The article analyzes the socio-cultural and theoretical origins of the Russian philosophy of history. These origins determined the development of the philosophy of history as a special feld of philosophical knowledge. This process took place in the second half of the 19th century, a significant factor of which was the split within the cultural and spiritual unity of Russian society on the wave of Alexander II’s reforms associated with the abolition of serfdom. In this period the subject-matter of the philosophy (...) of history was defned. In the author’s opinion, the subject-matter of the philosophy of history includes: 1) the historical process in its universal human dimensions and in “past – present – future” movement, 2) the life of society in historically concrete forms of the organization of human community, 3) historical epistemology. The article shows why the philosophy of history, formed in this research feld, was established in the public consciousness and intellectual context as historiosophy, i.e. knowledge of spiritual senses, the beginning and end of history. This philosophical-historical paradigm excluded the oppositions, on the one hand, between philosophical knowledge and historical science and, on the other hand, between the philosophy of the history and social philosophy. As the main ideas of the Russian philosophy of history during that period, the author considers the idea of the integrity of historical existence as an “organic life” and the idea of the variability of the historical process, interpreted as the constant inclination of history to “permanent improvisation”. The author pays special attention to the development of the concepts of “transitional form” and “chaos,” which provide the acceleration of the progressive movement of history and the possibility of an active and responsible participation of an individual and masses in it. The attention to this problem introduced the spiritual and moral component into the ontological basis of the historical process as well as the concept of necessity and chance, freedom and violence, revolution and evolution into the conceptual apparatus of philosophical and historical knowledge. As a result, simultaneously with the metaphysical principles, the principles of concrete historical and axiological analysis were integrated into the methodology of the philosophy of history. This approach to the analysis of the historical process has preserved its heuristic potential to the present day. (shrink)

Social philosophy is knowledge that is called to answer the question about the goals of human existence and human historical life. In this sense, it is a valuative philosophy. This determines the specificity and boundaries of its object. It includes: 1) society as self-organizing system of sociality reproduction, 2) historical process in its relation with value meanings and constants of human existence, and 3) social epistemology, exploring the possibilities and ways of adequately social reality comprehension. Social philosophy conceptually crosses theoretical (...) sociology and the philosophy of history within the boundaries of its problem field. The main theme of social philosophy is a theme of human, focusing research interest on the question “Who are we and where are we going?” Today boundaries of social philosophy are blurring under the postmodern influence on the humanities. Philosophical vision of social reality is replaced by the description of narratives designed by communicative practice that cannot be represented as a whole and do not obey to general analytical logic. This actualizes an appeal to social philosophy as a way of explanation of socio-cultural realities and, in this connection, to the problematics specifying the existing ideas about its object. (shrink)