Features of social cognition and its specificity. Philosophical understanding of the specifics of social cognition
Sharing features characteristic of all sciences, social sciences, however, have their own characteristics, associated primarily with specificity of social cognition.
14.10.1. First of all, in the field of social cognition researcher myself is part of the reality being studied, due to which social cognition is not the study of an object external to a person, but a special form of self-knowledge. In other words, unlike the natural and technical sciences, in the very object of social research the knower himself is initially present subject. From this feature it follows that research results in this area are inevitably influenced by both the general worldview of the era and the ideas of those social groups and classes to which the researcher himself belongs. This fact determines the fundamental problem of the possibility of objective knowledge in the field of social science, which is still debatable to this day.
14.10.2. Since every historical event is unique And unique, within the framework of social cognition we are faced with the problem Possibility of repeated observation of similar events. Moreover, in this area it turns out to be fundamentally impossible to state a potentially unlimited, as in natural science, quantity experiments(a ball falling under the influence of gravity, for example, we can observe a potentially infinite number of times, while repeating the capture of Rome by barbarians or the October Revolution is fundamentally impossible). Based on this feature, many scientists generally deny the applicability to the study of society of methods similar to those of the natural sciences, aimed at identifying certain universal, stable patterns.
14.10.3. In social research we always deal with historically variable object research, and, therefore, must study not only the laws of its functioning, but also the laws development.
14.10.4. In the sphere of social cognition, we are dealing with an object that has a special structural complexity, which, in particular, explains the relatively recent emergence of scientific knowledge about society.
14.10.5. Finally, when studying society, the researcher always deals with the activities of conscious, free subjects, which makes it very difficult to clearly identify and substantiate the area of objective laws, the operation of which would not depend on the will and desire of individual people.
14.10.6. Social cognition, like any scientific cognition in general, begins with facts. However, the facts themselves do not yet represent knowledge - a necessary condition for its emergence is a certain explanation of the facts, that is, their interpretation. However, since the social phenomena being studied have a certain significance for a person, the researcher forms his own, positive or negative, attitude towards these facts, called assessment. Although the assessment expresses a person’s subjective attitude, however, if in its formulation he relies on socially significant values, the assessment can claim a certain generally valid status.
Sciences that study social phenomena are divided into two groups: social sciences and humanities. Social sciences include: history, political science, economics, sociology and other sciences. The humanities include: philology, art history, ethnography, psychology, etc. Philosophy can equally be classified as social and human sciences.
The social sciences are dominated by a sociological approach focused on the analysis of society, within which social connections and relationships are studied.
In the humanities, the humanitarian approach predominates, which focuses on the study of man, his individual identity, spiritual and emotional world, the meaning and significance of life, and personal aspirations.
Social life is a specific part of nature. Man is not only a natural, but also a social being. Social laws, unlike the laws of the natural world, are short-lived and manifest themselves through the activities of people. This determines the specificity of social cognition.
The subject of social cognition are, firstly, the activities of people and the relationships that develop between people in the process of activity, and secondly, the results of people’s activities, that is, culture.
Subject of social cognition is a person or social group, society as a whole.
The specificity of knowledge of social reality is due to the fact that the history of society is not only learned, but also created by people. All its other features follow from this main characteristic of social cognition:
1) real phenomena of social life are included in the context of a particular era, country, nation;
2) events occurring in one country or another are never exactly repeated anywhere;
3) due to the fact that social events have great complexity and variability, it is impossible to identify constants similar to the speed of light in social phenomena;
4) social and spiritual processes cannot be studied in laboratory conditions;
5) social phenomena are the object of study of a socially interested subject, which determines the subjectivity of the results of cognitive activity;
6) cognizable social phenomena may not be mature enough, which prevents the identification of trends in the socio-economic and spiritual development of society;
7) reflection on the forms of human existence is carried out
post factum, i.e. proceeds from the ready-made results of social development;
8) the results of historical development acquire in the eyes of many people the only possible form of human life, as a result of which the scientific analysis of these forms of human life chooses the path opposite to their development;
9) the analyzed processes very soon become history, and the study of history is influenced by the present;
10) significant shifts in the development of human thought occur during those periods when a crisis of existing relations is brewing.
An important distinctive feature of social cognition is that the direct observability of the events and facts being studied is not essential for it. Therefore, the object of research in the process of social cognition can be documents, memoirs, and other information. Important sources for the social and human sciences are the results of non-scientific exploration of reality (works of art, political sentiments, value orientations, religious beliefs, etc.).
Many works of artistic culture, due to their integrity, contain more valuable information than scientific literature. Humanitarian knowledge requires the knowing subject to be able to take the position of an observer in relation to himself, to his feelings, motives and actions. The result of humanitarian knowledge is the world of the researched, in which the researcher himself is reflected. By studying others, a person studies himself. Knowing oneself, a person looks at himself through the eyes of other people.
The study of society from the point of view of a sociological approach and the study of the inner world of an individual from the position of a humanitarian approach are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they are deeply interconnected. This is due to the fact that in modern conditions, when humanity is faced with many global problems, the role of both the social sciences and the humanities is increasing.
Knowledge of social phenomena has its own specifics, which necessitate the use of socio-humanitarian research methods.
The closest to natural scientific methods are the methods of economic research. In the field of economics, the method of abstraction common to all sciences is used. Economic research abstracts from certain properties and relationships with
to simplify the situation.
Like any science, economics is based on facts, but these facts are so numerous that without their generalization it is impossible not only to predict new economic phenomena and anticipate their development trends, but also to understand them.
The first step in studying economic facts must be to accurately describe them. Then it is necessary to identify the connections between these facts. And to do this, they should be distributed into groups, that is, classified and systematized. The more evidence there is to support a generalization, the more reliable and valid it will be.
The completeness and accuracy of the facts used ensures the possibility of putting forward testable hypotheses.
Testing hypotheses allows us to develop various economic theories. The most important economic theories are: labor theory (theory of value), monetarist theory.
Along with these fundamental economic theories, there are many private theories that consider the problems of development of individual sectors of the economy: production and exchange, consumption and distribution. These sectors, in turn, have their own special theories, for example, the theory of pricing of production factors within the framework of distribution theory or the theory of consumer demand within the framework of consumption theory.
Important means of obtaining information about social processes are sociological methods, which can be divided into two groups: theoretical and empirical. Empirical methods of sociology are very diverse, since sociology studies the most diverse aspects of people's lives.
The most popular method of sociological research is a survey, the representativeness (reliability of the results) of which depends on the representativeness of the sample, which should provide an adequate representation of the entire population.
Important for obtaining reliable sociological information
is participant observation, when the researcher directly participates in the work of a certain team and the quality of its member, fulfills the duties assigned to him and at the same time conducts pre-planned observations. Such observations provide more reliable information than from the outside, especially if the researcher penetrates the team anonymously, and therefore the people around him do not change their behavior, as often happens with external observation.
To obtain information, sociologists often resort to social experiments. Conducting social experiments is associated with a number of difficulties, which include:
They are carried out with social groups, which, in the course of observing them, can change their behavior and thereby affect the purity of the experiment;
Such experiments are difficult to reproduce and thereby test by other researchers;
The measurements of social variables themselves are difficult to express quantitatively, since it is difficult to abstract from subjective factors;
The variables themselves can change independently of each other and therefore only correlations and not causal relationships can be established between them.
All of these difficulties present obstacles to the widespread use of the experimental method in sociology.
Humanitarian research methods include methods for studying human spiritual activity. The starting point for humanitarian methods of cognition is the principles of interpretation and understanding of phenomena and processes of cultural and historical activity.
The field of humanitarian research includes such branches of humanities as literary criticism, art history, literary and art criticism, theory and practice of translation.
Basic concepts: reflection, consciousness, ideal, social consciousness, individual consciousness, ordinary consciousness, theoretical consciousness, cognition, scientific knowledge, methods of cognition, observation, experiment, analysis, synthesis, idealization, abstraction, modeling, induction, deduction, hypothesis, concept, social cognition .
The difference between the sciences of nature and the sciences of culture was analyzed in detail in previous chapters, so we will only briefly formulate some of the features of scientific research work in the social sphere, identified by modern philosophical thought.
1. Subject of social cognition – sphere of human activity (sphere of social ) in its diverse forms and manifestations. This is the unity of the objective (social laws) and the subjective (individual interests, goals, intentions, etc.). Humanitarian knowledge is knowledge about the integral system of subjective reality, both individual (“the world of man”) and collective (“the world of society”). In this case, the social object is considered both statically and dynamically.
The most important goal of social cognition is development research social phenomena, identifying laws, causes and sources of this development. In this aspect, significant temporal differences are revealed in the development of the object and the theory of social and humanitarian knowledge.
A situation characteristic of natural science: the subject does not change significantly, and its theoretical knowledge develops quite quickly. Thus, the time frame for the evolution of the Galaxy is extremely long in comparison with the time period for people to understand this evolution
A situation characteristic of social cognition: the time frame for the development of the subject is comparable to the time frame for the development of theory, therefore, the evolution of scientific knowledge reflects the evolution of the object. For social work theories this is especially important since the results of theoretical work in this area directly influence the development of the social work system. In this regard, it is of particular importance here the principle of historicism, namely, the consideration of social phenomena in the process of their genesis, development and transformation.
2. Social cognition is focused on the study of the singular, unique, individual, while relying on the results of the study of the general, natural. G. Hegel showed that the phenomenon is richer than the law, since it contains within itself the moment of a self-moving form, something that is not covered by the law, which is always “narrow, incomplete, approximate.”
There are objective laws in society, the identification of which is the most important task of social cognition, but these are “laws-trends” that are quite difficult to “isolate” from the subject of social cognition. This explains the difficulties of generalization and generalization in social cognition. Man (like society as a whole) is a complex unity of the rational and the irrational, the common and the unique. At the same time, the uniqueness of socio-historical phenomena does not “cancel” the need to identify general, natural in this sphere: every individual is in one way or another general, and every unique includes an element of the universal.
Difficulties in structuring and typologizing humanitarian material complicate both the processes of its unification and categorization. Many researchers distinguish two layers of the linguistic potential of the humanities:
- – the first is a collective fund of social science intended for explanations, explanations
- – the second is the terminological arsenal of cultural theory, anthropology, psychology, etc., intended for hermeneutic activity.
At the same time, the apparatus of natural language is widely used in social science.
3. The subject of cognition is constantly included in the subject of social cognition, and one cannot get rid of such a presence, therefore one of the most important tasks of social cognition is to understand someone else’s “I” (and to a certain extent, one’s own “I”) as another subject, as a subjective-active principle.
At the same time, in social cognition there is a complex, very indirect the nature of the relationship between object and subject. In the process of social cognition, “reflection of reflection” occurs; these are “thoughts about thoughts”, “experiencing experiences”, “words about words”, “texts about texts”. M. M. Bakhtin noted that the text is the primary given of any humanitarian discipline: “The spirit (both one’s own and someone else’s) cannot be given as a thing (the direct object of the natural sciences), but only in a symbolic expression, realization in texts and for itself, and for another."
Due to the textual nature of social cognition, occupies a special place in the humanities. semiotic (from Greek semeion – sign, sign) problematic. Sign – a material object (phenomenon, event), acting as a representative of some other object (properties, relationships). The sign is used to acquire, store and process messages (information, knowledge). Symbol (from Greek symbolon – sign, identifying feature) – the ideal content of both signs and other material things and processes. The meaning of a symbol really exists only within human communication. It is the concepts of “text”, “sign”, “meaning”, “symbol”, “language”, “speech” that determine the features of both the object of social cognition and its methods.
Social and humanitarian knowledge acts as a value-semantic development and reproduction of human existence. The categories “meaning” and “values” are key to understanding the specifics of social cognition. The great German philosopher M. Heidegger believed that “to understand the direction in which a thing is already moving on its own means to see its meaning. Understanding such a meaning is the essence of comprehension. Understanding implies more than just knowledge.”
Since the object of humanitarian knowledge exists in the space of human meanings and values, social cognition is inextricably linked with values, with meaningful life aspects of both a social object and a social subject. Values are social characteristics of objects that reveal their meaning for a person and society (good, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, etc.).
M. Weber emphasizes the role of values in social cognition: “What becomes the subject of research and how deeply this research penetrates into the endless interweaving of causal connections is determined by the value ideas dominant at a given time and in the thinking of a given scientist.” Values determine both the specificity of methods of cognition and the originality of the way of forming concepts and norms of thinking that guide a scientist.
5. The specificity of the methodology of social cognition is related to the procedure of understanding. Understanding is fundamental to hermeneutics as the theory and practice of text interpretation. Thanks to the symbolic nature of social existence, the concept of “Text” (as a set of signs with meaning and significance) turns out to be universal as a characteristic of the processes and results of human activity in various fields.
Understanding should not be identified with cognition, as is the case in ordinary cognition (“to understand means to express it in the logic of concepts”) or confused with the procedure of explanation. Understanding is associated with comprehension, with immersion in the “world of meanings” of another person, comprehension and interpretation of his thoughts and experiences. Understanding is a search for meaning: you can only understand what makes sense.
6. Social cognition explores primarily the qualitative side of the reality under study. Due to the specificity of the mechanism of social laws (including, along with rationalizable ones, a system of irrational components), the proportion of quantitative methods here is much less than in the natural sciences. However, here too the processes of mathematization and formalization of knowledge are intensified. Thus, the system of mathematical methods is widely used in applied sociology, psychology, statistics, etc.
The comprehensive introduction of mathematical methods into social cognition is hampered by the individualization (often uniqueness) of social objects; the presence of various subjective factors; polysemy and incompleteness of meanings, their dynamism, etc.
- 7. The specific relationship between the empirical and theoretical levels in social cognition. In social cognition, the possibilities of social experiment are limited, and empirical methods are used in a unique way: surveys, questionnaires, testing, model experiments, often aimed at identifying the value and semantic connections of a person with the world. The importance of methods of getting used to it, empathy, understanding techniques, etc. is very great here.
- 8. On lack of generally accepted paradigms in social sciences the outstanding logician and philosopher of our time G. H. von Wright drew attention: “In sociology there is no universally recognized paradigms, and this is the feature that distinguishes it from natural science.<...>
They often talk about the inevitability of “theoretical anarchism” in the humanities, because there is no “one true theory” here. For these sciences, the norm is a multiplicity of competing concepts and theoretical models of social reality, as well as the possibility of free choice of any of them.
There is another point of view. Thus, L. V. Topchiy does not consider the polyparadigm of social theories to be a positive characteristic and asserts that “the theory of social work in Russia is perhaps the only social discipline that does not have a common (generally recognized) theoretical paradigm of social work.”
9. Increasing need for practical impact on the part of the humanities. Since social reality in modern society (social institutions, social relations, social ideas and theories) is increasingly is being constructed social sciences are increasingly turning into a direct social force. Their recommendations are necessary for implementation in various spheres of society: in economics and practical politics, in the management of social processes, in the spheres of culture, education, etc. A particularly important role for the optimal “design” of social policy and the national system of social work is played by the creative development of the theory of social work.
Human cognition is subject to general laws. However, the characteristics of the object of knowledge determine its specificity. Social cognition, which is inherent in social philosophy, also has its own characteristic features. It should, of course, be borne in mind that in the strict sense of the word, all knowledge has a social, social character. However, in this context we are talking about social cognition itself, in the narrow sense of the word, when it is expressed in a system of knowledge about society at its various levels and in various aspects.
The specificity of this type of cognition lies primarily in the fact that the object here is the activity of the subjects of cognition themselves. That is, people themselves are both subjects of knowledge and real actors. In addition, the interaction between the object and the subject of knowledge also becomes the object of cognition. In other words, in contrast to the natural sciences, technical and other sciences, in the very object of social cognition, its subject is initially present.
Further, society and man, on the one hand, act as part of nature. On the other hand, these are the creations of both society itself and man himself, the materialized results of their activities. In society there are both social and individual forces, both material and ideal, objective and subjective factors; in it both feelings, passions, and reason matter; both conscious and unconscious, rational and irrational aspects of human life. Within society itself, its various structures and elements strive to satisfy their own needs, interests and goals. This complexity of social life, its diversity and different qualities determine the complexity and difficulty of social cognition and its specificity in relation to other types of cognition.
To the difficulties of social cognition explained by objective reasons, that is, reasons that have grounds in the specifics of the object, are added the difficulties associated with the subject of cognition. Such a subject is ultimately the person himself, although involved in public relations and scientific communities, but having his own individual experience and intelligence, interests and values, needs and passions, etc. Thus, when characterizing social cognition, one should also keep in mind its personal factor
Finally, it is necessary to note the socio-historical conditionality of social cognition, including the level of development of the material and spiritual life of society, its social structure and the interests prevailing in it.
The specific combination of all these factors and aspects of the specificity of social cognition determines the diversity of points of view and theories that explain the development and functioning of social life. At the same time, this specificity largely determines the nature and characteristics of various aspects of social cognition: ontological, epistemological and value (axiological).
1. The ontological (from the Greek on (ontos) - existing) side of social cognition concerns the explanation of the existence of society, the patterns and trends of its functioning and development. At the same time, it also affects such a subject of social life as a person, to the extent that he is included in the system of social relations. In the aspect under consideration, the above-mentioned complexity of social life, as well as its dynamism, combined with the personal element of social cognition, are the objective basis for the diversity of points of view on the issue of the essence of people’s social existence.
That this is indeed the case is evidenced by the history of social cognition itself and its current state. It is enough to note that various authors take as the basis for the existence of society and human activity such diverse factors as the idea of justice (Plato), divine plan (Augustine the Blessed), absolute reason (Hegel), economic factor (K. Marx), the struggle of the “instinct of life” "and the "death instinct" (eros and thanatos) among themselves and with civilization (3. Freud), "relics" (V. Pareto), "social character" (E. Fromm), "folk spirit" (M. Lazarius, X. Steinthal), geographical environment (C. Montesquieu, P. Chaadaev).
Each of these points of view, and many more could be named, reflects one or another aspect of the existence of society. However, the task of social science, which is what social philosophy is, is not to simply record various factors of social existence, but to discover objective patterns and trends in its functioning and development. But here we are faced with the main question when it comes to social cognition: do these objective laws and trends exist in society?
From the answer to this follows the answer about the possibility of social science itself. If objective laws of social life exist, then, therefore, social science is possible. If there are no such laws in society, then there can be no scientific knowledge about society, because science deals with laws. There is no clear answer to this question today.
Pointing to the complexity of social cognition and its object, for example, such followers of I. Kant as W. Windelband and G. Rickert argued that there are and cannot be any objective laws in society, because here all phenomena are of an individual, unique nature, and, consequently, in society there are no objective laws that fix only stable, necessary and repeating connections between phenomena and processes. The followers of the neo-Kantians went even further and declared that that society itself exists only as our idea of it, as a “world of concepts,” and not as an objective reality. Representatives of this point of view essentially identify the object (in this case, society and social phenomena in general) and the results of social cognition.
In fact, human society (like man himself) has an objective, primarily natural, basis. It also arises and develops objectively, that is, regardless of who knows it and how, regardless of the specific subject of knowledge. Otherwise, there would be no general line of development in history at all.
The above, of course, does not mean that the development of social knowledge does not affect the development of society at all. However, when considering this issue, it is important to see the dialectical interaction between the object and subject of knowledge, the leading role of the main objective factors in the development of society. It is also necessary to highlight the patterns that arise as a result of the action of these factors.
Such basic objective social factors underlying any society include, first of all, the level and nature of economic development of society, the material interests and needs of people. Not only an individual person, but all of humanity, before engaging in knowledge and satisfying their spiritual needs, must satisfy their primary, material needs. Certain social, political and ideological structures also arise only on a certain economic basis. For example, the modern political structure of society could not have arisen in a primitive economy. Although, of course, one cannot deny the mutual influence of a variety of factors on social development, from the geographical environment to subjective ideas about the world.
2. The epistemological (from the Greek gnosis - knowledge) side of social cognition is associated with the characteristics of this cognition itself, primarily with the question of whether it is capable of formulating its own laws and categories and whether it has them at all. In other words, we are talking about whether social cognition can lay claim to truth and have the status of science? The answer to this question largely depends on the scientist’s position on the ontological problem of social cognition, that is, on whether the objective existence of society and the presence of objective laws in it are recognized. As in cognition in general, in social cognition ontology largely determines epistemology.
The epistemological side of social cognition also includes the solution of such problems:
How is cognition of social phenomena carried out?
What are the possibilities of their knowledge and what are the limits of knowledge;
The role of social practice in social cognition and the significance in this of the personal experience of the knowing subject;
The role of various kinds of sociological research and social experiments in social cognition.
Of no small importance is the question of the capabilities of the human mind in understanding the spiritual world of man and society, the culture of certain peoples. In this regard, problems arise regarding the possibilities of logical and intuitive knowledge of the phenomena of social life, including the psychological states of large groups of people as manifestations of their mass consciousness. The problems of the so-called “common sense” and mythological thinking in relation to the analysis of the phenomena of social life and their understanding are not without meaning.
3. In addition to the ontological and epistemological sides of social cognition, there is also a value-axiological side (from the Greek axios - valuable), which plays an important role in understanding its specifics, since any cognition, and especially social, is associated with certain value patterns and biases and the interests of various cognitive subjects. The value approach manifests itself from the very beginning of cognition - from the choice of the object of research. This choice is made by a specific subject with his life and cognitive experience, individual goals and objectives. In addition, value prerequisites and priorities largely determine not only the choice of the object of cognition, but also its forms and methods, as well as the specifics of interpretation of the results of social cognition.
How the researcher sees an object, what he comprehends in it and how he evaluates it follows from the value prerequisites of cognition. The difference in value positions determines the difference in the results and conclusions of knowledge.
In connection with the above, the question arises: what then to do with objective truth? After all, values are, after all, personified and have a personal character. The answer to this question is ambiguous among different authors. Some believe that the presence of a value element in social cognition is incompatible with the recognition of social sciences. Others take the opposite point of view. It seems that the latter are right.
Indeed, the value approach itself is inherent not only in social cognition, the “sciences of culture,” but also in all cognition, including the “sciences of nature.” However, on this basis no one denies the existence of the latter. The factual side, showing the compatibility of the value aspect of social cognition with social science, is that this science primarily studies objective laws and trends in the development of society. And in this regard, value prerequisites will not determine the development and functioning of the object of study of various social phenomena, but only the nature and specificity of the study itself. The object itself remains the same regardless of how we know it or whether we know it at all.
Thus, the value side of social cognition does not at all deny the possibility of scientific knowledge of society and the existence of social sciences. Moreover, it contributes to the consideration of society and individual social phenomena in different aspects and from different positions.
Knowledge of the laws of society has certain specifics compared to knowledge of natural phenomena. In society there are people endowed with consciousness and will; a complete repetition of events is impossible here. The results of cognition are influenced by the actions of political parties, all kinds of economic, political and military blocs and alliances. Social experiments have enormous consequences for the destinies of people, human communities and states, and, under certain conditions, all of humanity.
One of the features of social development is its multivariate. The course of social processes is influenced by various natural and especially social factors, and the conscious activity of people.
Very briefly, the specifics of social cognition can be defined as follows:
In social cognition, the absolutization of the natural or the social, the reduction of the social to the natural and vice versa is unacceptable. At the same time, one should always remember that society is an integral part of nature and they cannot be opposed.
Social cognition, dealing not with things but with relationships, is inextricably linked with the values, attitudes, interests and needs of people.
Social development has alternatives, different options for its deployment. At the same time, there are many ideological approaches to their analysis.
In social cognition, the role of methods and techniques for studying social processes and phenomena is increasing. Their characteristic feature is a high level of abstraction.
The main goal of social cognition is to identify patterns of social development and, on their basis, predict the paths for further development of society. The social laws operating in social life, in fact, as in nature, represent a repeating connection of phenomena and processes of objective reality.
The laws of society, like the laws of nature, are objective in nature. The laws of society, first of all, differ in the degree of coverage of spheres of public life (social space) and the degree of duration of functioning. There are three main groups of laws. This the most general laws, general laws and specific (particular laws). The most general laws cover all major spheres of social life and function throughout human history (for example, the law of interaction between the economic base and superstructure). General laws function in one or more areas and over a number of historical stages (law of value). Specific or private laws manifest themselves in certain spheres of social life and operate within the framework of a historically determined stage of development of society (the law of surplus value).
Nature and society can be defined as follows: nature is matter that is not aware of its existence; society is matter developing to the realization of its existence. This part of the material world, isolated from nature, is the result of human interaction. The inextricable, natural connection of society with nature determines the unity and difference of the laws of their development.
The unity of the laws of nature and the laws of society lies in the fact that they act objectively and, given the appropriate conditions, manifest themselves with necessity; changing conditions changes the operation of both natural and social laws. The laws of nature and society are implemented regardless of whether we know about them or not, whether they are known or not. Man cannot abolish either the laws of nature or the laws of social development.
There is also a well-known difference between the laws of social development and the laws of nature. Nature is infinite in space and time. Among the laws of nature there are eternal(for example, the law of gravity), and long-term (laws of development of flora and fauna). The laws of society are not eternal: they arose with the formation of society, and will cease to operate with its disappearance.
The laws of nature are manifested in the action of spontaneous, unconscious forces; nature does not know what it is doing. Social laws are implemented through the conscious activity of people. The laws of society cannot function “by themselves”, without human participation.
The laws of social development differ from the laws of nature in their complexity. These are the laws of a higher form of motion of matter. Although the laws of lower forms of movement of matter can influence the laws of society, they do not determine the essence of social phenomena; man obeys the laws of mechanics, the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry, and the laws of biology, but they do not determine the essence of man as a social being. Man is not only a natural, but also a social being. The essence of its development is a change not in the biological species, but in its social nature, which may lag behind or may advance the course of history.
The difference between the laws of society and the laws of nature is that social laws do not have a rigid orientation. They, defining the main line of development of society (social processes), appear in the form of a trend. Social laws are a convincing illustration of how necessity manifests itself through a mass of accidents.
Knowledge of the laws of social development opens up wide possibilities for their use in social practice. Unknown social laws, as objective phenomena, act and influence the destinies of people. The deeper and more fully they are known, the freer the activities of people will be, the more significantly the possibility of using them in managing social processes in the interests of all humanity will increase.
