The article discusses the civilizational approach, which was formed in the 20thcentury and has become one of the main research approaches both in Russia and in the Western countries. The author presents a brief overview of the main milestones in the development of civilizational theory and its main representatives in Russia and the West. It is shown that in Russia, the importance of the civilizational approach is caused by the “change of epochs” that occurred after (...) the 1990s and demanded to consider the civilization principles in the social sciences and in the socio-political structure of the country. A brief description of the civilizational theory in the West, which has its own characteristics, not only demonstrates the universality of this scientific method but also reveals both its positive and negative aspects that were identified by the researchers. Although the Russian and Western scholars focus on the specifics of their own situations, they agree that in order to overcome the limitations of the civilizational approach, it is necessary to supplement it with other methods of scientific analysis. Since this article deals with the problems faced by Russia, the author presents the arguments of the Russian researchers, who suggest supplementing the civilizational analysis with the logic of sense, formations, geopolitical, ideological and worldview research approaches. It should be noted that the logic of sense approach is the latest achievement of the philosophical thought and a kind of scientific discovery (authored by A.V. Smirnov). It is concluded that all the supplementing methods find their meaning and place in relation to each other only within the framework of a holistic interdisciplinary approach, which provides a theoretical understanding of a larger set of problems that the country is facing today. (shrink)

The article discusses the civilizational approach which was formed in the 20th century and has become one of the main research approaches both in Russia and in the Western countries. The author presents a brief overview of the main milestones in the development of civilizational theory and its main representatives in Russia and the West. It is shown that in Russia, the importance of the civilizational approach is caused by the “change of epochs” that occurred (...) after the 1990s and demanded to consider the civilization principles in the social sciences and in the socio-political structure of the country. A brief description of the civilizational theory in the West, which has its own characteristics, not only demonstrates the universality of this scientific method but also reveals both its positive and negative aspects that were identified by the researchers. Although the Russian and Western scholars focus on the specifics of their own situations, they agree that in order to overcome the limitations of the civilizational approach, it is necessary to supplement it with other methods of scientific analysis. Since this article deals with the problems faced by Russia, the author presents the arguments of the Russian researchers, who suggest supplementing the civilizational analysis with the logic of sense, formations, geopolitical, ideological and worldview research approaches. It should be noted that the logic of sense approach is the latest achievement of the philosophical thought and a kind of scientific discovery. It is concluded that all the supplementing methods find their meaning and place in relation to each other only within the framework of a holistic interdisciplinary approach, which provides a theoretical understanding of a larger set of problems that the country is facing today. (shrink)

International Relations and the Philosophy of History examines the concept of civilization in relation to international systems through an extensive use of the literature in the philosophy of history. A. Nuri Yurdusev demonstrates the relevance of a civilizational approach to the study of contemporary international relations by looking at the multi-civilizational nature of the modern international system, the competing claims of national and civilizational identities and the rise of civilizational consciousness after the Cold War.

Article is devoted to research of the views of the Algerian philosopher and Muslim intellectual Mālik Bin Nabī (1905-1973) and reviews his sociological, cultural, historical and philosophical ideas. In his works Mālik Bin Nabī was writing about human society, paying special attention to the reasons for the decline of Muslim civilization and raised the issue of the degree of necessity, ways and forms of perception of its achievements. The author points to the complex approach of the thinker to the (...) problems of the civilizational revival of the Muslim world in the context of the phenomenon of nahda ( al-Nahda ), the main problem of which was and remains the problem of relationship with Western civilization. According to M. Bin Nabī, both in political and social aspects, Nahda is conceptually connected with the Muslims’ search for their own identity and a way out of the crisis generated by long centuries of colonization. In its broad socio-cultural context al-Nahda implies an authentic way for Arabs to meet modernity and constitutes one of the main concepts aimed at achieving a way out of the crisis and a genuine revival of the Muslim world. He sees the ways of solving this problem through the expression of the social values of Islam, arising from the moral and ethical foundations of the Islamic religion, which, in his opinion, affect the restoration of Muslim identity in all realms of existence of the global universe. The thinker proposes a way for the productive revival of the Muslim world based on a harmonious synthesis in line with the merging of the achievements of Western philosophical rationalism and the Islamic religious heritage. In addition, in order to unite the efforts of the Afro-Asian peoples in the face of colonialism, the cultural and economic expansion of the West and the true revival, ultimately, of all the peoples of the East, M. Bin Nabī developed the concept of Afro-Asianism, in which he puts forward the tasks of a globalist scale, pursuing again revival goals. According to the ontological differentiation of M. Bin Nabī, present in the ratio of man, time, space, it has an Islamic basis. This aspect can play an important role in both positive and negative reorganization of the world by man. This situation is directly related to the issue of what meaning people give to the world, as well as the level of their responsibility for that. (shrink)

Purpose. This article clarifies the significance of the person’s social self-identification as a basis for civilization and institutional explanation of national self-identification in Ukraine. Theoretical basis. The authors found that the analysis of the cultural and anthropological principles of national self-identity reveals two main opposed concepts: the concept of "eastern" cultural and social self-identity of Ukraine, which correlates with the metaphor of the split between "East" and "West", and the concept of "western" projection of the European future of Ukraine, which (...) correlates with the metaphor of the bridge between "East" and "West". These concepts reflect the options for the citizens of Ukraine to make a personal choice of the way in achieving social self-identity. Douglas North’s concept of "open-access order" states and "limited access order" states can be used as a basis for an alternative, pragmatic approach to choice the criteria of national self-identity. Originality. National self-identification is a result of the choice of the person’s self-identification: still the person takes into account the history of the nation, the ethnic diversity of the nation, its cultural and civilizational characteristics. The philosophical-anthropological approach contributes to the demystification of the grounds of social self-identification, revealing the decisive role of the personal choice in shaping the new institutional foundations of national self-identity. Harmonization of the social institutions of Ukraine with the institutions of the European Union and the international community institutions opens wide opportunities for Ukraine’s successful integration into the "open-access order" societies. The clarification of the value and symbolic aspects of national self-identity in Ukraine contributes to the successful functioning of these institutions. Multilingualism is an adequate response to the global challenge of the reconstruction of Ukraine’s national self-identity. The education system is a key area for introducing multilingualism. Conclusions. The development, justification and systematization of cultural and institutional criteria for choosing the best ways to strengthen of national self-identity in Ukraine are a prerequisite for the successful self-identification of Ukrainian citizens in a complex and ever-changing global world. (shrink)

The paper advances a new comprehensive complex approach to the investigation of the civilizational aspects in the development of regional associations of countries. The research starts with the overview of historical dimensions of the civilizational approach and the contribution of the founding scholars to its development. It continues with the analysis of the scientific and methodological input of the followers and the critics of this approach. The authors suggest their theoretical approach to the identification (...) of the modern local civilizations according to six parameters: natural, biological, technical, economic, social, and governing. The civilizational affiliation of countries and the civilizational structure of major 17 regional associations of countries are identified. The results demonstrate that some regional groups have been more homogeneous in terms of civilizational composition, others – less homogeneous, which does not interfere with their dynamic development. However, the logic of the historical dynamics of human development indicates the inevitability of changing the current situation through prolonged civilizational conflicts resulting in significant changes in the global social dynamics and the civilizational structure of the world and of regional associations of countries. The identification of the civilization structure of countries and regional associations contributes to the rational decision-making in the areas of international economic relations and to the formation of the integration/disintegration policies on the national and regional levels. It is predicted that from 2030 global social dynamics will undergo a fundamental breakthrough that will radically change the civilizational structure of the world and regional unions of countries. Methods. The research is based on the application of the systemic and historical approach, combined with the methods of analysis, synthesis, analogy, abstraction, generalization and method of individual expert assessment. Novelty of the research. The authors have identified the civilizational structure of countries using statistically available criteria for the six groups of factors, which allows to determine the homogeneity level of the major regional groups of countries. Practical significance. Identification of civilization structure of countries and regional associations creates the opportunity for adjusting national and subregional integration and disintegration policies. The aim of the study is to determine the civilizational structure of the regional associations of countries. To achieve this goal the following tasks are set and solved: –to analyze and optimize the existing approaches to the identification of local civilizations; –to identify the current state of the countries’ belonging to this or that civilization, their civilizational structure; –to reveal the civilizational structure of the major regional blocs. (shrink)

This article argues that current civilizational analysis as exemplified by the work of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt still shares the strengths and weaknesses of the original approach as developed by Marcel Mauss (and Émile Durkheim) a century ago. Eisenstadt’s approach basically relies on a particular understanding of path dependency which immediately raises the question how civilizational patterns are reproduced after the crucial turning point of the Axial Age. This problem of civilizational persistence, however, remains largely unresolved (...) and will not even be resolved in the future as long as civilizational analysis relies on mostly culturalist premises. Only a combination of arguments from the field of political sociology and the sociology of religion — as suggested by Johann P. Arnason — promises to explain how civilizations are able to reproduce their patterns over and over again. (shrink)

This article argues that a civilizational perspective is central to Castoriadis’s interpretation of ancient Greece, even if he does not use the language of civilizational analysis. More specifically, his line of argument has clear affinities with Eisenstadt’s definition of the ‘civilizational dimension’ in terms of connections between cultural interpretations of the world and institutional forms of social life. Castoriadis has less to say about geocultural and geopolitical structures of the Greek world, which would also be important topics (...) for a balanced civilizational approach. His distinctive variation on the civilizational theme rests on the idea of social imaginary significations; in the ancient Greek case, this starting point leads to the reconstruction of a ‘primary grasp of the world’, an imaginary core that conditions further developments and innovations. This core component of Greek culture centres on the human condition as the existence of mortals in a world characterized by imperfect order and underlying chaos. The Homeric poems are Castoriadis’s main source for the contents and directions of this original Greek imaginary. He understands the Homeric world as a framework within which the transformation of the polis towards autonomy could be initiated. Thus, the result is a strong emphasis on the archaic period as a formative phase of the whole Greek civilizational trajectory. (shrink)

The revival of civilizational analysis is closely linked to a broader cultural turn in the human sciences. Comparative civilizational approaches accept the primacy of culture, but at the same time, they strive to avoid the cultural determinism familiar from twentieth-century sociology, especially from the Parsonian version of functionalism. To situate this twofold strategy within contemporary cultural sociology, it seems useful to link up with the distinction between a strong and a weak program for the sociological analysis of culture, (...) proposed by Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith. The strong program, also described as cultural sociology, stresses the constitutive role of culture in all domains and across the field of social life; the weak program, more precisely the sociology of culture, treats culture as a variable factor among others, and in some important respects subordinate to others. From this point of view, civilizational analysis is, first and foremost, a particularly ambitious version of the strong program: its emphasis on different cultural articulations of the world, as well as on the large-scale and long-term social-historical formations crystallizing around such articulations, adds new dimensions to the autonomy of culture. It also reinforces the hermeneutical stance of cultural sociology and cautions against the acceptance of mainstream explanatory models. On the other hand, the civilizational perspective highlights the variety of interconnections between culture and other components of the social world, and thus takes into account some of the themes favoured by the weak program. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to assess Arnason’s civilizational theory and methodology and their application to non-Western civilizations from a historical-comparative sociological perspective. Although civilizational analysis and historical sociology as historical-comparative orientations in sociology are closely connected, civilizational analysis concentrates particularly on the macro-history of civilizations, whereas historical-comparative sociology (particularly in its American variety) is orientated rather to a meso- and micro-analytical foundation of societal developments and therefore is more time- and context-sensitive. From such a perspective, (...) the article reconstructs, first, Arnason’s theoretical and methodological approach to civilizational analysis and discusses his contribution to the civilizational origins and dynamics of the West as a measuring rod for non-European societies. Second, it then assesses Arnason’s two major exemplary civilizational studies: the Soviet model in Russia, Eastern Europe and the non-European world as well as the Japanese civilization in the broader East Asian civilizational context. The article concludes with a critical summary of Arnason’s highly innovative approach from the vantage point of a recently developing global orientation in historical and comparative sociology. (shrink)

The article analyzes the dependence of the phenomenon of education on the type of civilization in space of which the life of the world community takes place. It is based on the interaction of social institutions of the market, science and education. It “proceeds” on the surface by the division of social labor, which generates a specific form of social system of education in dependence on the social division of labor in specific socio-economic conditions. To reproduce effectively its structural and (...) functional parameters, the author suggests resorting to the paradigm of the «life cycle of educational systems in the context of a civilizational approach» based on the use of cognitive analysis. Its advantage is only that the concept «grasps» the phenomenon of education as a whole. This means that the phenomenon of civilization education is studied as a social institution and social system of the industrial society. To analyze the dynamics of knowledge change, two methodological conditions must be used: to apply the civilizational approach and the paradigm of the life cycle of social systems, since this phenomenon has a long-lasting dimension in space and time; the meaning of educational content at each stage of industrial civilization life is distinguished: natural knowledge prevailed at the stage of its origin; at the stage of growth - technical knowledge that corresponded to the essence of civilization itself; at the stage of maturity - scientific knowledge turned into ideologues of social development, which led to the emergence of technocratism and “drove” the planetary community into a dead end; at the stage of decline - technological knowledge led to the loss of mainstream guide of social development and began the catastrophic destruction of the social organism of the planet, which entails a change in the type of civilizational development; the solution is seen in the rise of the planetary community into the space of informational civilization, the transition of education to mastering methodological knowledge corresponds to it. (shrink)

Samuel Huntington's influential clash of civilizations hypothesis (Huntington, 1993; Huntington, 1996) has been widely debated, but empirical tests of his ideas about core states remain limited at the micro-level. In this paper, we bring new evidence to bear, focusing on the : Greater Asia and the Pacific. Using the AsiaBarometer, we examine the extent to which publics in the region identify with the core states of the supposedly most contentious civilizations in the region and the factors that influence those perceptions. (...) We give attention to the role of globalization and nationalism and whether both may be subsumed by religiosity as Huntington suggests. Our descriptive evidence affirms some of the tensions between the US, China, and Islamic-predominant Asia identified by Huntington as areas of potential conflict. At the same time, we find no evidence to suggest that attitudes toward core states are zero-sum; Asian publics often see rival powers as mutually good influences. Using multivariate analysis, we find that religiosity, as the clash paradigm surmises, boosts Iranian influence and undermines American influence in several predominantly Islamic states. We also find, contrary to Huntington, that overall exposure to foreign cultures leads to a more positive assessment of American influence among Chinese and Pakistanis, as well as American perceptions of China. When foreign exposure influences perceptions of Iran, the effect is modestly, but consistently, negative. Taken together, the findings raise questions about two key assumptions of the Huntington framework and suggest that alternative approaches in recent civilizations literature show greater empirical promise. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to analyze various approaches to the processes of formation of the Russian civilizational identity in the context of modern Russian nation-building and modernization of education. The article substantiates the relevance of the growing civilizational paradigm of Russian education in accordance with the value orientations of the updated Constitution of the Russian Federation, the foundation of which is the course of positioning Russia as one of the civilizational poles of multipolar world development. (...) An important condition for the construction of the Russian civilizational identity is the dissemination of ideas about Russia as a state-civilization in the socio-pedagogical space. As a result of the analysis, the authors come to the conclusion that the modern model of national and civilizational identity should be built as a multi-level education, in which the Russian civilizational identity is complemented by the image of Russia as a Eurasian civilization. It is this image that can act as a certain supra-civilizational level, acceptable in other civilizational formations, which logically fits into the modern geopolitical vector of Russia, aimed at the formation of socio-economic, political and military institutions in the Eurasian space. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is an institutional view of the state and modern Russia, as opposed to the civilizational and formational worldview. It allows you to switch public and scientific consciousness from a statocentric to a sociocentric worldview, in its own way reveals the correlation of the categories of people, society and the state in the political universe. As a result, the history of political society appears to be a socio-dialectical sequence of public legal structures built by historically (...) changeable political norms. The analysis of institutional transitions and political norms allows us to assert that modern society, including the Russian one, is rationally moving towards a libertarian institution, i.e. to co-governance of citizens equal in law. (shrink)

The attempts to interpret Russian and Southeast European history in light of a Byzantine background tend to focus on traditions of political culture, and to claim that patterns characteristic of the late Roman Empire have had a formative impact on later developments. But the effects attributed to political culture presuppose a civilizational framework, and arguments on that level must come to grips with evidence of historical discontinuity, during the Byzantine millennium as well as in later centuries and on the (...) periphery of the Byzantium cultural world. The path to a historically grounded civilizational analysis is, however, obstructed by persisting images of Byzantium as a stagnant culture, immobilized by a complete fusion of secular and sacred authority. The article discusses and criticizes some of the most influential versions of this view. (shrink)

The purpose of this investigation is to define the central issues of the current and future relations between the Western and Chinese civilizations through the evaluation of the myths and realities of these relations. The methodology is based on an interdisciplinary big-picture view of the world scene, driven by the global economy and civilization with an attempt to compare both civilizations according to key criteria. Among the findings are: Today China has become a “robot” of the West. Due to its (...) old culture and ability to invent important civilizational tools, China is becoming an independent developer of its own economic power, and it is very probable that it will surpass its master sooner or later. Due to its transformation to a global civilization, Western civilization has lost its Christian values and adopted new ones based on business. It is probable that the economic success of China will lead to a clash between civilizations, both grasping for access to the strategic resources. Practical implication: Society should elaborate the path to the development of wise civilization driven by a new political system, ecoism.Social implication: It is probable that if the “1%” won’t self-correct its misbehavior, a social revolution by the “99%” cannot be excluded from the current calendar ofWestern civilization. Originality: This investigation, by providing the interdisciplinary and civilizational approach, expands the scope of the traditional relevant approach. (shrink)

The purpose of this investigation is to define the central issues of the current and future relations between the Western and Chinese civilizations through the evaluation of the myths and realities of these relations. The methodology is based on an interdisciplinary big-picture view of the world scene, driven by the global economy and civilization with an attempt to compare both civilizations according to key criteria. Among the findings are: Today China has become a “robot” of the West. Due to its (...) old culture and ability to invent important civilizational tools, China is becoming an independent developer of its own economic power, and it is very probable that it will surpass its master sooner or later. Due to its transformation to a global civilization, Western civilization has lost its Christian values and adopted new ones based on business. It is probable that the economic success of China will lead to a clash between civilizations, both grasping for access to the strategic resources. Practical implication: Society should elaborate the path to the development of wise civilization driven by a new political system, ecoism.Social implication: It is probable that if the “1%” won’t self-correct its misbehavior, a social revolution by the “99%” cannot be excluded from the current calendar ofWestern civilization. Originality: This investigation, by providing the interdisciplinary and civilizational approach, expands the scope of the traditional relevant approach. (shrink)

The historical unity of the East Asian region - defined as made up of China, Korea and Japan - is based on three successive phases: the longue durée of the traditional Sinocentric order, the ear of imperialist conflicts from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, and the post-war developmentalist turn. The idea of a Confucian tradition or region is best understood as an attempt to superimpose a more emphatic conception of cultural identity on this historical constellation, and to rebuild bridges (...) between past and present. For a critical and comparative analysis of the claims made in relation to Confucianism and its modernizing potential, it is essential to move from the issue of capitalist development to a broader civilizational framework. (shrink)

In a review of the collective monograph «Civilization mission of Siberia: from technogenic-consumer to spiritual-ecological strategy of global and regional development», edited by Professor A. V. Ivanov, the author argues with the researchers on a number of key issues, including the system-forming role of the Russian state in the development of Eurasian civilization, nationalitis policy of the former Soviet republics, national and cultural identity. The authors of the monograph focus on the problems of defining the concept of «Greater Eurasia», the (...) civilizational tasks of Russia in the integration of Greater Eurasia. The methodological basis of the fundamental and applied research of the mission of Siberia is the synthesis of the diachronic and synchronic aspects of the civilizational approach. (shrink)

The purpose of this investigation is to define, first, wisdom from the point of view of the cognitive approach, and, second, to integrate this definition with the aspects of wisdom as defined by the semantic, cognitive, psychological approaches as well as to a certain degree by the philosophical approach. The research is based on an interdisciplinary view of the main aspects of wisdom’s development and their interdependency. Among the findings are: wisdom is information reflecting good judgment and choice; (...) it is the final cognition unit in the Semantic Ladder and has different levels of scope and quality depending on the four minds, namely basic, whole, global and universal mind, which are supported by the art of living, understood as the reflection of behavioral aspects of wisdom within the philosophical framework of the hierarchy of possible purposes of one’s life. Practical implications: Wisdom can be accomplished in all phases of living. Social implication: The quest for wisdom should be achieved by teaching wisdom once it is defined. Originality: This investigation, by providing an interdisciplinary and civilizational approach, allows for the teaching and application of wisdom in a typical manner as is done by other disciplines and their issues. (shrink)

The 1990s are marked by a change of major landmarks in the cultural-historical self-awareness of the peoples of Russia, Europe, and perhaps the entire world. Not long ago at all, "post-Soviet" social science was celebrating its liberation from the "formation" dogma in favor of a civilizational approach. This meant, first, a way out of the socialist ghetto, which had been shut off from the rest of the world and had defended this isolation with the thesis of an "irreconcilable (...) struggle between two worlds," two lifestyles, and so forth. (shrink)

The 1990s are marked by a change of major landmarks in the cultural-historical self-awareness of the peoples of Russia, Europe, and perhaps the entire world. Not long ago at all, "post-Soviet" social science was celebrating its liberation from the "formation" dogma in favor of a civilizational approach. This meant, first, a way out of the socialist ghetto, which had been shut off from the rest of the world and had defended this isolation with the thesis of an "irreconcilable (...) struggle between two worlds," two lifestyles, and so forth. (shrink)

Some of the most promising advances in recent social and sociological theory have happened in connection with historical sociology, including the ‘multiple’ or ‘entangled’ modernity as well as the civilizational approaches, despite their several problems. This article critically resumes this debate, proposing specific conceptualizations of civilization and modernity, at the global level, as well as of regions. Multidimensionality and collective subjectivities and modernizing moves cut across the whole text. The discussion starts from a specific analysis of Latin American modernity, (...) including the criticism of some recent interpretations. It then moves into more general conceptual dimensions, taking Latin America in unitary terms and as a unit of analysis, regardless of its relative internal heterogeneity, and placing of the subcontinent within a comparative view of, in particular, a third, contemporary phase of modernity, vis-à-vis China, India, Africa and other civilizational coordinates. (shrink)

The relevance of the problem of the development of sociological thinking in the context of the digitalization of society is due to the process of sophistication of society, which requires a constant increase in the ability to ensure the adequacy of social management. The subject of the research is the development of sociological thinking in the post-Soviet Ukrainian society. The purpose of the article is to comprehend the problem of the development of sociological thinking in the context of the formation (...) of a digital society. The methodology for studying the problem of the development of sociological thinking is based on the use of systemic, logical, historical, dialectical and civilizational approaches and methods. Scientific research results. The formation of sociological thinking is carried out on the basis of the theoretical ideas about this phenomenon of E.Giddens, J.Masionis, C.Mills. The need to develop sociological thinking in the modern world is due to the need to streamline and ensure the life of society in the face of growing influence of threats, dangers and risks. Sociological thinking is professional thinking, the object of which is social management at all levels of the social structure of society. The training of sociologists with a high level of sociological thinking requires a deep assimilation of specific sources devoted to understanding the social realities of society. An analysis of social changes in the post-Soviet Ukrainian society indicates the appearance in it of all the main features that characterize it as a “risk society”. The formation of an information and communication society requires the training of large groups of specialists both in the field of information and communication technologies and in the field of social and humanitarian technologies. The growth of information networks and the formation of a network social order give rise to new opportunities for the use of social and humanitarian technologies in both constructive and destructive directions. Therefore, the condition for the preservation and development of society is the existence of a broad social group capable of providing effective social management based on sociological thinking. Unfortunately, in modern Ukraine the level of sociological thinking is not measured by anyone, the trends of its changes are not tracked, and the number of professionals with a high level of sociological thinking does not correspond to the challenges faced by the post-Soviet Ukrainian society. The practical value of the results lies in substantiating the contradiction between the state of development of sociological thinking of students and the need to update the social management system in order to ensure its ability to be adequate to the threats, dangers, risks and challenges faced by our Ukrainian society. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is a philosophical analysis of the phenomenon of social responsibility and the peculiarities of the process of its transformation, which took place in the context of globalization. The objective of the study is to determine the nature of the impact of the globalization process on the transformation of the institution of responsibility. In the course of the research, systematic, formal-logical and historical methods of scientific cognition were used. A civilizational approach was also applied, (...) in which the analysis of the object and subject of research was carried out taking into account civilizational features. As a result of the research, we came to the conclusion that globalization in its modern form is a process of modernization within the whole of humanity. Currently, in the vast majority of the most economically and technologically developed countries of the planet, there is such a negative phenomenon as negative demographic dynamics. In turn, this phenomenon is accompanied by a deep crisis of the institution of the family, and with it a massive departure from traditional norms and values. In such conditions, such an important institution and instrument regulating public relations as the institute of social responsibility inevitably undergoes a serious transformation. In the course of this process, there is a transition to the so-called modern society, the fundamental difference of which from the traditional one is that it is focused on the innovative component of culture, which in fact means the ever-increasing predominance of innovative elements over traditional ones, the secular nature of public life, development, which has a progressive, and not cyclical, the formation of democratic institutions, the mass nature of education, the dominance of the universal over the local, etc. All these innovative elements of culture, taken both separately and in combination, have a decisive influence on the entire Worldview of people, including their perception of justice and responsibility. (shrink)

Ibn KhaldØun’s theory of history has been extensively discussed and interpreted in widely divergent ways by Western scholars. In the context of present debates, it seems most appropriate to read his work as an original and comprehensive version of civilizational analysis (the key concept of ‘umran is crucial to this line of interpretation), and to reconstruct his model in terms of relations between religious, political and economic dimensions of the human condition. A specific relationship between state formation and the (...) broader context of civilizational processes appears as the most central theme. This civilizational approach is then contrasted with the most influential recent Western interpretation, put forward by Ernest Gellner. Gellner translates Ibn KhaldØun’s analysis into functionalist terms and thus tones down its historical and civilizational specificity. The consequences are most obvious when it comes to discussing the unity and diversity of the Islamic world, especially with regard to the Ottoman Empire. (shrink)

Analysis of regularity of the ideology of state-building, analysis of specificity of the manifestation of this regularity at different stages of history, in particular, in antique times, - important components of research of the problem of formation of this ideology. The purpose of the article - investigate the specificity of manifestations of the interrelation political and legal consciousness, and, at the same time, the development of the ideology of state-building as a particular species of theoretically informed practical consciousness, which was (...) used by the creators of state forms in antiquity. The study is based on the principles of materialist dialectics, historicism, formational and civilizational approaches. The obtained results of a study that summarize the scientific novelty can be formulated in the form of abstracts: a) identified two lines of ideological interaction on state building in antiquity; b) formed a theoretical model of ideological matrix of state-building of antiquity. Specificity of manifestations of the interrelation political and legal consciousness in antiquity - is the existence of two lines of ideological interaction in the field of state-building in a state-organized society: the first line - the unilateral influence of political consciousness on the legal consciousness; the second line - predominantly the asymmetric inverse influence of legal consciousness on political consciousness. These two lines of ideological interaction (the unilateral influence of political consciousness on the legal consciousness and predominantly the asymmetric inverse influence of legal consciousness on political consciousness) have created original ideological matrix of state-building. Within this ideological matrix of state-building in antiquity formed corresponding view of ideological phenomenon - the ideology of state-building of western slave state. (shrink)

The article raises the question of constant violent acts, primarily military, despite the longtime general condemnation thereof. This turns us to the problem of ontology of violence. The approach suggested here is based on understanding violence as labor with the excessive use of force. This is related to the understanding of force as the truth. Thus, for the archaic mind, force (and violence), the sacred, and truth were different projection-implementations of one entity. The civilizational world model contains in (...) its basis not the principles of a single truth, but the principles of collaboration and coexistence of different stances instead of the submission to one entity. The old model of violence as a way to participate in the object’s truth and to confirm the subject’s sacred status stays effective. This paper argues that violence has an ontological dimension in the old model of a single truth, but cannot have it within a civilizational approach. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the views of Cedric Robinson on Marxism and the so-called "black Marxism". The author examines Robinson's criticism of the materialistic understanding of history from the point of view of a civilizational approach, reveals the meaning of the concept of "racial capitalism". He suggests how Marxism can fend off Robinson’s criticism and also talks about the possible fate of Marxism and its black radical criticism.

Civilizational analysis has not concerned itself too greatly with the historical experiences of the American New World. There are good reasons to correct this position and Shmuel Eisenstadt’s principal work on America’s distinct modernities goes some way to establishing the colonization of the Atlantic world as an opening phase of modernity. Nonetheless, a more far-reaching analysis of the distinctiveness of diverse American societies can be developed that goes beyond the image of a Protestant North America contrasted with southern Latin (...) cultures. This article outlines the basis for a more nuanced approach in three steps: a focus on intercivilizational engagement, examination of civilizational factors neglected by Eisenstadt and reconsideration of the conceptual range of the notion of ‘civilization’ itself. The archetype of two Americas is replaced by a model of four with some consideration given to indigenous civilizations as a fifth America. (shrink)

T opicality of the study of eurocentrism essence is caused by progressive globalization, the assertion of the systemic integrity of the world that highlites fundamentally new accent on the nature of the interaction of individual civilizations, leads to the unification of the civilizational process, its subordination to common principles and values. In philosophical and sociopolitical thought, the question of further orientations and development priorities of countries and peoples has recently become particularly acute. Analysis of the literature. We used the (...) works of the authors, who began the study of this problem: Z. Bauman, Zb. Brzezinski, U. Beck, I. Wallerstein, V. Inozemtseva, S. Kara-Murza, M. Castells, Claude Levi-Strauss, I. Osinsky, A. Panarina, A. Toynbe, F. Fukuyama, S. Huntingtonа, O. Spenglera and others, as well as the work of native scientists: Y. Afonina, V. Voronkova, A. Galchinsky, O. Gnatyuk, V. Gorbulina, L. Gubersky, O. Pakhlevskoy, Y. Pakhomova, S. Pirozhkova, M. Popovich, G. Shchekina. Purpose of the article – philosophical understanding of Eurocentrism as an ideological phenomenon and socio-political practice. The objective of the study is an analysis of the essence of the phenomenon of Eurocentrism, a description of its basic principles, a place in the life of Europe and in the world as a whole, the study of the peculiarities of the Ukrainian choice in modern conditions. The methodology of the study relies on an interdisciplinary approach, the principles of historicism and global evolutionism, the use of methods of analysis and synthesis, synergy to solve the complex problems of the dichotomy "we / they", "West-East" and their influence on the formation of a new world order. The results of the study: the article deals with the historiosophical basis of Eurocentrism, European universalism and European civilization. It reveals the methodological vulnerability and limited Western-centric interpretation and periodization of the historical process, reducing the diversity of past and future specific historical forms of its implementation to one of the possible. The idea of polycentricity, the existence of other models of social development is well grounded. In the context of new global trends of world development, each civilization is self-sufficient, distinctive in its originality and historical experience, and should develop through the self-knowledge of thenations inhabiting it and thereby fulfill its mission on the Earth. The conclusions of the study – progressive globalization and the formation of the systemic integrity of the world heighlight fundamentally new accents when it comes to the "unity of civilization", the interaction and interaction of different communities and cultures. The unity and integrity of human existence presupposes its diversity, the preservation of cultural identity and features of lifestyles, the mentality of nations and ethnic groups but not the subordination to a single model of civilizational being. (shrink)

ANNOTATION Sardak S.E. Global Regulatory System of Human Resources Development. – Manuscript. Thesis for the Doctor of Economic Science academic degree with major in 08.00.02 – World Economy and international economic relations. – SHEE «Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman», Kyiv, 2014. The preconditions and factors of the global economic system with the identified relevant subjects areas and mechanisms of regulation instruments have been investigated. The crucial role of humans in the global economic system as a key factor (...) of production, the main resource, the producer and the consumer of economic and social benefits that are exposed to global threats, problems, challenges, trends and subjects has been confirmed. There have been revealed the causes and consequences of the public institutions transformation under the influence of globalization, which formed a qualitatively new conditions for social and economic development that determine the need for further changes in the areas of conceptual guideline for the management of human resources development, optimization of tasks, state and international institutions activity forms, integration of efforts as for monitoring, planning and forecasting. The modern major instruments and spheres of international cooperation to ensure human development have been determined. The integrated characteristic of human resources and their role in social development both from the standpoint of their use in labour processes and as a medium of civilization and social utility with the help of the categorical classification system organizing and expanding which enables to design and apply the appropriate approaches at all managerial levels have been defined. The necessity and the concept of human resources development in the context of the content of managerial influence identifying (self-development, self-management and external control of development) at different administrative levels that ensures the growth of human capital to the limits of its potential have been analysed. The survey of human activity system aspects in the global world, taking into account the parametrization of the global environment, its structure, management and development have been realized. The formed methodology principles of managerial influence on the development of human resources with scientific schools, hardness degrees, available models, research and providing theoretical and practical implementation peculiarities for groups of countries and territories of the world taken into consideration have been examined. There have been noted civilization and national differences in the forms of managerial influence on the development of human resources, which lead to the formation of human resources development national control systems conditioned by different value public strategic guidelines, especially in relation to social security, education, national management and state migration policy. The current and future requirements for global human resources development which are proposed to be achieved by the development and formalization of global civilizational paradigm of social development due to social coordination interaction have been given. The influence of the institute of state on the human resources development has been evaluated and it has been proved that in the beginning of the XXI century in the global environment the institute of state is the ultimate guarantor of its citizens’ labour ability and vital activity renewal, that makes it the main instrument of managerial influence on human development. The methodology of countries and territories matrix positioning by human development qualitative criteria and population size quantitative parameters which allows to design unified managerial measures as for human resources for similar national economies in the context of global regulatory trends has been proposed. The strategic trends of improvement of human resources development in the national economy, taking into account the differences in the development of human resources in different countries and areas which vary and differ in their focus, content and ways of implementation for such groups. The varying criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the global impact on human resources development, taking into account the natural, biological, technological, economic, social and management dimensions and the results of human resources development management in social and economic systems at various levels have been revealed. The periodization and the forecast of the global dynamics of human resources development by analyzing and modeling the values of the absolute and relative terms correlation character have been carried out, which enables to make their retrospective and prospective comparison and to find chronological boundaries of qualitatively different periods. The configuration of the human resource development global coordinate system as a set of interrelated principles, components, fields, tools, frameworks, management levels and forms of managerial influence that allows with the help of institutional means to adapt the state of human resources development to a globally varying environment. (shrink)

Critical approaches to the canon of Western political and legal thought from the point of view of race or gender have developed in recent years, as have studies highlighting the connections between supposedly universalist philosophies and their role in sustaining or legitimizing imperial and colonial conquests. On social contract theory in particular, seminal works include Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract and Carole Pateman’s The Sexual Contract. The importance of this type of work cannot be understated, and Mills is right to (...) insist on the “blinding whiteness of the discipline.” In the case of Hobbes, I argue, the privilege established in his texts is better qualified as “civilizational” rather than “racial.” Hobbes’s texts construct a certain image of civilization, a form of exclusion and domination that eschews biological determinism in favor of social, historical bias. This “civilizational” thinking certainly can work – and will work later on in conjunction with modern racism and white privilege – to exclude many. The racial contract – as per Mills – is only a late installment on a more fundamental one, the civilizing contract. (shrink)

The aggravation of the global environmental and military-political crisis has become evidence that the postmodern era has ended and the time has come for post-postmodern and profound civilizational transformation, the technological base of which is renewable energy and artificial intelligence; the main social environment is distributed capitalism (J. Rifkin) and social networks; and the main driving forces and mechanisms of social self-organization are humanity, competitiveness and double reflection (E. Giddens). Since humanity has not yet fully actualized the basic values (...) of survival and development and has not paid enough attention to the problem of climate catastrophe, more drastic measures to mitigate it will be implemented in the process of its deployment (A. Honnacker) and in the difficult conditions of military-political opposition to democracy and authoritarianism. One of the main rational worldview and practical guidelines of post-postmodernism is classical Pragmatism, which is based on human experience, an important element of which should be scientific knowledge, which is confirmed experimentally. Societies that are dominated by pragmatic and democratic egalitarian relations that promote human self-realization and creative freedom can channel natural aggressiveness into competition to improve the well-being of all its members. The ruling elite in totalitarian societies, in which man is humiliated and exploited, and in which aggressiveness accumulates due to polarization into upper and lower classes of the population, may start wars in order to prevent self-destruction from within, directing aggression outwards against other countries. Therefore, the global community in today's conditions needs to expand the worldview and orientation horizon of every citizen of the world from the everyday concerns of life support to the understanding and actualization of the absolute values of survival and development of humanity. Pragmatism, from a purely methodological point of view, is aimed at ensuring that a person is guided by life experience in his activity and cognition, putting forward certain hypotheses regarding his own activity and cognition, simultaneously and/or later experimentally testing these hypotheses on the basis of practical results. Thanks to the pragmatist approach, a person increasingly experiments with the choice of innovative behavior models and avoids predetermined outdated life guidelines and ideological grand narratives. Based on her own experience and online social communication with other people, he or she is convinced of the effectiveness of certain value models of behavior that have not only a socio-economic, but also a moral dimension. A pragmatist approach focused on global human values of survival and development is an important tool that should ensure urgent civilizational transformation and the avoidance of destructive environmental and military-political disasters. In the conditions of modern civilizational transformation, survival is possible only with a radical intensification of the development of human-centered social self-organization. (shrink)

This article identifies civilizational analysis as one response to a recent crisis in the sociology of large-scale social configurations and explores how far the concept of civilization can go in analyzing the contemporary global social constellation. The reasoning proceeds in four steps. First, a brief review of the recent conceptual debate in social theory and historical sociology leads to the conclusion that concepts such as ‘civilization’ and ‘modernity’ still work with too strong presuppositions about continuity and commonality of patterns (...) of world interpretation. Second, a proposal is made to distinguish several basic problématiques that all human collectivities need to address and to suggest that such a distinction lends itself to research-oriented disentangling of various aspects of social phenomena. In an explorative manner, third, this approach will be applied to South Africa and Brazil, two social configurations that can fruitfully be studied as collectivities but lend themselves much less to civilizational analysis. By way of conclusion, finally, the trajectories of these non-European modernities will briefly be compared to the European one to illustrate the potential of this approach for a global sociology of plural trajectories of modernity. (shrink)

Islam hadhari or civilizational Islam, an approach promoted by the current Malaysian government to achieve development in accordance with the principles of Islam through the mastery of knowledge and development of the individual and the nation.

Biosemiotics is a theoretical approach that makes a research on signs, sign systems and semantic processes of the biosphere. It provides a conceptual framework for describing biological phenomena at all levels of the organization of life, and its relevance may be due to the unstable relationship between culture and nature. We are able to use this approach to initiate safe cultural forms and practices. Biosemiotic approach makes it possible to combine cultural and semiotic concepts with biological and (...) biosemiotic frames in the relevance to ecosemiotics, as we are able to update cultural civilizational meanings and identify new vectors of human’s civilization development in the epoch of the post-anthropocentrism. (shrink)

This article approaches the topic of civilizations and economies through a discussion of two key texts that appeared during the first wave of interest among social scientists for the phenomenon of civilization: ‘Note on the Notion of Civilization’ ([1913] 1998) by Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, and ‘Author’s Introduction’ ([1920a] 1930) by Max Weber. Durkheim and Mauss were of the opinion that civilizations have their own, unique form of existence that is very difficult to understand and theorize. Civilizations, they nonetheless (...) suggest, are marked off by symbolic boundaries and consist of elements that are hard for political authorities to control, including money, commerce, techniques and tools. Max Weber’s most important attempt to struggle with the idea of civilization, can be found in his portrait of Western civilization in ‘Author’s Introduction’. Weber, as is well known, suggests in this writing that Western civilization is characterized by a ‘specific and peculiar rationalism’ — and he devotes a large part of the text to a portrait of modern rational capitalism. This type of capitalism, we conclude, is consequently civilizational in nature. Its emergence, as Weber also shows elsewhere, cannot be explained by referring to some special group or nation. The two works by Weber and Durkheim and Mauss, the article concludes, allow us to better understand civilizations as distinct social-cultural configurations and also to approach their economic dimension. Both works emphasize the fact that one needs to use an interdisciplinary as well as a comparative approach to undertake a civilizational as well as a civilizational-economic analysis. (shrink)

This book investigates modern global civilization, offering an alternative to post-colonial theories and the "multiple modernities" approach (as well as the civilizational theory linked to it). It argues that modernity has become a global civilization that is heterogeneous and intertwined with other civilizations, and also aims at a renewal of critical theory that is not US-centric and Eurocentric, focusing instead on China, South Asia (India) and Latin America (Brazil). Dealing with the themes of centre-periphery relations, complexity (including culture (...) and religion), democracy and emancipatory possibilities, this book is based on general theoretical ideas such as collective subjectivity, the interplay of memory and creativity, and the concept of "modernizing moves," so as to deal with historical contingency. (shrink)

Critically evaluating and synthesizing all the previous research on the phenomenology of Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, the book brings a new voice into contemporary philosophical discussions. It elucidates the development of Patočka’s phenomenology and offers a critical appropriation of his work by connecting it with non-phenomenological approaches. The first half of the book offers a succinct, and systematizing, overview of Patočka’s phenomenology throughout its development to help readers appreciate the motives behind and grounds for its transformations. The second half systematically (...) explicates, critically examines and creatively develops Patočka’s concept of the movement of existence as the most promising part of his asubjective phenomenology. The book appeals to new readers of Patočka as well as his scholars, and to students and researchers of contemporary philosophy concerned with topics such as embodiment, personal identity, intersubjectivity, sociality, or historicity. By re-assessing Patočka’s philosophy of history and his civilizational analysis, it also helps to better articulate the question of the place of Europe in the post-European world. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging and field-changing work Steven Collins argues that the study of Theravada Buddhism needs to separated from the rather dated and stagnant field of textual history and approached both "civilizationally" and as a "practice of the self." By civilizationally, he means that instead of seeing Buddhism as a set of "original" teachings of the so-called historical Buddha from the 5th century BC to the present, it should rather be viewed as an effort by many teachers and visionaries over (...) time to make sense of what it means to lead a worthy life. The purveyors of Buddhist philosophy did not consider themselves to be preservers of an archaic body of rules and ethical guidelines; they were designing a dynamic way of living and confronting human problems in a timeless way. Using approaches to the very idea of the self promoted by Foucault and Hadot, he compares Theravada Buddhist ways of understanding and "practicing" the self to modernist and postmodernist ideas about "philosophy as a way of life." Rather than applying positivist and historicist approaches, Buddhism should be assessed philosophically, literarily, and ethically, using its own vocabulary and rhetorical tools. Treated in this manner, Buddhist notions of the self can be applied to contemporary ideas of self-care and the promotion of human flourishing. The book covers topics such as spiritual practice, ultimate versus provisional truth, systematic versus narrative thinking, meditation versus virtue, and history versus philosophy. It is a bold and complex way of understanding the impact that Buddhist ways of knowing can have in the world today, bringing them into conversation with modern psychology, literary studies, ethics, gender and sexuality studies, and philosophy. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is the analysis of the causes of the systemic crisis that hit modern civilization through the description of its main structures, identifying the relationship between its elements, assessments of their heuristic potential. This will open up opportunities for finding ways to resolve this crisis, new directions of civilizational development. Theoretical basis of the research are the systems analysis, socio-philosophical and philosophical-anthropological approaches as well as the analysis of scientific developments in the field of global (...) studies. Originality lies in the fact that this article is the first to show the connection between the main structural elements of human civilization as a system. Change in one of the parameters leads to a change in all the others, together with a change in civilization as a whole. Conclusions. The reason for the deep crisis that hit modern civilization is its imbalance as a system. The most important elements of this system are population size, resources and technology, and the core is consciousness in its individual and collective forms. The perception, processing, and use of information, which is a defining civilizational resource, as well as the stability of the entire system depend on the state of consciousness. Consciousness, based on old, obsolete principles and stereotypes, is unable to cope with the most acute challenges of time. New consciousness, since it is formed, will mark the transition to a new theoretical picture of the world and a model of human behavior, in which people will act, driven by proven knowledge, and not willfulness and prejudice. The idea of forming a productive information environment where the ideas of constructiveness and creative work will dominate rather than consumerism and destruction, as is the case at present, must become the categorical imperative of the new consciousness. (shrink)

The relevance of the study has two sides — individual and general. In its essential aspect, it is the development of achievements of predecessors by consistently taking into account the latest data on trends and changes in the interconnected spheres of education, economics and culture. In the individual aspect, it is about improving the professional means of improving the efficiency of teaching foreign languages in order to form students with a high level of linguistic-professional competence. Public relevance is the goal (...) of educating young people in a new patriotic direction, because today, due to various global influences, the classical principles of life in the agrarian system, created in recent centuries, or in the industrial society, are devalued due to various global influences. The purpose of the study in a broad sense was to highlight the causes and consequences of the European religious Reformation as the main factor in accelerating the movement of the whole of Western Europe to the position of the world leader that previously belonged to China. We see precis e tasks in the integrated analysis on the basis of the latest discoveries of many humanities and exact sciences in the educational, economic and cultural systems of Germany and other successful European states. On this basis, we hope to fulfill the public task which is to make significant proposals in the plans and practice of higher education reform in Ukraine. The methodology of the study relies on the best classical means, on the principle of historicism and the continuity of the connection between the material and the ideal, a modern multidisciplinary approach. For the highest effectiveness of the research, we will use the latest scientific data and recommendations of the innovators who collect and use these data. The results of the study mostly follow from the mentioned new discoveries. They testify that in ancientt history, in the role of locomotives of civilizational progress in the western part of Eurasia, direct descendants of the inventors of agriculture acted, among which the especially great contribution belongs to the ancestors of Ukrainians from the territories of Trypillya and the Great Trypillya. It is indicated that during the existence of the Great Trypillya, future German farmers acquainted themselves with the technologies of the Great Trypillya, so the German language, through borrowed words, became part of the Indo-European family. It is noted that after the collapse of the Great Trypillya, the Germans and Slavs became neighbors along the meridian Elbe. In the age of steppe invasions, future Ukrainians and Germanic tribes did not get in contact, and the influence of the Roman Empire was mostly experienced by western lands. Emphasis was placed on the evolution of ideological, religious and other paradigms in the territory of Germany after the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, which determined the development of the nation for the next hundreds of years. The religious and philosophical paradigmatic origins of those unique features of culture and education that during the nineteenth century were emphasized. brought Germany to the position of the scientific and technological leader of the world. The high role of German neo-humanism and the Berlin Research University were noted. In the final section, special attention is paid to religious issues and to the destructive impact on social and other processes in the German immigration flows of Islamists. The conclusions focus on the competition of several important paradigms in the education of modern Germany and the proposals made to incorporate German experience in legislation and the use of the Bologna process. An important caution is made regarding the choice of Germany's strategy for the development of the scientific and educational complex 'within the framework of the Lisbon project. This country has become a world leader not only in alternative energy, but also in the implementation of the fourth industrial revolution. We consider an example of this leadership like the regular world conferences in Davos, which involve the majority of influential politicians and economists. (shrink)