If the French enlighteners were optimistic about the future, they believed in the good beginning of man; knew who is the enemy of science and who is hindering the movement towards the kingdom of Reason; then the thinkers of Italy were in a different situation.
The Renaissance, which gave the ideal to Europe, was replaced by social and political decline, which could not but affect the original concept of history.
J. Vico (1668-1744), who represented world history as a repeating circular movement of all peoples from a period of savagery to civilization and then a return to the original state, which is the starting point for a new ascent. (See: “Foundations new science about the general nature of nations "M., K., 1994)
G. Vico is concerned with the question of why the great cultures of Greece and Rome fell into decay. He begins the solution to this question with an understanding of the essence of human nature. The fact that human nature is initially social is beyond doubt, but the fact that it is absolutely virtuous, as the thinkers of the Enlightenment claim, is a doubtful conclusion.
The fact that all peoples, without exception, have a certain religion, enter into marriages, and carry out burial, speaks in favor of the social nature of man.
As for the second thesis, from the point of view of Vico, a person is neither kind nor angry, although he is characterized by selfishness and lust for power, greed and striving for profit. And only Divine providence guides him on the true path, prompts him to mercy and prompts him to goodness and justice.
G. Vico analyzes historical material from the life of various peoples and identifies three main epochs in their history: the time of the Gods, the time of Heroes and the time of Men.
Each time has its own nature, character, law, language and state.
The time of the Gods is a state of savagery and unbridled bestial freedom. Possessing a weak mind, but rich in imagination, people created a pagan religion that curbed their savagery, accepted the power of authority that united priestly and monarchical power, discovered natural law for themselves.
The first wisdom of the pagans was myths as the rules of society and its true history.
In the era of Heroes, the family of authority and authority grows, taking under its patronage representatives of other clans and tribes. Representatives of the power of authority became the princes of the human race. But the treatment of the nobles with the plebeians led to collisions, which were partly resolved by the efforts of the state in the form of an aristocratic republic. Natural law was seen as the law of power, limited by the efforts of religion. The language of this era was the language of the "heroic signs" of the coats of arms.
The Age of Men begins when the plebeians realize that by their human nature they are equal to the noble, and then they create a civil estate. As a result of the mixing of natural law and civil law, people's republics arose with their own legislation. The people's republics, having destroyed the power of authority, took the first step towards their own destruction. The people's republic was replaced by anarchy - the worst of all tyrannies, for it demonstrated unbridled freedom, no different from the primitive bestial freedom of the era of the Gods. As a result of anarchy, the people return to their original state of savagery.
All 3 forms of social status in the real history of peoples are presented in the form of various modifications, which does not negate the general scenario.
From the point of view of G. Vico, movement from one era to another is not a movement in a circle. This state of a spiral with its amplitude of oscillation, the higher the rise, the deeper the fall. And the examples of Greece, Rome, Europe.
The reason for this Return is rooted in the nature of man. Pursuing his interests, a man can reach an animal state, and in this his will is manifested. Although the same will can move a person to establish a higher order. Willpower is such that people can not only retard development, but also reverse it, because at the beginning people are content only with the necessary, then they pay attention to the useful, notice the convenient, have fun with pleasure, become corrupted with luxury, go crazy, squandering their property.
"The nature of a nation also corresponds to the nature of man: at first it is cruel, then it is harsh, soft, refined, and finally disbanded."
A person remains selfish, takes care of himself more than of others. But he is also inclined to good, although not without help from above. Therefore, the essence of man is special and there is no point in extending the laws of nature to society and man, as the philosophy of the Enlightenment does.
J. Vico is a rationalist, but not of the Cartesian school. His rationalism gravitates towards the empirical tradition, at the origins of which are T. Hobbes, J. Locke. (See: Leviathan, Two Treatises on Governance
Reason is not given in a finished and complete form. It is the result of the development of man and the culture of his people. G. Vico was one of the first who made an attempt to see in history the epochs connecting each other in time, each of which possessed an intrinsic value and necessity.
§4. I. Herder and his history as the progress of "humanity".
Of interest is the work of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 - 1803) "Ideas for the philosophy of the history of mankind", where he makes an attempt to comprehend the history of mankind, to reveal the laws of social development.
The initial thesis: "The philosophy of history is a part of the Philosophy of nature, and therefore the basic laws of nature are the laws of the development of society," because all existence in the greatest and smallest is based on the same Laws. But each creation has its own world, which ensures the peculiarity of its existence.
Sharing Leibniz's doctrine of monads, Herder expresses the idea of the self-sufficiency of nature, which, while maintaining its unity, ensures life in the diversity of its manifestations from stone to crystal, from crystal to plants, from them to animals, and from animals to humans - this is the path of development of Nature , where the action of the Law of Ascending Forces (which implies action) is manifested. And the law of domination of the basic form (which finds its embodiment in man).
The great fusion of the lower organic forces gave birth to the soul or spirit of a person, he rose above the body and became its master. According to Herder, the essence of the human spirit is humanity. It includes: will, reason, ethical and aesthetic feelings, philanthropy and justice, summing up humanity.
However, humanity is not an innate, but an acquired quality. Initially, it exists only as a possibility. This opportunity can only be realized through education based on the best traditions.
Thus, Herder's philosophy of history is based on 2 principles: the action of "organic forces" and tradition as a factor in education.
Nature gave man the ages of life, among them childhood and adolescence, set aside for the formation of reason, humane spirit and human way of life.
The diversity of the human environment does not exclude, but presupposes the solution, first of all, of one problem - the problem of humanity. Everything else is decided from the standpoint of humanity.
Herder also raises the problem of communication. The formation of humanity is excluded outside of communication. Through communication and education, a person becomes a person.
Considers Herder and the possibilities of culture as a factor in education, the role of language as an organizer of abstract thinking; the role of religion with its focus on the likeness of man and God, for the position obliges.
Among the unnamed factors of historical progress, the family and the state occupy a special place. The first personifies the power of authority, the second - the authority of power. Unfortunately, both the family and the state are not always at their best, as evidenced by practice and comparative analysis existing forms board. Despotism in the family and tyranny in society are not based on reason, but on unbridled feelings.
Only those who by all means develop the spirit of humanity in themselves constantly renew their appearance. This applies not only to people, but also to entire nations. And if they stopped in their development, this means that they stopped using the mind for its intended purpose.
The creative power of the mind is capable of transforming chaos into order. So, Herder's philosophy of history differs from the concepts of other enlighteners. In its context, world history appears as a complexly organized system that resolves the contradictions of chaos and order through the self-improvement of "organic forces" and the achievement of a certain stage of humanity in the form of humanity. Not everything is strictly consistent in Herder's concept, but the pathos of the idea of history as a progress of humanity captivates.
§ 5. Hegel on the "cunning" of the world mind.
The philosophy of Hegel (1770-1831) is the pinnacle of classical rationalism. "Reason rules the world" - the credo of Hegel's philosophy, which is manifested in all the works of the German thinker, including on the pages of "Lectures on the Philosophy of History".
From Hegel's point of view, the essence of the world, its substance is the "absolute idea" - the impersonal world mind, which in its development generates all the diversity of the world, recognizing itself as a subject of action.
All the existing diversity of the world, including the social, is contained only potentially and only through the efforts of the world mind, it acquires its reality, its history.
As for the World Mind, being a substance, it does not need external material, but "takes everything from itself, acting as its own prerequisite and ultimate goal."
The first stage in the formation of an absolute idea is nature. It has no history. Only through its negation does the absolute idea become a “Thinking Spirit”, which continues its self-liberation at the level of subjective, objective and absolute spirit, demonstrating in each case its own measure of freedom. Having passed the stages of individual and social development, in the status of world history, it becomes a way of self-knowledge of the World Mind. Thus, the philosophy of history according to Hegel is a reflection of the Absolute Idea - the World Mind in the forms of law, morality and morality. Morality provides the norms of what is due, morality demonstrates what exists at the level of the family, civil society and the state. As for the law, it determines the measure of freedom, providing the rules of public relations.
The family is a way of reproducing society and an institution of upbringing. Civil society is a state where “everyone is a goal and everyone else is a means,” but everyone is equal before the law. The state is the highest form of community of people with a focus on achieving harmony between the individual and the public.
That which “should be” is contained in the essence of the World Mind - an absolute idea and “is realized with necessity at every stage of the development of history. From Hegel's point of view, philosophy should “contribute to the understanding that the real world is what it should be, that true good, the universal world mind, is a force capable of realizing itself. Its content and implementation is the world history of mankind. "
The actual is a proper, necessary manifestation of the World Mind. The unreasonable is deprived of the status of the real, although it remains existing. From these positions, "reconciliation" with reality is achieved through cognition, affirmation of the positive and overcoming the negative in the process of realizing the final goal.
But if all events developed in accordance with the logic of self-knowledge of the World Mind, then they would serve only as an illustration of its self-development. However, history is only “virtually” contained in the absolute spirit, but is realized through the will and actions of people, conditioned by their interests. Pursuing private interests, mobilizing his will and investing all his strength to achieve the goal, a person becomes what he is, that is, a specific, definite personality of his society.
Against the background of private aspirations, a common goal, love for the Fatherland, sacrifice, make up a scanty amount. History turns into an arena of willful aspirations, where statesmanship and individual virtue are sacrificed. But if you rise above this picture, you can see that the results of people's actions turn out to be different than the goals that they pursued, because in parallel with their actions, something is happening that is hidden from their eyes, but this something edits the results of their activities. In this Hegel sees the "cunning" of the World Reason, which, one way or another, puts everything in its place.
The rigidity of the assertion that people are a means (instrument) of the World Mind does not bother Hegel, because he believes that the presence in every person of the eternal and unconditional - morality and religiosity sets the participation in the World Mind, ensures their intrinsic value.
So, having made the substance - the World Mind an object of development, Hegel introduced processality and irreversibility, becoming and alienation into history, because only in self-development the spirit (world mind) cognizes itself and comes to the realization of its freedom. Empirical history, as a sum of various factors, acquired the idea of freedom, which could be realized only in concrete forms. The coincidence of the logical and the historical, which was based on the identity of being and thinking, made possible a philosophical consideration of history, the main "hero" of which was the mind, knowing itself through philosophy.
The dialectic of the individual and the general allowed Hegel to avoid the situation of being hostage to historical concrete facts, and to prevent the “idea” from going into the realm of pure speculation.
And although world history is not an "arena of happiness", but rather a picture of grief over the evil being done, the assertion of the priority of reason removes the problem of the omnipotence of evil, because truth and good ultimately coincide and this unity is the guarantor of the victory of good.
Our actions, good or bad, are conditioned by the manifestation of freedom. But freedom is not given, as the French Enlightenment claims. According to Hegel, freedom is acquired through education and disciplining knowledge. And in this sense, freedom is not a duty, but a certain "disciplinary matrix" that presupposes a certain measure of responsibility. This is another indirect evidence of Hegel's belief in the victory of good and the march of history as the self-development of the World Mind.
The new historical consciousness, which finally won the XDC century, owes much to the Italian philosopher of history Giambattista Vico (1668–1744). His main work The foundations of the new science of the general nature of nations (Principi di scienza nuova, 1725) is difficult to understand and was little known during his lifetime. However, the basic idea of this work is simple. According to Vico, we can only have clear and reliable knowledge of what we ourselves have created [In a sense, Vico's basic idea has already been formulated by Hobbes. (See his Six Lessons to the Professors of the Mathematics. T. Hobbs. English Works. Ed. By W. Molesworth. Vol. 7. - P. 183 ff). “Some of the arts are demonstrable, others are not. Evidence-based are those where the construction of their object is in the power of the creator, who, when proving, does nothing beyond the conclusion of the consequences from his own actions... The reason for this is that the science of any subject is deduced from the prediction of its causes, generation and construction. Consequently, evidence is available where the reasons are known, not where they are sought. Therefore, geometry is conclusive, since the lines and shapes that we are talking about are drawn and described by ourselves. Jurisprudence (civil philosophy) is also evidence-based, since we ourselves create the state (the commonwealth). But since natural bodies are known to us not as our constructions, but by their consequences, then there is not evidence of what the causes we are looking for are, but of what they can be. " Hobbes does not associate the consequences of this principle with historical science. Keeping in mind natural scientists, Kant also writes that “the mind sees only what it creates according to its own plan” (I. Kant. Critique pure reason... Preface to the second edition. Translation by NLossky. Checked and edited by Ts. Arzakanyan and M. Itkin. - M., 1994 .-- S. 14). For the first time only in Herder (Johann Gottfried von Herder, 1744-1803), Droysen (Johann Gustav Droysen, 1808-1884) and Dilthey (Wilhelm Dilthey, 1833-1911) we find a systematization of history and the sciences of the spirit, which corresponds to Vico's attempt to create new humanitarian sciences.].
Vico had in mind above all society and history, as well as all the institutions and laws (ordinances) that constitute society. Created by man is sharply different from that created by God, that is, from nature. Since nature was created not by people, but by God, then only God is able to fully and completely understand it. We can describe natural processes and find out how physical phenomena behave in experimental situations, but we will never get knowledge about why nature behaves in this way and not otherwise. People can cognize nature only "from the outside", from the "position of the observer." We will never understand nature "from the inside" as God does. For us, only those things that we understand “from the inside” are fully understandable and intelligible, provided that their creator is a person [See. Giambattista Vico. Foundations of a new science about the general nature of nations. Translated by A. Huber. - M.-K., 1994.]. Thus, for Vico, the distinction between what is created by man and what is given by nature has important epistemological implications.
Vico's basic idea has several implications. First, the Foundations of a New Science make adjustments to Cartesianism. Descartes argued that humanities research cannot provide us with reliable knowledge. Referring to his study of the social life of Rome, Descartes ironically asked if we could ever learn more of what Cicero's maidservant knew? Vico, as we can see, is of the opposite opinion. We can have reliable knowledge only in sciences, the objects of research of which, in a certain sense, were created by man. This applies to arithmetic, geometry (in which we "create" definitions, axioms and inference rules) and history. In natural science, we will never achieve a similar degree of reliability.
Second, Vico foresaw the contemporary controversy in the philosophy of science over the relationship between the humanities and the natural sciences. The difference between them, says Vico, is associated not only with their methods, but also with their inherent types of relations between the subject of cognition and the object of cognition. For Vico, society, culture and history are the products of the human spirit [This thesis of Vico is central to Dilthey's interpretation of the philosophy of the humanities. See W. Dilthey. Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften. - Frankfurt am Main, 1970. - S. 180.]. So, in the "new science" the researcher tries to understand society and culture as an expression of human intentions, desires and motives. In the humanities, we are not dealing with the Cartesian distinction between subject and object. In them, the object of knowledge is itself a subject (people and the society they created). In the humanities, a researcher in a certain sense personally "participates" in the life and work of other people. On the contrary, in relation to nature, he is always in the position of "observer". This circumstance determines the difference between the methods of the humanities and natural sciences.
“But in this dense night darkness, covering the first Antiquity, the most distant from us, there appears an eternal, non-entering light, the light of that Truth that cannot be questioned in any way, namely, that the first World of Citizenship was undoubtedly made by people ... Therefore, the corresponding Foundations can be found (as they are to be found) in the modifications of our own human mind. Anyone who thinks about it should be surprised how all the Philosophers seriously tried to study the Science of the World of Nature, which was made by God and which therefore He alone can cognize, and neglected to think about the World of Nations, that is, about the World of Citizenship, which was made by people, and the Science of which, therefore, can be available to people ”[p.108].
Vico's epistemological reflections also touch on one of the fundamental questions of the humanities: how modern man can understand what has been created by previous historical eras and other cultures? Vico believes that when historians and philosophers speak about the past, they reveal a lack of historical consciousness. They attribute to the past tenses the understanding they themselves possess. But human mental and intellectual views change from era to era. Knowledge formulated and used at one historical time is difficult to express and use at another historical time. An example of anachronism, Vico emphasizes, is the assumption that the natural law of the 18th century existed in the early history of mankind. The exponents of the concept of natural law (Hobbes, Grotius, and others) forget that it took two thousand years before philosophers developed the modern theory of natural law. Vico. Foundations. - S. 104, 107.]. Moreover, we must caution ourselves against believing that people of the past had a language, the art of poetry, and a rational mind that correspond to what we find in our time.
If we want to understand people of the past, we must study their language (Vico also calls the "new science" philology). We must dive into them life situations and look at things from their point of view. This approach is evident now, in the twentieth century, but it was not so in the time of Vico. We received at our disposal the "historical consciousness" for which Vico fought at the beginning of the 18th century.
However, how can you "immerse" yourself in other cultures and eras? Vico is critical of the radical Enlightenment view that the Bible is made up of myths and legends, that is, church-backed "superstitions" and "fictions." For Vico, myths are proof that early eras organized their experiences in different conceptual schemes than later eras. The early eras looked at the world through mythological glasses. This world can only be reconstructed with the help of "fantasy" (or, as Herder put it fifty years later, the immersion of Einfuhlung). With the help of fantasy, we can, so to speak, feel the life situations of other people, participate in their lives and understand their world "from the inside". Fantasy is the ability to imagine other ways of categorizing the world. Treating myths as “superstitions”, we lose the opportunity to understand how people of past eras thought, how they, based on the mythological understanding of reality, acted and thereby changed themselves and their world. Vico says that we can learn to use our fantasy methodically if we remember what it is like to be a child. We are often surprised at the strange combinations of words and associations in children, their "poetry", "irrationalism", the inability to draw logical conclusions. This is exactly what the primitive and prelogical mentality of the first people should have been [In its modern form, this thesis was developed by the French sociologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl (1857-1939) (see La mentality primitive. Paris, 1922).]. Similar to the process of transformation of a child into an adult, rational and moral individual, we must imagine the gradual development of different nations ability for rational thinking. For Vico, there is an analogy between the development of a people and the development of the individual. Phylogenesis (development of a species) resembles ontogenesis (development of an individual), the microcosm reflects the macrocosm. All peoples experience childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age, decline and death. This cycle repeats endlessly.
For Vico, the understanding that is acquired with the help of our imagination is not knowledge based on ordinary facts, nor is it knowledge based on the relationship between concepts. It is more reminiscent of the "intuitive insight" we believe we have about the character and behavior of our close friend. Vico argues that because of our common human nature, we can understand other people from the inside. In other words, we can interpret their actions as an expression of intentions, desires and reasons. We come closer to this understanding when we try to understand what it meant to be a man in Plato's Athens or Cicero's Rome. We can acquire such comprehension, according to Vico, only with the help of empathy or fantasy (compare how, depending on the position of the “participant” or “observer,” the conflict between “from within” and “from without” is understood differently). By this, Vico seeks to characterize comprehension, or knowledge, which is neither deductive, nor inductive, nor hypothetical-deductive. He thus seeks to offer humanitarian research a new research program and new methodological principles.
At the same time, Vico's Foundations of New Science are a synthesis of philology, sociology and historiography. The new science describes three main historical epochs: 1) the time of the gods; 2) the time of heroes and 3) the time of humanity. For Vico, this is the “ideal eternal history” through which all nations pass. Of course, he does not believe that all nations develop in the same way. They are more or less close to this "model" of "ideal eternal history", or, to use Weber's terminology, to the ideal type historical movement... A nation arises, matures and dies. New nations are repeating the same cycle. Vico realizes that the "ideal eternal history" cannot be fully explained in terms of the intentions of individuals. He points out that human actions often have unpredictable consequences. In this regard, Vico speaks of the incomprehensible ways of divine providence in history. His position differs both from the stoicist understanding of rock and from Spinoza's point of view of necessity. God, or Divine providence, does not directly interfere with history, but through human actions realizes what no one could even think about [To the extent that human creatures were created by God, they will never be able to fully understand their role in divine plans , that is, how Divine providence uses human nature to realize His purpose in relation to people. From a slightly different point of view, it can be said that the sciences about people as "natural" and as "spiritual" creatures are radically different from each other (cf. Vico's division of the natural and human sciences).].
In the light of this "ideal-typical" model, we can come closer to the content of the picture of history developed by Vico. When faced with the forces of nature, the first people experienced fear and horror. Intentions and goals were attributed to nature. In a sense, everything that existed seemed sacred. These people did not possess universal concepts and developed language that arose at a later time. Their worldview was based on analogies and associative thinking [According to Vico, we can find traces of this worldview in our language. We no longer believe that the river has a "mouth", but we continue to talk about the "mouth" of the river. For us, the tornado does not have an "eye", but we continue to talk about the "eye of the tornado".]. They imagined that traditions, habits, and institutions were established by the gods. What is right and just was communicated to them by the oracle. The first "natural law" was understood as "God-given". The form of government was literally theocratic. As we can see, it was a way of life in which everything was interconnected and dependent on the primitive "nature" or mentality of a person. According to Vico, this was "the time of the gods." During this period, people created religion, art and poetry that fit their lifestyle and emotional outlook.
In the next stage, during the "times of heroes", powerful patriarchs (patres) became the leaders of families and tribes. The weak sought protection and became plebeians. This era is described in Homer's Iliad [Vico emphasizes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were created by different authors. He believes that these poems are 600 years apart. The Iliad is also not a work of one person, but the result of folk art (folk poetry). Thus, Vico begins a discussion of the so-called "Homeric question."]. At this phase of history, there is also an internal relationship between the picture of the world, poetry and the way of life. The heroic consciousness is "poetic" and not discursive. Metaphors take precedence over concepts. The wisdom of the era is "poetic", not philosophical. Homeric heroes sing, they do not speak in prose.
Social differentiation gives rise to the internal dynamics of the "heroic society". The life of the plebeians and what they produce are in the hands of the owners [Vico. Foundations. - S. 250.]. Gradually, plebeians (famuli) begin to realize their strength and, accordingly, need less protection. They "humanize", learn to argue and claim their rights. Demands from the slaves lead to the unification of the masters' forces in order to suppress the resistance of the oppressed. This conflict is the source of the aristocracy and monarchy. According to Vico, Solon (630–560 BC) became the first exponent of a new egalitarian mentality.
Solon prompted the oppressed to reflect and admit that "their human nature is the same as the noble: and that, therefore, they should be equated with them in civil law (civil diritto)" [Vico. Foundations. - P. 151 Thus, Vico, as it were, foresaw the Hegelian dialectic of master and slave. When those who rule are understood as equals with those who govern, then, according to Vico, a change in the form of government becomes inevitable. As a result, the form of government from aristocratic to democratic. During this transition, the language also changes its character. We find ourselves in a "prosaic" era. People learn to use abstractions and general concepts. Philosophical wisdom replaces poetic wisdom. We arrive at a "modernist" distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the temple and the tavern.
In this third historical epoch, called by Vico "the time of man", the individual first appears and with him individualism. Individualism and selfishness give rise to disunity and a tendency to disintegration. In Antiquity, the last "modernists" were the Cynics, Epicureans and Stoics. The decline ended with barbarism, and the Middle Ages began a new cycle [Vico's analysis of the decline of the Roman Empire has much in common with the analysis of E. Gibbon (1737-1794), carried out in the work History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. T. 1-6. Translation by V. Nevedomskaya. M., 1883-1886.]. According to Vico, all peoples go through a similar cycle (corsi e ricorsi). However, it is unclear whether he interprets this historical process as “an eternal repetition of the same thing” (Nietzsche) or as a more dialectical, spiraling development (Hegel and Marx). Driving force of this process are the people themselves. In battles and conflicts, they create new forms of life and institutions that again express their vision of the existing. Here Vico again turns out to be the forerunner of the Hegelian and Marxian dialectical understanding of history. Therefore, the characterization of Vico as “a gifted historical materialist with a rich imagination” is not far from the truth (Isaiah Berlin, Isaiah Berlin, 1909-1997).
In a sense, we can also say that Vico introduced the so-called historicist principle of individuality, which claims that every culture and era is unique and unrepeatable. The new forms of life are not worse or better than the old ones, they only differ from each other. In accordance with this principle of individuality, Vico denies the existence of absolute aesthetic standards. Each era has its own form of expression. Homeric epic is an expression of the cruel ruling class... Only the right conditions could give birth to the lifestyle and people we find in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Subsequent eras, Vico emphasizes, could not have created such an epic, because in Homer's time people literally saw things in a way that we no longer see. Likewise, heroic and democratic characters (such as Moses and Socrates) should be seen as specific and characteristic expressions of two different eras of human mentality and way of thinking. The refined debauchery of Nero (37–68 A.D.) is also an expression of an era of decline and decay.
Based on the principle of individuality, Vico argues that the form of government inherent in an era is due to the nature of the natural law of this period of time. In turn, the content of natural law is rooted in morality and custom, which ultimately express the understanding of the era inherent in the way of life and reality. Consequently, we can find a certain unity of different institutions of a given society. This unity is an expression of a person's ability and ways of thinking. So Vico develops the historicist principle of individuality, which we will encounter later in considering the ideas of Herder, Hegel, and the German science of the spirit (Geisteswissenschaft).
Deny Availability common single progress of human society.
Consider the development of society as existence independent local civilizations (cultures) replacing each other throughout the history of human existence, and unrelated directly among themselves.
The work "Foundations of a new science of the general nature of nations" (1725)
God sets human society in motion. Then it already develops due to its internal natural causes.
Each people (nation), like a person, goes through 3 epochs (stages) in its development: divine, heroic and human (respectively, childhood, youth, maturity).
Change of eras - through social upheavals (social revolution).
The development cycle ends with a general crisis and the disintegration of a given society.
The state arose to curb the interests of various classes.
Positive ideas Vico's theories:
Vico's ideas largely preceded the later ideas of Herder and Hegel and other philosophers.
the book "Russia and Europe" (M.: Kniga, 1991)
A single world civilization does not exist. There is only individual, local civilization (so-called cultural and historical types). They include, as a rule, peoples close in blood.
Each of the civilizations (types) is fundamentally different from the other, thanks to 4 basics(criteria):
The core of each cultural and historical type is made up of the so-called. "Historical nations"(having their own national idea and task). They are adjoined failing nations... They serve as ethnographic material for historical nations (absorbed by it, assimilated).
For example: For Russia - Karelians, Mordovians, Cheremis.
Anecdote: Russian and Mordvin (water and vodka).
Allocated in total 10 types in history:
European, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Chinese, Babylonian, Indian, Iranian, Jewish, Romano-Germanic. Slavic type- special (because it contains the most of the basics, more than 4).
There are also peoples - "scourges of the human race"- contribute to the destruction of decrepit civilizations.
Ostwald Spengler(1880-1936), German philosopher and historian
The work "Decline of Europe" 1918-1922
Denied the existence of one-line progressive progress, united human culture. Simultaneously exists many equivalent by the level of maturity of cultures.
Features each culture:
Highlighted in the history of mankind 8 main cultures: Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Chinese, Maya, Greco-Primordial, Byzantine-Arab, Western European. He spoke about the emergence of Russian-Siberian culture.
Stages of culture development:
childhood, adolescence, maturity, wilting.
Approximate with the rock of existence culture: 1000 years.
Then the dying crops are replaced opposite their quality civilizations(!): transition from creativity to routine life and stagnation. Civilization is the so-called. “Mass society”, bourgeois-philistine values, fear, loss of intellect, decline in spirituality.
In Europe, civilization appeared in the 19th century (“The Decline of Europe”).
Social development. Personality, elite, people
Foundations of social life. Dialogue of cultures
The problem of civilized development has come to the fore today. Undoubtedly, one should distinguish between civilization and culture. A civilized person is one who will not cause trouble to another. Under civilization it should be understood, on the one hand, the level of development of culture and society as a whole, and on the other hand, the way of mastering cultural values, which determines the specifics of social life.
The middle of the 20th century will go down in the history of world culture as the beginning of a new stage in its development, the essence of which is the transition from modernism to the coming type of culture, still unknown to us in its content and specific forms, but foreseen more acutely as necessary way self-preservation of mankind.
The last phase in the history of culture begins in the mid-20th century as a movement towards a new type of culture - anthropocentric... The transition to this stage means that it is recognized that it is extremely important to resolve all those contradictions that were characteristic of modernism, which prompts the search for different ways overcoming conflict situations in all areas that split culture.
Transition to dialogue began to affect itself in many different forms: from the desire of architects to include nature as widely as possible in the structure of cities to the return to painting of the theme of nature in its love perception, which was expressed by the impressionists in the last century.
Similar changes are taking place in relation to culture and society: their mutual alienation was replaced by a desire for interaction, because culture turned out to be the only alternative force in relation to the violent way of resolving social contradictions.
Equally natural, the current transitional phase in the development of culture demonstrates the search for a new type of relationship between it and man as its creator and, at the same time, its creation. Humanity has come today to the realization of the inseparability of man and culture. Attention also deserves the desire to overcome the opposition of elite and mass cultures.
Postmodernism also includes a radical change in the relationship between the West and the East. Their dialogue can open up the prospect of uniting earthlings into a single civilization. Behind the diversity, seemingly contradictory nature of the concrete processes of our time, there is a more or less conscious desire for a dialogue between opposite spiritual forces.
The problem of the source of historical development is connected with the solution of the question of what drives history, ᴛ.ᴇ. about those deep reasons that determine the qualitative change in society and its transition to a new state. In solving this problem, three main models are currently distinguished:
Social contradiction theories proceed from general dialectical attitudes, in accordance with which it is the unity and struggle of opposites (contradiction) that are the sources of development both in nature and in society.
Solidarism focuses on social cohesion as a guarantor of the balanced development of society. The basis of solidarity is the division of labor and the stratification structure of society, which determines the universal interconnection of individuals.
Conflict theories act as synthetic in relation to the above models. Compared to social contradiction, conflict is a narrower concept and is defined as a deliberate confrontation between two or more parties.
The following were singled out as the subject of history:
Personality. The role of the individual as a subject of history was absolutized in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Status great personality determined by its ability to generate new ideas and its ability to lead large sections of the population in the name of translating these ideas into reality.
People. The doctrine of the masses as the subject and driving force of history was developed in Marxism. The popular masses, as direct producers of material goods and carriers of social and political activity, are true creators.
Elite. Elite theories are based on identifying the elite as the subject of history and the mass as its driving force. The elite has material, political and intellectual superiority over the masses, real weight and influence in society.
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Social development. Personality, elite, people - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Social development. Personality, elite, people" 2017, 2018.
The first in the history of Western European thought, a detailed concept of the historical cycle was created by the outstanding Italian thinker Giambattista Vico (1668-1744). It was set forth in his work, published in 1725, "Foundations of a New Science of the General Nature of Nations" (Moscow, 1940). Speaking of "nations", G. Vico practically means socio-historical organisms.
The main idea of his work is that human history is subject to the same unshakable laws as the natural world. All "nations", regardless of external conditions, go through the same stages of development. G. Vico sees his task in identifying what is repeated in the development of "nations", to reveal the general laws governing this process, to paint a picture of the evolution of society in general. He is an ardent supporter of the idea of the unity of human society and its history.
The starting point of the movement of mankind is the "bestial state" when there is no history. The first humans were stupid, unreasonable, and terrible animals.
They wandered alone through the great forest of the earth, completely at the mercy of animal aspirations. But then the sky sparkled with lightning and thunder. People decided that the sky is a huge animate body and named it Jupiter. Fear gave birth to faith in the gods.
Fear of the gods forced people to curb their animal aspirations, especially lust. There was a transition from an animal state to a human society. There was a marriage, and a monogamous one, and with it a family. The people settled down. At first they lived in caves, then they began to build dwellings. Settlement led to the emergence of property. When the population grew and the fruits of nature began to be lacking, people began to burn forests, cultivate the land and sow it with bread. This first period in the history of mankind G. Vico calls the age of the gods, or the divine age.
During this period, the only form of uniting people was the family, headed by the father. In his hands was unlimited power over all members of the family. He was a monarch and legislator. By all means, including punishment, he ensured the observance of morality and law.
Initially, only a part of people came out of the animal state. The rest continued to lead the same way of life. But he ceased to suit them. In search of a secure existence, they joined those people who already lived in society, and were part of their families as addicts - clients. They lived in the position of slaves. Patriarchs - heads of families - had the right to their life and death.
When there were many addicts, they rose to fight against the patriarchs. This forced the noble to unite to protect their interests. A state arose, which took the form of an aristocratic republic. Together with him, a city arose. Power in the state was entirely in the hands of the patricians, the heroes who formed the ruling class. Clients have become plebeians with no civil rights... Thus began the second historical period - the age of heroes, or the heroic age.
The plebeians of the heroic cities increased in number and began to fight the patricians, seeking equal rights. Fear of their power forced the patricians to yield. The aristocratic republic was replaced by the people's republic, free. The third historical period has come - the age of people, or the human age.
Inequalities related to differences in origin have disappeared. But a new one began to grow - property. In conditions of civil equality, wealth provided a person with power. Rich and powerful people waged a struggle for power, attracting the rank and file to their side. Parties appeared, civil wars and mutual extermination began. The only way out of the situation was the emergence of a monarchy. The monarch took upon himself the concern for common interests, leaving it to his subjects to take care of their personal affairs. He sought to equalize his subjects, suppress the powerful and free the rest of the people from their oppression.
And then, according to Vico, the monarchy is replaced by a state of "secondary barbarism", "returned barbarism." How and why this happened, he does not say anything in the fifth book of his work, dedicated to the century of people. He only casually notes that the monarchy was destroyed by internal and external reasons. There is also a mention of barbarian invasions that began in the 5th century. And it's all.
Feeling that the reader will clearly not be satisfied with this, G. Vico again addresses this problem in the "Conclusion of the work". But everything that is said to them here further confuses the question. Returning to the last stage of the people's republic, marked by the struggle of parties, civil wars and mutual extermination, he now writes that if one of the ways out of this situation was the transition to monarchy, then the second was the establishment of foreign domination.
And where neither one nor the other happened, a catastrophe occurred: cities turned into forests, and forests - into human dens. Long centuries of barbarism followed, and then everything began to repeat itself: the age of the gods, the age of heroes, the age of people. An example is the development of Western Europe in general, Italy in particular in the period after the collapse of the Roman Empire.
In some places, G. Vico thinks that each new cycle begins at a higher level than the previous one. But she doesn't get the development from him. But what he categorically insists on is that the development of each nation proceeds along an ascending line, is translational motion... Thus, the cyclism of G. Vico is combined with the idea of progress.
