparable from the self-understanding of the interpreter. Understanding is the process of searching for meaning (the essence of the matter) and is impossible without pre-understanding. It is a prerequisite for connection with the world, nonpresuppositional thinking is a fiction. Therefore, something can be understood only thanks to pre-existing assumptions about it, and not when it appears to us as something absolutely mysterious. Thus, the subject of understanding is not the meaning embedded in the text by the author, but the substantive content (the essence of the matter), with the comprehension of which the given text is connected.

Gadamer argues that, firstly, understanding is always interpretive, and interpretation is understanding. Secondly, understanding is possible only as an application - correlating the content of the text with the cultural thinking experience of our time. The interpretation of the text, therefore, does not consist in recreating the primary (author's) meaning of the text, but in creating the meaning anew. Thus, understanding can go beyond the subjective intention of the author, moreover, it always and inevitably goes beyond these limits.

Gadamer considers dialogue to be the main way to achieve truth in the humanities. All knowledge, in his opinion, passes through a question, and the question is more difficult than the answer (although it often seems the other way around). Therefore, the dialogue, i.e. questioning and answering is the way in which dialectics is carried out. The solution of a question is the path to knowledge, and the final result here depends on whether the question itself is correctly or incorrectly posed.

The art of questioning is a complex dialectical art of searching for truth, the art of thinking, the art of conducting a conversation (conversation), which requires, first of all, that the interlocutors hear each other, follow the thought of their opponent, without forgetting, however, the essence of the matter in question , and even more so without trying to hush up the question at all.

Dialogue, i.e. the logic of question and answer, and there is the logic of the sciences of the spirit, for which, according to Gadamer, despite the experience of Plato, we are very poorly prepared.

Human understanding of the world and mutual understanding of people is carried out in the element of language. Language is considered as a special reality within which a person finds himself. Any understanding is a linguistic problem, and it is achieved (or not achieved) in the medium of linguisticity, in other words, all the phenomena of mutual agreement, understanding and misunderstanding, which form the subject of hermeneutics, are linguistic phenomena. As a cross-cutting basis for the transmission of cultural experience from generation to generation, language provides the possibility of traditions, and dialogue between different cultures is realized through the search for a common language.

Thus, the process of comprehension of meaning, carried out in understanding, takes place in a linguistic form, i.e. there is a linguistic process. Language is the environment in which the process of mutual negotiation of interlocutors takes place and where mutual understanding is gained about the language itself.

Kant's followers G. Rickert and W. Windelband tried to develop a methodology for humanitarian knowledge from other positions. In general, Windelband proceeded in his reasoning from Dilthey's division of sciences (Dilthey saw the basis for distinguishing sciences in the object, he proposed a division into the sciences of nature and the sciences of the spirit). Windelband, on the other hand, subjects such a distinction to methodological criticism. It is necessary to divide the sciences not on the basis of the object that is being studied. He divides all sciences into nomothetic and ideographic.

The nomothetic method (from the Greek Nomothetike - legislative art) is a method of cognition through the discovery of universal patterns, characteristic of natural science. Natural science generalizes, brings facts under universal laws. According to Windelband, general laws are incommensurable with a single concrete existence, in which there is always something inexpressible with the help of general concepts.

Ideographic method (from the Greek Idios - special, peculiar and grapho - I write), Windelband's term, meaning the ability to cognize unique phenomena. Historical science individualizes and establishes an attitude to value, which determines the magnitude of individual differences, pointing to the "essential", "unique", "of interest".

In the humanities, goals are set that are different from those of the natural sciences of modern times. In addition to knowing the true reality, now interpreted in opposition to nature (not nature, but culture, history, spiritual phenomena, etc.), the task is to obtain a theoretical explanation that takes into account, firstly, the position of the researcher, and secondly, the features humanitarian reality, in particular, the fact that humanitarian knowledge constitutes a cognizable object, which, in turn, is active in relation to the researcher. Expressing different aspects and interests of culture, referring to different types of socialization and cultural practices, researchers see the same empirical material in different ways and therefore interpret and explain it differently in the humanities.

Thus, the most important distinguishing feature of the methodology of social cognition is that it is based on the idea that there is a person in general, that the sphere of human activity is subject to specific laws.

Page 20 of 32

The specifics of social cognition.

Social cognition is one of the forms of cognitive activity - knowledge of society, i.e. social processes and phenomena. Any knowledge is social insofar as it arises and functions in society and is determined by socio-cultural reasons. Depending on the basis (criterion), within social cognition, cognition is distinguished: socio-philosophical, economic, historical, sociological, etc.

In understanding the phenomena of the sociosphere, it is impossible to use the methodology developed for the study of inanimate nature. This requires a different type of research culture, focused on "considering people in the course of their activities" (A. Toynbee).

As the French thinker O. Comte noted in the first half of the 19th century, society is the most complex of the objects of knowledge. His sociology is the most difficult science. Indeed, in the field of social development it is much more difficult to detect patterns than in the natural world.

1. In social cognition, we are dealing not only with the study of material, but also of ideal relations. They are woven into the material life of society, do not exist without them. At the same time, they are much more diverse and contradictory than material connections in nature.

2. In social cognition, society acts both as an object and as a subject of cognition: people create their own history, they also cognize and study it. There appears, as it were, the identity of the object and the subject. The subject of knowledge represents different interests and goals. As a result, an element of subjectivism is introduced both into the historical processes themselves and into their knowledge. The subject of social cognition is a person who purposefully reflects in his mind the objectively existing reality of social life. This means that in social cognition, the cognizing subject has to constantly face the complex world of subjective reality, with human activity, which can significantly influence the initial attitudes and orientations of the cognizer.

3. It is also necessary to note the socio-historical conditionality of social cognition, including the levels of development of the material and spiritual life of society, its social structure and the interests that dominate it. Social cognition is almost always value-based. It is biased towards the knowledge gained, since it affects the interests and needs of people who are guided by different attitudes and value orientations in the organization and implementation of their actions.

4. In the cognition of social reality, one should take into account the variety of different situations in the social life of people. That is why social cognition is largely probabilistic knowledge, where, as a rule, there is no place for rigid and unconditional statements.

All these features of social cognition indicate that the conclusions obtained in the process of social cognition can be both scientific and extrascientific in nature. The variety of forms of non-scientific social cognition can be classified, for example, in relation to scientific knowledge (pre-scientific, pseudo-scientific, para-scientific, anti-scientific, non-scientific or practically everyday knowledge); according to the way of expressing knowledge about social reality (artistic, religious, mythological, magical), etc.

The complexities of social cognition often lead to attempts to transfer the natural science approach to social cognition. This is connected, first of all, with the growing authority of physics, cybernetics, biology, etc. So, in the XIX century. G. Spencer transferred the laws of evolution to the field of social cognition.

Supporters of this position believe that there is no difference between social and natural-scientific forms and methods of cognition. The consequence of this approach was the actual identification of social cognition with natural science, the reduction (reduction) of the first to the second, as the standard of any cognition. In this approach, only that which belongs to the field of these sciences is considered scientific, everything else does not belong to scientific knowledge, and this is philosophy, religion, morality, culture, etc.

Supporters of the opposite position, seeking to find the originality of social cognition, exaggerated it, opposing social knowledge to natural science, not seeing anything in common between them. This is especially characteristic of representatives of the Baden school of neo-Kantianism (W. Windelband, G. Rickert). The essence of their views was expressed in Rickert's thesis that "historical science and the science that formulates laws are mutually exclusive concepts."

But, on the other hand, one cannot underestimate and completely deny the significance of natural science methodology for social cognition. Social philosophy cannot but take into account the data of psychology and biology.

The problem of the relationship between the natural sciences and social science is actively discussed in modern, including domestic literature. So, V. Ilyin, emphasizing the unity of science, fixes the following extreme positions on this issue:

1) naturalistics - uncritical, mechanical borrowing of natural scientific methods, which inevitably cultivates reductionism in various versions - physicalism, physiology, energyism, behaviorism, etc.

2) humanities - the absolutization of the specifics of social cognition and its methods, accompanied by the discrediting of the exact sciences.

In social science, as in any other science, there are the following main components: knowledge and the means of obtaining it. The first component - social knowledge - includes knowledge about knowledge (methodological knowledge) and knowledge about the subject. The second component is both individual methods and social research itself.

Undoubtedly, social cognition is characterized by everything that is characteristic of cognition as such. This is a description and generalization of facts (empirical, theoretical, logical analyzes with the identification of the laws and causes of the phenomena under study), the construction of idealized models (“ideal types” according to M. Weber) adapted to the facts, explanation and prediction of phenomena, etc. The unity of all forms and types of cognition presupposes certain internal differences between them, expressed in the specifics of each of them. Possesses such specificity and knowledge of social processes.

In social cognition, general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, analogy) and particular scientific methods (for example, a survey, sociological research) are used. Methods in social science are the means of obtaining and systematizing scientific knowledge about social reality. They include the principles of organizing cognitive (research) activities; regulations or rules; a set of techniques and methods of action; order, scheme or plan of action.

Techniques and methods of research are built in a certain sequence based on regulatory principles. The sequence of techniques and methods of action is called a procedure. The procedure is an integral part of any method.

A technique is an implementation of a method as a whole, and, consequently, of its procedure. It means linking one or a combination of several methods and corresponding procedures to the research, its conceptual apparatus; selection or development of methodological tools (set of methods), methodological strategy (sequence of application of methods and corresponding procedures). A methodological toolkit, a methodological strategy, or simply a methodology can be original (unique), applicable only in one study, or standard (typical), applicable in many studies.

The technique includes technique. Technique is the realization of a method at the level of the simplest operations brought to perfection. It can be a combination and sequence of methods of working with the object of study (data collection technique), with these studies (data processing technique), with research tools (questionnaire compilation technique).

Social knowledge, regardless of its level, is characterized by two functions: the function of explaining social reality and the function of its transformation.

It is necessary to distinguish between sociological and social research. Sociological research is devoted to the study of the laws and patterns of functioning and development of various social communities, the nature and methods of interaction between people, their joint activities. Social research, unlike sociological research, along with the forms of manifestation and mechanisms of action of social laws and patterns, involves the study of specific forms and conditions of social interaction between people: economic, political, demographic, etc., i.e. along with a specific subject (economics, politics, population) they study the social aspect - the interaction of people. Thus, social research is complex; it is carried out at the intersection of sciences, i.e. these are socio-economic, socio-political, socio-psychological studies.

In social cognition, the following aspects can be distinguished: ontological, epistemological and value (axiological).

ontological side social cognition concerns the explanation of the existence of society, the laws and trends of functioning and development. At the same time, it also affects such a subject of social life as a person. Especially in the aspect where it is included in the system of social relations.

The question of the essence of human existence has been considered in the history of philosophy from various points of view. Various authors took such factors as the idea of ​​justice (Plato), divine providence (Aurelius Augustine), absolute reason (H. Hegel), the economic factor (K. Marx), the struggle of the “life instinct” and “ death instinct" (Eros and Thanatos) (Z. Freud), "social character" (E. Fromm), geographical environment (C. Montesquieu, P. Chaadaev), etc.

It would be wrong to assume that the development of social knowledge does not affect the development of society in any way. When considering this issue, it is important to see the dialectical interaction of the object and subject of knowledge, the leading role of the main objective factors in the development of society.

The main objective social factors underlying any society should include, first of all, the level and nature of the economic development of society, the material interests and needs of people. Not only an individual, but all mankind, before engaging in knowledge, satisfying their spiritual needs, must satisfy their primary, material needs. Certain social, political and ideological structures also arise only on a certain economic basis. For example, the modern political structure of society could not have arisen in a primitive economy.

Gnoseological side social cognition is connected with the peculiarities of this cognition itself, primarily with the question of whether it is capable of formulating its own laws and categories, does it have them at all? In other words, can social cognition claim to be truth and have the status of science?

The answer to this question depends on the position of the scientist on the ontological problem of social cognition, on whether he recognizes the objective existence of society and the presence of objective laws in it. As in cognition in general, and in social cognition, ontology largely determines epistemology.

The epistemological side of social cognition includes the solution of the following problems:

How is the knowledge of social phenomena carried out;

What are the possibilities of their knowledge and what are the limits of knowledge;

What is the role of social practice in social cognition and what is the significance of the personal experience of the cognizing subject in this;

What is the role of various kinds of sociological research and social experiments.

Axiological side cognition plays an important role, since social cognition, like no other, is associated with certain value patterns, predilections and interests of subjects. The value approach is already manifested in the choice of the object of study. At the same time, the researcher seeks to present the product of his cognitive activity – knowledge, a picture of reality – as “purified” as possible from all subjective, human (including value) factors. The separation of scientific theory and axiology, truth and value, led to the fact that the problem of truth, associated with the question "why", was separated from the problem of values, associated with the question "why", "for what purpose". The consequence of this was the absolute opposition of natural science and humanitarian knowledge. It should be recognized that value orientations operate in social cognition in a more complex way than in natural science cognition.

In its valuable way of analyzing reality, philosophical thought seeks to build a system of ideal intentions (preferences, attitudes) to prescribe the proper development of society. Using various socially significant assessments: true and false, fair and unfair, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, humane and inhumane, rational and irrational, etc., philosophy tries to put forward and justify certain ideals, values, goals and objectives of the social development, build the meanings of people's activities.

Some researchers doubt the legitimacy of the value approach. In fact, the value side of social cognition does not at all deny the possibility of scientific knowledge of society and the existence of social sciences. It contributes to the consideration of society, individual social phenomena in different aspects and from different positions. Thus, a more concrete, multilateral and complete description of social phenomena occurs, and therefore a more consistent scientific explanation of social life.

The separation of the social sciences into a separate area, characterized by its own methodology, was initiated by the work of I. Kant. Kant divided everything that exists into the realm of nature, in which necessity reigns, and the realm of human freedom, where there is no such necessity. Kant believed that the science of human action, guided by freedom, is in principle impossible.

Issues of social cognition are the subject of close attention in modern hermeneutics. The term "hermeneutics" comes from the Greek. "explain, interpret" The original meaning of this term is the art of interpreting the Bible, literary texts, etc. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. hermeneutics was considered as a doctrine of the method of cognition of the humanities, its task is to explain the miracle of understanding.

The foundations of hermeneutics as a general theory of interpretation were laid down by the German philosopher
F. Schleiermacher at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. Philosophy, in his opinion, should not study pure thinking (theoretical and natural sciences), but everyday life. It was he who was one of the first to point out the need for a turn in knowledge from the identification of general laws to the individual and individual. Accordingly, the "sciences of nature" (natural science and mathematics) begin to be sharply opposed to the "sciences of culture", later the humanities.
For him, hermeneutics is conceived, first of all, as the art of understanding someone else's individuality. The German philosopher W. Dilthey (1833-1911) developed hermeneutics as a methodological basis for humanitarian knowledge. From his point of view, hermeneutics is the art of interpreting literary monuments, understanding the manifestations of life recorded in writing. Understanding, according to Dilthey, is a complex hermeneutical process that includes three different moments: intuitive comprehension of someone else's and one's own life; its objective, universally significant analysis (operating with generalizations and concepts) and the semiotic reconstruction of the manifestations of this life. At the same time, Dilthey comes to an extremely important conclusion, somewhat reminiscent of Kant's position, that thinking does not derive laws from nature, but, on the contrary, prescribes them to it.

In the twentieth century hermeneutics was developed by M. Heidegger, G.-G. Gadamer (ontological hermeneutics), P. Ricoeur (epistemological hermeneutics), E. Betty (methodological hermeneutics), etc.

The most important merit of G.-G. Gadamer (b. 1900) is a comprehensive and profound development of the key category of understanding for hermeneutics. Understanding is not so much knowledge as a universal way of mastering the world (experience), it is inseparable from the self-understanding of the interpreter. Understanding is the process of searching for meaning (the essence of the matter) and is impossible without pre-understanding. It is a prerequisite for connection with the world; presuppositionless thinking is a fiction. Therefore, something can be understood only thanks to pre-existing assumptions about it, and not when it appears to us as something absolutely mysterious. Thus, the subject of understanding is not the meaning embedded in the text by the author, but the substantive content (the essence of the matter), with the comprehension of which the given text is connected.

Gadamer argues that, first, understanding is always interpretive, and interpretation is always understanding. Secondly, understanding is possible only as an application - correlating the content of the text with the cultural thinking experience of our time. The interpretation of the text, therefore, does not consist in recreating the primary (author's) meaning of the text, but in creating the meaning anew. Thus, understanding can go beyond the subjective intention of the author, moreover, it always and inevitably goes beyond these limits.

Gadamer considers dialogue to be the main way to achieve truth in the humanities. All knowledge, in his opinion, passes through a question, and the question is more difficult than the answer (although it often seems the other way around). Therefore, the dialogue, i.e. questioning and answering is the way in which dialectics is carried out. The solution of a question is the path to knowledge, and the final result here depends on whether the question itself is correctly or incorrectly posed.

The art of questioning is a complex dialectical art of searching for truth, the art of thinking, the art of conducting a conversation (conversation), which requires, first of all, that the interlocutors hear each other, follow the thought of their opponent, without forgetting, however, the essence of the matter, which there is a dispute, and even more so without trying to hush up the issue at all.

Dialogue, i.e. the logic of question and answer, and there is the logic of the sciences of the spirit, for which, according to Gadamer, despite the experience of Plato, we are very poorly prepared.

Human understanding of the world and mutual understanding of people is carried out in the element of language. Language is considered as a special reality within which a person finds himself. Any understanding is a linguistic problem, and it is achieved (or not achieved) in the medium of linguisticity, in other words, all the phenomena of mutual agreement, understanding and misunderstanding, which form the subject of hermeneutics, are linguistic phenomena. As a cross-cutting basis for the transmission of cultural experience from generation to generation, language provides the possibility of traditions, and dialogue between different cultures is realized through the search for a common language.

Thus, the process of comprehension of meaning, carried out in understanding, takes place in a linguistic form, i.e. there is a linguistic process. Language is the environment in which the process of mutual negotiation of interlocutors takes place and where mutual understanding is gained about the language itself.

Kant's followers G. Rickert and W. Windelband tried to develop a methodology for humanitarian knowledge from other positions. In general, Windelband proceeded in his reasoning from Dilthey's division of sciences (Dilthey saw the basis for distinguishing sciences in the object, he proposed a division into the sciences of nature and the sciences of the spirit). Windelband, on the other hand, subjects such a distinction to methodological criticism. It is necessary to divide the sciences not on the basis of the object that is being studied. He divides all sciences into nomothetic and ideographic.

The nomothetic method (from the Greek Nomothetike - legislative art) is a method of cognition through the discovery of universal patterns, characteristic of natural science. Natural science generalizes, brings facts under universal laws. According to Windelband, general laws are incommensurable with a single concrete existence, in which there is always something inexpressible with the help of general concepts. From this it is concluded that the nomothetic method is not a universal method of cognition and that for the cognition of the "single" the ideographic method opposite to the nomothetic one should be used. The difference between these methods is derived from the difference in a priori principles for the selection and ordering of empirical data. The nomothetic method is based on the “generalizing formation of concepts”, when only repeating moments that fall under the category of the universal are selected from the variety of data.

Ideographic method (from the Greek Idios - special, peculiar and grapho - I write), Windelband's term, meaning the ability to cognize unique phenomena. Historical science individualizes and establishes an attitude to value, which determines the magnitude of individual differences, pointing to the "essential", "unique", "of interest". It is the use of the ideographic method that gives the material of direct experience a certain form through the procedure of "individualizing the formation of concepts", that is, the selection of moments that express the individual characteristics of the phenomenon under consideration (for example, a historical figure), and the concept itself is an "asymptotic approximation to the definition of an individual."

G. Rickert was a student of Windelband. He rejected the division of sciences into nomothetic and ideographic and proposed his own division into the sciences of culture and the sciences of nature. A serious epistemological base was laid under this division. He rejected the theory that cognition reflects reality. In cognition, there is always a transformation of reality, and only simplification. He affirms the principle of expedient selection. His theory of knowledge develops into a science of theoretical values, of meanings, of what exists not in reality, but only logically, and in this capacity precedes all sciences.

Thus, G. Rickert divides everything that exists into two areas: the realm of reality and the world of values. Therefore, the sciences of culture are engaged in the study of values, they study objects classified as universal cultural values. History, for example, can belong to both the cultural sciences and the natural sciences. The natural sciences see in their objects being and being, free from any reference to values. Their goal is to study general abstract relations, if possible, laws. Special for them only a copy
(this applies to both physics and psychology). Everything can be studied by the scientific method.

The next step is taken by M. Weber. He called his concept of understanding sociology. Understanding means knowing an action through its subjectively implied meaning. This does not mean some objectively correct, or metaphysically “true”, but subjectively experienced by the acting individual himself, the meaning of the action.

Together with the "subjective meaning" in social cognition, the whole variety of ideas, ideologies, worldviews, ideas, etc., regulating and directing human activity, is represented. M. Weber developed the doctrine of the ideal type. The idea of ​​an ideal type is dictated by the need to develop conceptual structures that would help the researcher navigate the variety of historical material, while at the same time not “driving” this material into a preconceived scheme, but interpreting it from the point of view of how much reality approaches the ideal-typical model. In the ideal type, the “cultural meaning” of this or that phenomenon is fixed. It is not a hypothesis and therefore is not subject to empirical verification, rather performing heuristic functions in the system of scientific search. But it allows one to systematize the empirical material and interpret the current state of affairs from the point of view of its proximity or distance from the ideal-typical sample.

In the humanities, goals are set that are different from those of the natural sciences of modern times. In addition to knowing the true reality, now interpreted in opposition to nature (not nature, but culture, history, spiritual phenomena, etc.), the task is to obtain a theoretical explanation that takes into account, firstly, the position of the researcher, and secondly, the features humanitarian reality, in particular, the fact that humanitarian knowledge constitutes a cognizable object, which, in turn, is active in relation to the researcher. Expressing different aspects and interests of culture, referring to different types of socialization and cultural practices, researchers see the same empirical material in different ways and therefore interpret and explain it differently in the humanities.

Thus, the most important distinguishing feature of the methodology of social cognition is that it is based on the idea that there is a person in general, that the sphere of human activity is subject to specific laws.

The knowledge of the laws of society has a certain specificity in comparison with the knowledge of natural phenomena. In society, there are people endowed with consciousness and will; a complete repetition of events is impossible here. The results of knowledge are influenced by the actions of political parties, all kinds of economic, political and military blocs and unions. Social experiments have colossal consequences for the destinies of people, human communities and states, and, under certain conditions, for all mankind.

One of the features of social development is its multivariance. The course of social processes is influenced by various natural and especially social factors, the conscious activity of people.

Very briefly, the specificity of social cognition can be defined as follows:

In social cognition, the absolutization of the natural or the social, the reduction of the social to the natural and vice versa is unacceptable. At the same time, one should always remember that society is an integral part of nature and cannot be opposed to them.

Social cognition, dealing not with things, but with relationships, is inextricably linked with the values, attitudes, interests and needs of people.

Social development has alternatives, various options for its deployment. At the same time, there are many ideological approaches to their analysis.

In social cognition, the role of methods and techniques for studying social processes and phenomena is growing. Their characteristic feature is a high level of abstraction.

The main goal of social cognition is to identify the patterns of social development and, on their basis, predict the ways of further development of society. The social laws operating in social life, in fact, as in nature, are a recurring connection of phenomena and processes of objective reality.

The laws of society, like the laws of nature, are objective in nature. The laws of society, first of all, differ in the degree of coverage of the spheres of public life (social space) and the degree of duration of functioning. There are three main groups of laws. it the most general laws, general laws and specific (private laws). The most general laws cover all major spheres of society and function throughout human history (for example, the law of interaction between the economic base and superstructure). General laws function in one or more areas and over a number of historical stages (the law of value). Specific or private laws manifest themselves in certain spheres of the life of society and act within the framework of a historically determined stage of development of society (the law of surplus value).

Nature and society can be defined as follows: nature is matter that is not aware of its existence; society is a matter that develops to the realization of its existence. This part of the material world isolated from nature is the result of human interaction. The inextricable, natural connection of society with nature determines the unity and difference of the laws of their development.

The unity of the laws of nature and the laws of society lies in the fact that they act objectively and, in the presence of appropriate conditions, manifest themselves with necessity; changing conditions change the operation of both natural and social laws. The laws of nature and society are realized regardless of whether we know about them or not, whether they are known or not known. Man cannot cancel either the laws of nature or the laws of the development of society.

There is also a certain difference between the laws of social development and the laws of nature. Nature is infinite in space and time. Among the laws of nature there are eternal(for example, the law of gravity), and long-term (the laws of the development of flora and fauna). The laws of society are not eternal: they arose with the formation of society, and will cease to operate with its disappearance.

The laws of nature are manifested in the action of elemental, unconscious forces, nature does not know what it is doing. Social laws are implemented through the conscious activity of people. The laws of society cannot function "on their own", without the participation of man.

The laws of the development of society differ from the laws of nature in their complexity. These are the laws of a higher form of motion of matter. The laws of the lower forms of the motion of matter, although they can influence the laws of society, do not determine the essence of social phenomena; man obeys the laws of mechanics, and the laws of physics, and the laws of chemistry, and the laws of biology, but they do not determine the essence of man as a social being. Man is not only a natural but also a social being. The essence of its development is not a change in the biological species, but in its social nature, which may lag behind, or may advance the course of history.

For a long time, the analysis of science and scientific knowledge was carried out according to the "model" of natural and mathematical knowledge. The characteristics of the latter were considered characteristic of science as a whole, as such, which is especially clearly expressed in scientism. In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in interest in social (humanitarian) knowledge, which is regarded as one of the unique types of scientific knowledge. When talking about it, two aspects of it should be kept in mind:

any knowledge in each of its forms is always social, since it is a social product, and is determined by cultural and historical reasons;

one of the types of scientific knowledge, which has as its subject social (public) phenomena and processes - society as a whole or its individual aspects (economics, politics, spiritual sphere, various individual formations, etc.).

In this study, both the reduction of the social to the natural, in particular, attempts to explain social processes only by the laws of mechanics (“mechanism”) or biology (“biologism”), and the opposition of the natural and the social, up to their complete break, are unacceptable.

The specificity of social (humanitarian) knowledge is manifested in the following main points:

• 1. The subject of social cognition is the human world, and not just a thing as such. And this means that this subject has a subjective dimension. it includes a person as "the author and performer of his own drama", which he also knows. Humanitarian knowledge deals with society, social relations, where material and ideal, objective and subjective, conscious and spontaneous, etc. are closely intertwined, where people express their interests, set and realize certain goals, etc. Usually this is, first of all, subject-subject cognition.
• 2. Social cognition is focused primarily on processes, i.e. to the development of social phenomena. The main interest here is dynamics, not statics, because society is practically devoid of stationary, unchanging states. Therefore, the main principle of its research at all levels is historicism, which was formulated much earlier in the humanities than in natural sciences, although here too - especially in the 20th century. - He plays an extremely important role.
• 3. In social cognition, exclusive attention is paid to the individual, individual (even unique), but on the basis of a specific-general, regular.
• 4. Social cognition is always a value-semantic development and reproduction of human existence, which is always meaningful existence. The concept of "meaning" is very complex and multifaceted. As Heidegger said, meaning is “to what and for the sake of what”. And M. Weber believed that the most important task of the humanities is to establish "whether there is a meaning in this world and whether there is a meaning to exist in this world." 1-10, religion and philosophy should help in resolving this issue, but not natural science, because it does not raise such questions.
• 5. Social cognition is inextricably and constantly connected with subject values ​​(assessment of phenomena from the point of view of good and evil, fair and unfair, etc.) and “subjective” (attitudes, views, norms, goals, etc.), They indicate the humanly significant and cultural role of certain phenomena of reality. Such, in particular, are the political, ideological, moral convictions of a person, his attachments, principles and motives of behavior, etc. All these and similar moments are included in the process of social research and inevitably affect the content of knowledge obtained in this process.
• 6. Of great importance in social cognition is the procedure of understanding as an introduction to the meanings of human activity and as meaning formation. Understanding is just connected with immersion in the world of meanings of another person, reaching and interpreting his thoughts and experiences. Understanding as a real movement in meanings occurs in the conditions of communication, it is not separated from self-understanding and occurs in the element of language.

Understanding is one of the key concepts of hermeneutics - one of the modern trends in Western philosophy. As one of its founders, the German philosopher H. Gadamer, wrote, the “fundamental truth, the soul” of hermeneutics is as follows: the truth cannot be known and communicated by someone alone. It is necessary to maintain a dialogue in every possible way, to give a voice to a dissident as well.

• 7. Social cognition has a textual nature, i.e. between the object and the subject of social cognition are written sources (chronicles, documents, etc.) and archaeological sources. In other words, what happens here is the poisoning of reflection: social reality appears in places, in sign-sound expression.
• 8. The nature of the relationship between the object and the subject of social cognition is very complex and very indirect. Here, the connection with social reality usually occurs through historical sources (texts, chronicles, documents, etc.) and archaeological (material remains of the past). If the natural sciences are aimed at things, their properties and relationships, then the humanities are aimed at texts that are expressed in a certain sign form and which have meaning, meaning, value. The textual nature of social cognition is its characteristic feature.
• 9. A feature of social cognition is its primary focus on the "qualitative coloring of events." Phenomena are studied mainly from the side of quality, not quantity. Therefore, the proportion of quantitative methods in social cognition is much less than in the sciences of the natural and mathematical cycle. However, here, too, the processes of mathematization, computerization, formalization of knowledge, etc. are increasingly being deployed.
• 10. In social cognition it is impossible to use either a microscope, or chemical reagents, and even more so the most complex scientific equipment, all this should be replaced by the “power of abstraction”. Therefore, the role of thinking, its forms, principles and methods is exceptionally great here. If in natural science the form of comprehension of an object is a monologue (because "nature is silent"), then in humanitarian knowledge it is a dialogue (of personalities, texts, cultures, etc.). The dialogical nature of social cognition is most fully expressed in the procedures of understanding. It is precisely connected with immersion in the “world of meanings” of another subject, comprehension and interpretation (interpretation) of his feelings, thoughts and aspirations.
• 11. In social cognition, a "good" philosophy and a correct method play an extremely important role. Only their deep knowledge and skillful application allows one to adequately comprehend the complex, contradictory, purely dialectical nature of social phenomena and processes, the nature of thinking, its forms and principles, their permeation with value-worldview components and their influence on the results of cognition, the meaning-life orientations of people, features dialogue (inconceivable without the formulation and resolution of contradictions-problems), etc.
• 4. Structure and levels of scientific knowledge

Scientific knowledge (and knowledge as its result) is an integral developing system with a rather complex structure. The latter expresses the unity of stable relationships between the elements of this system. The structure of scientific knowledge can be represented in its various sections and, accordingly, in the totality of its specific elements. These can be: object (subject area of ​​knowledge); subject of knowledge; means, methods of cognition - its tools (material and spiritual) and conditions for implementation.

With a different cut of scientific knowledge, it is necessary to distinguish between the following elements of its structure: factual material; the results of its initial generalization in concepts; fact-based scientific assumptions (hypotheses); laws, principles and theories "growing" out of the latter; philosophical attitudes, methods, ideals and norms of scientific knowledge; sociocultural foundations and some other elements.

Scientific knowledge is a process, i.e. a developing system of knowledge, the main element of which is theory - the highest form of organization of knowledge. Taken as a whole, scientific knowledge includes two main levels - empirical and theoretical. Although they are related, but different from each other, each of them has its own specifics. What is it?

At the empirical level, living contemplation (sense cognition) prevails; the rational moment and its forms (judgments, concepts, etc.) are present here, but have a subordinate meaning. Therefore, the object under study is reflected mainly from the side of its external connections and manifestations, accessible to living contemplation and expressing internal relations.

Any scientific research begins with the collection, systematization and generalization of facts. The concept of "fact" (from the Latin facturum - done, accomplished) has the following main meanings:

• 1. Some fragment of reality, objective events, results related either to objective reality (“facts of reality”) or to the sphere of consciousness and cognition (“facts of consciousness”).
• 2. Knowledge about any event, phenomenon, the reliability of which has been proven, i.e. as a synonym for truth.
• 3. A sentence fixing empirical knowledge, I.e. obtained in the course of observations and experiments.

The second and third of these meanings are summarized in the concept of "scientific fact". The latter becomes such when it is an element of the logical structure of a particular system of scientific knowledge and is included in this system.

The collection of facts, their primary generalization, description (“recording”) of observed and experimental data, their systematization, classification and other “fact-fixing” activities are characteristic features of empirical knowledge.

Empirical research is directed directly (without intermediate links) to its object. It masters it with the help of such techniques and means as comparison; observation, measurement, experiment, when an object is reproduced in artificially created and controlled conditions (including mentally); analysis - the division of an object into its component parts, induction - the movement of knowledge from the particular to the general, etc.

The theoretical level of scientific knowledge is characterized by the predominance of the rational moment and its forms (concepts, theories, laws and other aspects of thinking). Living contemplation, sensory cognition is not eliminated here, but becomes a subordinate (but very important) aspect of the cognitive process.

Theoretical knowledge reflects phenomena and processes in terms of their internal connections and patterns, comprehended with the help of rational data processing of empirical knowledge. This processing is carried out with the help of systems of "higher order" abstractions - such as concepts:, inferences, laws, categories, principles, etc.

On the basis of empirical data, there is a generalization of the objects under study, comprehension

their essence, "internal movement", the laws of their existence, which constitute the main content of theories - the quintessence of knowledge at this level. The most important task of theoretical knowledge is the achievement of objective truth in all its concreteness and completeness of content. At the same time, such cognitive techniques and means as abstraction - abstraction from a number of properties and relations of objects, idealization - the process of creating purely mental objects ("point", "ideal gas", etc.), synthesis-unification of the resulting analysis of elements into a system, deduction - the movement of knowledge from the general to the particular, the ascent from the abstract to the concrete, etc.

A characteristic feature of theoretical knowledge is its focus on itself, intrascientific reflection, i.e. study of the process of cognition itself, its forms, techniques, methods, conceptual apparatus, etc. On the basis of a theoretical explanation and known laws, a prediction, a scientific prediction of the future, is carried out.

The empirical and theoretical levels of cognition are interconnected, the boundary between them is conditional and mobile. Empirical research, revealing new data with the help of observations and experiments, stimulates theoretical knowledge (which generalizes and explains them), sets new, more complex tasks for it. On the other hand, theoretical knowledge, developing and concretizing its own content on the basis of empirical knowledge, opens up new, wider horizons for empirical knowledge, orients and directs it in search of new facts, contributes to the improvement of its methods and means, etc.

Science as an integral dynamic system of knowledge cannot develop successfully without being enriched with new empirical data, without generalizing them in a system of theoretical means, forms and methods of cognition. At certain points in the development of science, the empirical becomes theoretical and vice versa. However, it is unacceptable to absolutize one of these levels to the detriment of the other.

Empiricism reduces scientific knowledge as a whole to its empirical level, belittling or completely rejecting theoretical knowledge. "Scholastic theorizing" ignores the significance of empirical data, rejects the need for a comprehensive analysis of facts as a source and basis for theoretical constructions, and breaks away from real life. Its product is illusory-utopian, dogmatic constructions - such as, for example, the concept of "the introduction of communism in 1980." or the "theory" of developed socialism.