Социальное объявление развития (english) - (реферат)

Thus, the contemporary macrosocial situation and the condition of theoretical developments stimulate the formation of a new research paradigm of the social science on the basis of integral societal indices. Of course, unless the corresponding empirical information is received, the offered concept is a hypothesis.

    CHAPTER 2
    Problem of historical
    sociological reflection

A historical-sociological conception is represented as a synthesis simultaneously containing the analysis of the most important tendencies of development of specific countries and regions, interpretation of the contemporary epoch, and forecast of long-term historical development. As is well known, the history of sociological science includes similar theories. In the period of the transition from a traditional to industrial society, thisproblem was solved by the conceptions of O. Comte, E. Durkheim, and K... Marx. A detailed characteristic of the industrial society was given by M...  Weber [13 History of theoretical sociology [in Russian]: In 4 Vols. – Moscow, 1997. ], and that of the post-industrial society by D. Bell, A. Toffler, and others. We have already noted that, on the boundary of the third millennium, the global transformation stimulates changes in the spiritual sphere, and actual problems become sharper due to a greater nonpredictability of behaviour of subjects of the historical process. Similar social phenomena stimulate the necessity of harmonization of interdisciplinary scientific studies, new theoretical approaches, adequate methodologies for analysis and forecast which would be relevant to the historical challenge.

Since the history of sociological thoughts is a pure source of principal ideas of the sociology of history, we turn to the analysis of the state of scientific interpretation of the problem of social development.

This problem can be solved by considering the main conceptions of social development in the historical context through the prism of problematic-chronological discourse, which allows one to show the self-identification of the main doctrines and a scientific-critical dialog between them.

On the theoretical level, the basic contraversivity was already considered in the doctrines of O. Comte (1798-1857) and Ch. L. Montesquieu (1689-1775). The latter, as distinct from O. Comte, did not trust in the idea of progress [14 Aron R. Stages of development of sociological thought [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1992. – P. 76. ]. At the same time, Ch. L. Montesquieu advanced a fruitful idea on the influence of geographical environment on the social development and definition of a historical situation. Here, we can find the origin of geopolicy and geoeconomy which, in the period of globalization, render a growing effect on the historical situation not only in specific countries and regions but on development of the whole civilization.

As distinct from Ch. L. Montesquieu, O. Comte was a supporter of the idea of unity of the whole history of the mankind, because the single intention of the history consists in the progress of human intellect [15 Aron R. Stages of development of sociological thought [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1992. – P.  104. ]. Therefore, sociology should be a system of positive knowledge on the society. One of the moving forces of the history was a disorder of thinking at every individual historical stage. The process of development was described by O. Comte in terms of“statics” and “dynamics”. The last is characterized as a sequential change of the necessary stages of establishment of the human intellect and society for attainment of a static state, i. e. , social order. Therefore, progress is comprehended as a development of the rational in persons. As for the progress of a society, O. Comte connected it with the evolution of social (human) consciousness, the sequential change of three dominating types of outlook:

1) theological one, when the leading tendency of social development is the competitiveness between religious ideas and an originating scientific knowledge;

2) metaphysical one, which characterizes speculative-philosophical consciousness;

3) eventually at the highest stage, the scientific positive consciousness and positive style of thinking are established. This is related with the well-known optimistic aphorism of O. Comte about the creative role of science: “To know in order to foresee, and to foresee in order to be able” [16 History of political and legal doctrines [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1988. – P. 377. ]. The positivistic tradition, beginning from O. Comte, is connected with ideas of social engineering, i. e. , a more or less conscious definition of the vector of social development.

The all-embracing conceptualization of the history was developed by Hegel who considered the historical process as that of establishment of the notion of freedom.

The most characteristic doctrine during establishment of the evolutionary-materialistic approach to the history was that of K.  Marx (1818-1883). In the marxist conception, the history is considered as a progressive natural-historical process of variations in and change of social-historical formations. This mechanism was formulated as follows: “Every social formation does not die until all productive forces, for which it presents a sufficient place, will have developed, and no new higher production relations appear until the material conditions for their existence in the midst of the very old society will have ripened” [17 Marx K. On the criticism of political economy [in Ukrainian] // Marx K. , Engels F. Works. – Vol. 13. – P. 7. ]. Such an evolutionary approach became a theoretical foundation of the activity of social democracy.

On the other hand, we recall that Marx inferred in the work “Lui Bonaparte’s brumaire, 18”: all previous revolutions improved the state apparatus, but it should be broken for the sake of establishment of the dictatorship of proletariat. Class struggle is already represented as a moving force of the history. Such a revolutionary marxism became a practical guide to action in countries with outdated rhythm of industrialization. However, the appearance of the socialist system after the II World war, which included the USSR and its satellites, did not become“the end of the pre-history”. At the same time, the dogmatization of the social-philosophical theory of marxism dealed a fatal blow at it. On the other hand, the new phase in development of the industrial society, which was related with marginalization of the class structure where the proletariat formally represented a major part, has transformed the social structure of countries being in the advance-guard of the historical process.

The comprador capitalism in developing countries did not create a proletariat in the classical marxist sense of this term. Similar tendencies limited the creative potential of marxism, though impetuous events in the second half of the XX century (for example, youth riots in the Western Europe in 1968) allowed one to say about neo-marxism for some time [18 Anderson P. Thoughts about the west Marxism [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1991. ]. In the former USSR up to the period of “perestroika”(1985-1991), the severe ideological control gave no possibility to freely develop even for a nonorthodoxal marxist thinking. The flow of denunciatory literature did not allow one to separate cereals from weeds. In fact, neo-marxist theoretical investigations were terminated without any real start. One of the last attempts was the book of S. Platonov, where the author comprehends the notion of communism and seeks for an answer to the rhetorical question about what can occur after communism. He analyzes the development of the mankind from the pre-history, i. e. , the epoch of estrangement, through the epoch of destruction of private property, every of the production means of which is a stage of withdrawal of one of the layers of estrangement, to the epoch of“positive humanism”, a free association of universally developing individuals [19 Platonov S. After communism. The second advent. Talks [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1991. – P. 52-53. ]. The notion of historical process in the materialist tradition is based on the stadial interpretation of the human history as a unit global process of development and change of formations. In the marxist paradigm, there were yet no attempts to theoretically explain the contemporary social situation of breaking the soviet model of socialism. This testifies to that marxism remains on pages of the history but on the periphery of an actual scientific discourse related with the positivistic solution of the problem of social engineering. Comte’s positivistic tradition was developed by the English sociologist and philosopher H. Spencer (1820-1903) who connected sociology with the idea of evolution. The basis of his conception was the analogy of state with biological organism.

Similarly to a biostructure, a state has its own life circle: birth, growth, ageing, and downfall. This idea was developed by O. Spengler [20 Spengler O. Decline of Europe [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1993. – P. 623. ] who considered the historical fate of the European civilization and by L.  N.  Gumi-lev who analyzed ethnogenesis [21 Gumilev L.  N. Ethnogenesis and biosphere of the Earth [in Russian]. Leningrad, 1989. – P 495. ]. On the boundary of the XIX-XX centuries, a positivistic interpretation of social mechanisms was presented by E. Durkheim (1858-1917). The main idea of his conception reduces to a search for social harmony under objective conditions of division of social labour. As distinct from Marx who accented attention on the estrangement of a worker from results of his/her work under conditions when division of labour is based on private interests, Durkheim considered this problem from the viewpoint of relations between the individual and group. Since collectivistic societies are historically primary, the individual arises from the society but not the society from individuals. Social mechanisms are regulated by a search for the harmony of agreement. Moreover, organic solidarity is caused by labour division [22 Durkheim E. Division of social labour [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1996. – P. 119. ]. From the methodological viewpoint, it is worth to note the approach of Durkheim to the definition of social roles.

The absolutization of rationalization and the linear progressive theory are opposed by the conception of W. Pareto (1848-1923). Whereas O. Comte considered the evolution of the man, on the whole, as the motion from fetishism to positivism through the theological and metaphysical stages regardless of certain delays, these four images of thinking, according to Pareto, normally interact at various levels in all the time. For the whole mankind, there is no obligatory transition from one type of thinking to another in the form of a single and irreversible process, but there are transient oscillations, defined by societies and classes, relative to the influence of each of these means of thinking [23 Aron R. Stages of development of sociological thought [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1992. – P. 440. ]. It follows that definite tasks related to the development of the society are solved at specific historical stages through a change of governing elites. New elites are formed from lower strata, flourish, and then decline [24 History of political and legal doctrines [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1988. – P. 367. ]. The idea of cyclicity becomes pivotal for the social theory. The rationalistic conception of M. Weber (1864-1920) approaches the history and sociology not as two different disciplines but as a whole methodological system. In his study, the historian aspires to define a causal significance of various elements having created a unique conjuncture, but the sociologist tries to establish interconnections (in their temporal sequence) which were observed many times or can repeat [25 Weber M. Sociology: general historical analyses. Policy [in Ukrainian]. – Kiev, 1998. ]. On the boundary of the XXI century, the discourse of social-historical reflection remains open.

    CHAPTER 3
    Idea of cycles
    in the context of periodization
    of social development

The object of conceptual analysis is the life cycle of the society as a subject of the historical process. This allows one to create an universal applied model of epochal historical cycle as the means of analysis and prognosis at the level of the history of the whole world, separate continents, and countries. The idea of cyclicity is characteristic of the sociologic theory of Pitirim Sorokin who investigated social phenomena common for all social-cultural phenomena repeating in time and space [26 Sorokin P.  A. Man. Civilization. Society [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1992. ]. Sorokin suggested the following division of the rhythms of cultural changes of the European history into periods:

    Period
    Epoch
    Greece, VII-VI centuries BC
    Speculative
    Greece, V century BC
    Idealistic
    Rome, IV century BC – IV century AD
    Sensual
    Europe, IV-VI centuries AD
    Idealistic
    Europe, VI-XII centuries AD
    Speculative
    Europe, XII-XIV centuries AD
    Idealistic
    Europe, XIV century AD to the present days
    Sensual

Sorokin distinguished the full cycle and the relative cycle. In the first case, the end phase turns into the initial phase and then the cycle begins again. But, in the relative cycle, the direction of repeating process does not fully coincide with the direction of a series of similar anterior processes [27 Sztompka P. Sociology of social changes [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1996. – P. 187. ]. This concept helps to explain the existence of interrupted cycles in the history of development of various nations and civilizations. The dominant theme in the contemporary sociologic theory is the movement to the theoretical synthesis [28 Ritzer D. Current state of the sociological theory: new syntheses // Current sociological theory [in Russian]. – Kiev, 1994. – P. 37. ]. The exploitation of efficient methods of various conceptual origins will help to explain the key events and turning points of history. In this context, the attention is attracted by the latest concepts of cyclicity of the social development, worked out in various spheres of social sciences [29 Gills B. , Frank A. –World System Cycles, Crises and Hegemonial Shifts (1700 BC to 1700 AD) // Review. – 1992. –No. 4; Fontvieille L. Long Cycle Theory: Dialectical and Historical Analysis // Review. – 1991. – No. 2; Burrlin W. Why Study Political Cycles? // Eur. J. Polit. Resear. – 1987. – No. 2. ]. In particular, it concerns the development of the methodology of a research of long cycles. For instance, G. Taylor suggested the theory of a periodic change of the global historical process every 500 years. Moreover, the phases of a political cycle, that are under the influence of 60-year economic cycles (Kondratiev waves), change every 120 years. On the basis of analysis of these cycles, countries-hegemons for various historical periods are defined [30 Taylor J. , Brill H. Methodology of Long Cycles: A Debate // Review. – 1988. – No.  3. ]. Society as a complex living system, whose structural elements are permanently changing, is involved into life cycles of various hierarchies: from cosmic cycles to the life cycles of generations and separate individuals. A. L. Chizhevsky (1897-1964) introduced the socium into cosmos, having connected the human history with the history of the Universe. By that, the correlation between the world historical process and cyclic solar activity was revealed. It is not the Sun that forces people to do something–those are social conditions that urge them to it. The Sun initiates the chain reaction of actions, whose specific sense has ripened by that moment. The Sun leads the social system, strained in a complicated way, out of the state of relative balance and serves like an exterior signal for switching it into another condition [31 Chizhevsky A.  L. Cosmic pulse of life [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1995. – P. 24. ]. The concept of Chizhevsky gives objective grounds for using the methodology of natural sciences for the research of social development. The influence of the Sun’s activity upon the process of ethnogenesis is represented in the most adequate way in Gumiliev’s conception [32 Gumilev L.  N. Ethnogenesis and biosphere of the Earth [in Russian]. –Leningrad, 1989; Gumilev L.  N. Geography of ethnos in the historical period [in Russian]. – Leningrad, 1990. ]. The development of an ethnos is shown for three existentialistic phases of the life cycle: the origin, growth, and death. The biosocial mechanism, connected with the genesis of these processes, is focused on the idea of passionarity, namely on the phenomenon of energetic pulse received by an ethnos in a definite spatio-temporal field.

The variety of the existing ethnoses is provided by the geographical differentiation.

The historical complement of Gumilev’s conception is the fundamental research by A. J. Toynbee (1889-1975). His theory of historical development is described in his 12-volume “Research of History” [33 Toynbee A. Comprehension of history [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1991. ]. The concept of cycles is represented by the analysis of the origin, growth, and death of civilization. To define the main characteristics of the rhythm of existence of civilizations, A. Toynbee introduced the term“call-reply”explaining changes in the main stages of a life cycle of civilizations: origin, growth, fracture, and decay. The search for an efficient reply to calls of the environment is characteristic of the“father civilizations”, and to calls of the natural and social nature –for subsequent civilizations. The history of 36 civilizations is represented. They are classified into three groups:

    flourishing civilizations (28);
    not developed (5);

frozen civilizations (3) [34 Toynbee A. Comprehension of history [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1991. – P. 724-725. ]. Toynbee researched the problem of historical development at two levels: definite civilizations and definite countries. The most arguable hypothesis of Toynbee’s concept is the possibility of emergence of a universal civilization. On the other hand, his colossal theoretical work has become the well of philosophical, historical, and social ideas.

The presented above opinion concerns also the scientific heritage of Osvald Spengler (1880-1936). His book“Decline of Europe. Essay on Morphology of World History” has become the classics of modernism [35 Spengler O. Decline of Europe [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1993. ]. Such is the contraposition of the culture and civilization, which, being the progress of history, presents a gradual development of nonorganic and perished forms. A civilization is the inevitable destination of a culture [36 Philosophy of history: Anthology [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1995. – P. 176. ]. Spengler compared the civilization with an organism experiencing the periods of childhood, youth, maturity and senility.

The idea of comparison of the social development with the ontogenesis of an individual is theoretically prospective. There appears a possibility of involvement of methodological concepts of psychology and societal psychology in the research. This will allow us to show the correlation between the socium and an individual. The main problem of social engineering that has something in common with the ideas of cyclic development is connected with the tasks of prognostication of social-historical processes [37 Yakovets Yu.  V. Cycles. Crises. Prognoses [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1999. ]. Karl Popper, giving the name of “poverty of historicism”to the attempts of prophecies concerning the universal history which follows its predestined way, turns his attention to a principal impossibility of scientific forecast with the use of rational methods. First, there is no universal history of the mankind at all (there are only varied histories of different parts of the society). The second reason is that there exists a random, irrational, and unstable personal factor within the history, and, third, the human history is a unique and inimitable process [38 Sztompka P. Sociology of social changes [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1996. – P. 232. ]. However, the theoretical denial of Popper’s prognostic agnosticism is given by social synergetics –the science of regularities of the interaction of a social order and chaos. According to this theory, the essence of development of the social reality reduces neither to the one-sided enlargement of order (O. Comte) nor to the one-sided growth of a degree of freedom (chaos) (H. Spencer). The evolution of a dissipative structure (the synthesis of chaos and order) is the growth of a degree of synthesis of order and chaos, conditioned by the aspiration to a maximum stability [39 Bransky V.  P. Social synergetics as the post-modernist philosophy of history [in Russian] // Obshchest. Nauki Sovrem. – 1999. – No. 6. – P. 121. ].

Social synergetics has showed the groundlessness of the mixing of terms “aim” and “sense”: the absence of any aim does not mean the absence of any sense (movement to the superattractor or to the limit state. Has reached it, the system can return to none of the former states). It is the mistake that was made by Popper in“Poverty of historicism”: by assuming that the history has no aim, he inferred that it has no sense. We emphasize that social synergetics, looking at the social-historical development through the prism of“whirligig”of order and chaos, allows one to synthesize the ideas of social engineering and cyclicity of social development, which, from the viewpoint of applied meaning of the suggested conception, is one of the most important tasks of authors’ collective.

The state of scientific development of the problem of social-historical development presents the theoretical grounds necessary for the conceptual construction of a new model of historical development in the historical context.

    CHAPTER 4
    Choice of methodological foundations
    for the study

Methodological bases of the new paradigm have to ensure the analysis of social-historical development at the level of specific countries, regions, and civilizations, to adequately interpret important events of the contemporary epoch, and to allow one to foresee principal tendencies and perspective of the historical development.

In the modern sociological science, there occurs an actual global transformation stimulating a change of basic categorial characteristics, which implies a change in representations of the common and the single. Objectively, the time of a change of the paradigm of social-historical development came. By a paradigm, we mean theoretically and practically important scientific achievement which give a model, statements of problems, and their solution to the scientific community for a certain time [40 Burgin M.  S. , Onoprienko V.  I. Social stereotypes and scientific paradigms as regulators of scientific activity [in Russian]. – Kiev, 1996. – P. 22. ].

A result of study will depend on the basic choice of a methodological approach. The criterion of objectivity and universality of sociological knowledge requires to study a situation in all regions and countries of the world in view of global tendencies. This allows one to clarify the fact of the termination of one epoch and appearance of the other and possible ways of the transition to it. In this context, the American sociologist I. Wallerstein outlines the aspiration of sociology to become the exact science normative for the sphere of policy [41 Romanovsky N.  V. Sociology and sociologists before global cataclysms [in Russian] // Sotsiol. Issled. – 1999. – No. 3. – P. 4-5. ]. M. Archer comprehends conceptual problems of sociology in the opposite manner. She outlines that social science cannot play the role of radical transformer from the viewpoint of Comte’s programming of the society [42 Romanovsky N.  V. Sociology and sociologists before global cataclysms [in Russian] // Sotsiol. Issled. – 1999. – No. 3. – P. 7. ]. On the other hand, a use of the methodology of social engineering is connected with the orientation of scientific tools to mathematical logic [43 Ryzhkov V.  A. Conception as a form of scientific knowledge [in Ukrainian]. – Kiev, 1995. – P. 17. ]. In the context of the present investigation of social-historical development, we assume an applied utilization of appropriate methods in the process of analysis of indices of societal characteristics. After the derivation of empiric indices, they should be undergone to comparative analysis. A realization of the methodological approach to the study must ensure the possibility of a harmonic transition from the common to the partial (civilization–country) and conversely, with the purpose to determine regular ties between social-historical phenomena and their specificity. In this case, all our positions will be restricted the time and experience we have cognized [44 Aron R. Stages of development of sociological thought [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1992. – P. 413. ]. On the basis of representations of cyclicity of the social development, the main methodological idea of the project proposes the instrumental possibility, which is adequate to tasks of the study, to reconstruct the objective logic of principal historical changes, which are characterized such events as“revolutions”, “transformations”, state overturns, diverse social protests, numerous civil conflicts, local and global wars. Similar phenomena, as a rule, appear in the so-called transient states of social development, which can serve hypothetical indicators of epochal changes.

For analysis of these phenomena, we consider the study of A.  L.  Chi-zhevsky [45 Chizhevsky A.  L. Cosmic pulse of life [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1995. ]as methodologically acceptable. He demonstrated the interrelation between a historical process in the form of the social-historical activity of the mankind and processes in the Sun, a degree of its astrophysical activity. Having established a direct connection, Chizhevsky proved his hypothesis on the actual historic data starting from 500 BC and till the XIX century. Moreover, he emphasized that non every maximum of solar activity unconditionally stimulates the corresponding maximum of the historical activity. In order that happens, the proper immanent conditions should be available as a necessary requirement (in Chizhevsky’s opinion, these are social-economic and political along with, possibly, spiritual or social-psychological conditions).

An important methodological basis of the present investigation is the idea of cyclic character of the psychical development of the man because a personality is one of the main elements of any social structure. In this context, we distinguish theoretical-practical generalizations made by D.  Feldshtein [46 Feldshtein D.  I. Psychology of development of personality in ontogenesis [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1989. – P. 208. ], which are substantial for our approach. By basing on the occupational approach (S. Rubinshtein, A. Leont’ev, A. Brushlinsky, et al. ) and age periodization of psychological development of a personality in ontogenesis (D. El’konin), which were advanced in psychology, Feldshtein demonstrated a cyclic (periodic) character of changes in the psychological structure of a personality and, respectively, in the psychological structure of activity, in which the communicative and objective plans are alternatively actualized. The historical origin of leading activities allows one to rationally explain (rather than to simply state) analogies to the psychical development of the mankind and, in addition, sets reasonable limits for such analogies by differentiating a true cause-effect connection and an analogy based only on the general features similar for any process of development of a large system [47 Feldshtein D. I. Psychology of development of personality in ontogenesis [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1989. – P. 96. ]. Every epoch in the psychological development of a personality consists of two periods regularly connected between themselves:

1. The mastering of tasks, motives, norms of human activity and the development of emotional-consumptional sphere;

2. The mastering of means of actions and the formation of operational-technical possibilities. In this case, the transition from one epoch to the next one occurs under the appearance of a discrepancy between operational-technical possibilities and problems and motives of the activity, on whose base they were formed [48 Feldshtein D.  I. Psychology of development of personality in ontogenesis [in Russian]. – Moscow, 1989. – P. 140. ]. Social changes can be considered in the context of societal processes, states, and features, which are realized in the frameworks of a unit epochal historical cycle. By societal psychics, we mean the most integral generalizing characteristics of social processes, a distinctive collective dictionary of the historical-cultural heredity of a society [49 Donchenko E.  A. Societal psychics [in Russian]. – Kiev, 1994. – P. 50. ]. The analysis of societal characteristics is related with the methodological problem of decipherability of the historical-cultural code keeping the solution of properties of the societal psychics, which are objectified in all things encountered by the man in the historical-cultural space [50 Donchenko E.  A. Societal psychics [in Russian]. – Kiev, 1994. – P. 33. ]. However, the largest methodological problem arising in the process of investigation is identification of the subject of analysis, whose objective societal indices should give exact data for theoretical constructions of periodization of the social-historical process both in retrospect and prospect.

Methodological approaches used upon the elaboration of the basic conception in studying the social-historical development will be mainly conserved during the investigation of a specific applied field for further analysis in the sphere of political, legal, philological, and other sciences of the social and humanitarian profile.

    CHAPTER 5
    Universal epochal cycle
    of social development: structure
    and contents

The informative characteristic of the conception may be presented in two main aspects: through defining the theoretical principles of the social-historical development and the hypothetical periodization of the world historical process on this basis.

The society as a subject of the history and civilization goes through a large life cycle in its development. In the context of the social philosophy and the philosophy of history, this thesis has already become a trivial truth. A prominent scientist Nils Bohr said that the truth may be trivial and deep. A statement, opposite to the trivial truth is simply false, and the statement, opposite to the deep truth, is also true [51 Mayers D. Social psychology [in Russian]. – S. -Petersburg, 1998. – P. 264. ]. The failure to perceive the idea of cyclicity of historical processes is mainly connected with the vulgar idea of progressive development that will inevitably lead the mankind from the“kingdom of necessity” to the “kingdom of freedom”, despite regressive tendencies. The perception of the idea of cyclicity in the spirit of the circuit of Ecclesiast is also connected with this conceptual approach: what took place then, is taking place now; what will take place, already took place. We conceive that the historical development of a socium is, in fact, a realization of epochal cycles, each consisting of two periods. The first epochal period, “involution”, has the semantic content of mastering the societal qualities acquired by the society in the previous period of development. The simplification of a social structure, traditionalism, and a reducion of social processes in space is characteristic of the involutionary stage. Such a society has“closed”character, helping to maintain the social stability. In such a socium, the degree of freedom of an individual is limited by influence of the collective. The emotional-sensitive psychotype of a personality is determining. The second epochal period (evolution) is characterized by the development of social processes in space, complication of the social structure, and innovative activity. One of the tasks of the evolution is a modernization of the traditional society. The historical indication of the evolutionary period is the acquisition of new social characteristics by the society, including the actualization of signs of the own preceding period of development or attributes, characteristic of the societies at a higher level of historical development. The social balance is maintained by innovative accumulations. “Involution” and “evolution” are the normative conditions of a society [52 Afonin E.  A. Development of Ukraine: macrosocial approach [in Ukrainian] // Viche. – 1996. – No. 1. – P. 45-55. ]. The liberation of an individual and the strengthening of the objective-cognitive component in the psychological structure of a personality becomes the fundament of the innovative activity in the involutionary period. The main characteristic of the evolution is the stability of changes. Normative periods in the history of the society alternate with transient periods, when the structures of the socium and fundamental institutions are transforming.

An increase in the historical activity depends on the interaction of three fundamental factors: the social-political, social-economic, and natural-cosmic. Moreover, the significant influence of the spiritual sphere should be added to the mentioned above. Let us emphasize that the absence of the preconditions for intensive activity of one of those factors does not launch the mechanism of transformation on the whole.

An important role in a change of the periods of an epochal cycle is played by the social-historical phenomena of wars. The subjects of military actions make and finish wars at various moments of the historical development. The correction of the rhythm of a cycle, defining the destiny of the whole region, or even global changes may take place in the case of invasion of a country as, for example, after world wars.

The transient periods of social development are characterized with historical phases opposite by the direction of changes: “coevolution” and “revolution”. For example, the “co-evolution” is the phase of transition from the normative period of “involution” to the normative period of “evolution”. This period is realized within the single epochal cycle, that is why only the polarity of the system qualities of the society or“vectors” of social development are changing under such conditions [53 Afonin E.  A. Development of Ukraine: macrosocial approach [in Ukrainian] // Viche. – 1996. – No. 1. – P. 54. ]. As distinct from “co-evolution”, “revolution”is a qualitative transformation of the entire social structure of the society. It creates the mechanism of transition from the normative condition of“evolution” to the “involution”. At the same time, this process is connected with radical changes of the societal characteristics. The“revolution”as if generalizes the results of development of the society during the entire epochal cycle and opens a new cycle [54 Afonin E.  A. Development of Ukraine: macrosocial approach [in Ukrainian] // Viche. – 1996. – No. 1. – P. 55. ]. The characteristic of a subject of history is changing in the process of development. In fact, various types of subjects are acting. For example, during the“revolution”, the role of a subject-individual is activizing. Let us recall the fact that, in the period of the Great French Revolution of 1789-1794, there were the most characteristic personalities acting on the political stage. Such names as Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre, Napoleon became denominative for each stage of the mentioned revolution, and the roles played by them became typical of the analysis of similar processes. The same phenomena may be observed in Russia of 1905-1917, when the cohort of revolutionary activists actually“exceeded the demand” of the history. During the transformation of the “co-evolutionary”type, the role of the subject-socium becomes more significant. Let us emphasize that, under conditions of the involutionary process, the temporal space of the society is deformed in the direction of the future that, respectively, makes the society a mythological one. In the process of the“evolution”, one observes the displacement of attention to the past. The information about the number of social roles confirms the relevance of the research hypothesis concerning the different levels of complexity of the social structures of the“involutionary” and the “evolutionary” societies. Whereas the number of social roles is about 70, 000 in the countries that went through the Great Depression of 1929-1933, this number is about 30-40 thousand in the domestic area. The discrepancy between the calendar-historic time of development of the society and the levels of biological and societal development are fundamental for antroposociogenetic development. Of adequacy for the social-historic analysis is the universal epochal cycle consisting of four interrelated elements (two opposite historical periods and two transientperiods), which form the conventional scheme: “involution” – “co-evolution”  – “evolution”  – “revolution”. Now let us try to define specific “beacons”(the most important events in the spiritual or material spheres) on the historical material (after receiving the empirical data, this hypothesis may be reviewed). These“beacons”will give grounds for defining the possible chronological frames of every phase and the epochal cycle on the whole. After this analysis, we define an approximate number of cycles, already“processed”in the world historical process. On the grounds of such a research, it would be possible to create an adequate model of periodization of a change of epochal cycles.

Such a periodization should reflect the mechanisms of interaction at the three hierarchical levels: global, regional, and of certain countries. In this case, one may assume that the higher the hierarchical level, the later the transformational changes begin at it (for example, at the global level). But, first of all, we make an approximate list of the elements (classifications) of the social-economic formations. The Marxist“five-element structure” –primitive communal, slave-owning, feudalist, capitalist, and communist systems– “works” to the “post-capitalist” formation. The “three-stage”classifications are quite popular. They are presented by Morgan [wildness (since the appearance of the primitive people), barbarity (since the emergence of the primitive forms of agriculture), civilization (since the emergence of the state)] and by Bell [the pre-industrial period (the production is human-powered or animal-powered), the industrial (the basis is the work of mechanisms), the post-industrial period (the life of a society is maintained mainly by the means of the reproduction of information)]. These classifications are provided with chronological characteristics: the prehistoric epoch (before the creation of writing), antique, mediaeval, modern and contemporary time. However, this approach is too scholastic and conditional.

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