Abstract

The article analyzes the sociological ideas of Alexander Alexandrovich Bogdanov, an outstanding scientist and political figure, one of the founders of the Bolshevik party, and then a permanent opponent of V. I. Lenin. It was identified that he reviewed the problems of sociology in almost all his works, but he did not consider himself a sociologist and focus on the subject field of sociology. The sociological ideas in his works are immersed into different epistemological contexts. In Empiriomonism, the sociology of knowledge was in fact the starting point of analysis, but the author himself believed that he was creating a critical philosophy of experience. An inadequate research method made his philosophical theory controversial. In Tectology, the problems of social life are considered in a broad cybernetic context, which determines the search for common features in all the systems of our world. The Science of Social Consciousness is Alexander Bogdanov’s the most sociological work. However, sociological problems are considered there from the viewpoint of history and management theory. The paradox is that the sociological ideas, hypotheses and the thinker’s concepts are the most promising for to be used in solving modern sociology problems. They are concordant with the modern problems of the global society. The article reconstructs a part of the sociological heritage of A. A. Bogdanov, i.e. his theoretical sociology. It is shown that he explained sociality through the concept of the work collective, which is the basic level of social life. The society as a systemic education assumes the organization of three basic elements such as people, things and ideas, which contributes to technology, economics and ideology. A. A. Bogdanov had understood the ideology more broadly than most sociologists both at that time and now. For him, it is identical to social consciousness which intended purpose is to organize people for collective activity. A natural language is the primary form of ideology. A. A. Bogdanov had focused much attention on the analysis of Ludwig Noiré’s hypothesis on «cries and shouts during a common work» and Max Müller’s theory of essential metaphor. The scientist shows the social nature of the language and traces the history of its development in unity with the society development. Based on the principles of theoretical sociology, A. A. Bogdanov proposed original hypotheses on the distinction between classes and professional groups and analyzed the manipulative possibilities of the class ideology. Alexander Bogdanov’s sociology allows, in a single perspective, to combine both the doctrine of existing and the doctrine of possible and desired future of the society. In this capacity, it is still an unused reserve of science, which should attract modern researchers.