Logic of “dual civilizations” and integral alternatives (reconstruction of the conceptsby Pitirim A. Sorokin and Andrey V. Smirnov)

Abstract

Understanding not only other cultures, but also other research positions requires to a large extent the author’s reflexivity and ability to get used to the world of ideas. This is exactly what the author of this article has tried to do, comparing two different and separated by a long period of time approaches to the design of civilizational development in Russia. At the same time, he used the method of project reconstruction, setting his own parameters for the subject and process of civilizational design, which is understood mainly not in organizational and practical terms, but in a conceptual way.

Analyzing the design possibilities inherent in the approaches of P.A. Sorokin and A.V. Smirnov, the author consistently considers the subject of design (civilization), its methodology (versions of the logical-semantic approach), images of the desired future and the proposed ways of their practical implementation. Both approaches try to overcome the logical dualism that indicates the existence of two essentially incompatible basic logics of culture, and build their integral alternative, which leads to different versions of logical alternativism.

This alternative is represented by P.A. Sorokin’s idealistic civilization, to which Russia can come by converging the advantages of sensuous and ideational super-cultural systems, and by A.V. Smirnov’s “all-human civilization” as a real embodiment of the logic of all-subjectivity and the principle of unity of plurality.