The article deals with attempts to explain the collapse of the Soviet version of modernity –and the disintegration of the USSR—in (post)-Sovietology and historical sociology. It is argued that (post)-Sovietological studies were often characterized by a certain degree of ideological bias. In these studies, the example of “Soviet collapse” was generally used for a confirmation of earlier approaches to Soviet history. At the same time, they mostly focused on the immediate preconditions of that event rather than on long-term historical processes. (...) The shortcomings of this approach can be overcome if we draw on historical sociology. The article considers the prediction of disintegration of the USSR offered by Randall Collins and Johann Arnason’s analysis of the Soviet version of modernity. Both sociologists characterized the Soviet collapse in the context of long-term historical dynamics. While Collins’s approach demonstrates a peculiar geopolitical determinism, Arnason singles out various factors of the dynamics of the alternative version of modernity. In the first half of the 1990s, Arnason applied his model of imperial modernization to the Soviet system, but later emphasized the civilizational aspects of communist modernity. This can also be seen in his evaluation of the Soviet collapse. In the literature on Soviet collapse, a contrast between the USSR and China is often highlighted, with structural and particularly economic factors being commonly highlighted. In contrast, the article argues that—for a comprehensive understanding of transformation processes in China—we need to consider the cultural sphere by drawing on sociological civilizational analysis. (shrink)

'At last, a volume on civilization that truly reflects the complexity of multiple civilizations. The wealth of contributions Arjomand and Tiryakian have assembled demonstrates the value of an old concept for understanding the awful dilemmas confronting human kind in the global age. Its thoroughgoing renewal here establishes this book as the essential benchmark for future scholars of civilization' - Martin Albrow, Founding Editor of International Sociology and author of The Global Age - winner of the European Amalfi Prize, 1997 'In (...) our tension filled world, many are heralding, and others fearing, a"clash of civilizations." The contributors to this volume provides a healthy and persuasive argument about why this clash need not, and certainly should not, take place. They do so, moreover, not by rejecting the concept of civilization, but by developing a less primordial, homogenous, and essentialist concept of it. An important collection that provides illumination in this sometimes frighteningly dark time' - Jeffrey Alexander, Professor and Chair of Sociology at Yale University 'The concept of civilization may well replace the notions of globalization and identity as the core component in the vocabulary of 21st century sociology. The authors contribute a great deal to the clarification of fashionable controversies around the "clash of civilizations" and "multiculturalism". They go a long way toward purging the concept of civilization of its ideological overtones, and they suceed admirably in turning it into powerful analytic tool of an emerging fleld of macrosociology, known already as civilizational analysis' - Piotr Sztompka, President, International Sociological Association Although the concept of 'civilization' has deep roots in the social sciences, there is an urgent need to re-think it for contemporary times. This book points to an exhaustion in using 'the nation state' and 'world system' as the basic macro-units of social analysis because they do not get to grips with the 'soft power' variable of cultural factors involved in global aspects of development. Also, globalization requires us to reconsider the link between civilization and a fixed or given territory. This book focuses upon the dynamic aspect of civilizations. Among the topics covered are: · Civilizational analysis and social theory · Global civilization and local cultures · Civilizational forms · Rationalization and Civilization · Civilizations as zones of prestige · Historical and comparative dimensions of civilization · The clash of civilizations. (shrink)

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

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

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

The enlargement of the European Union to include eventually Turkey and the former communist countries is a major challenge for our understanding of the meaning of Europe as a geopolitical, social and cultural space. It is also a question of the identity of Europe as one shaped by social or systemic integration. With the diminishing significance of national borders within the EU, the outer territorial frontier is also losing its significance and Europe will become more and more postwestern. It thus (...) appears that the eastern frontier is more flexible than was previously thought. The EU is now at the decisive point of moving beyond postnationality to a transnational encounter with multiple civilizational forms. Enlargement is not just about getting bigger but is crucially a matter of cultural transformation and therefore it differs from all previous dynamics of Europeanization. Rather than tell the story of Europeanization exclusively as one of national histories and of closure, a civilizational analytic offers the possibility of multiple modernities and thus of a more appropriate theorization of the current situation. (shrink)

The civilizational turn in sociological theory is best understood as an attempt to do full justice to the autonomy of culture (against all versions of structural-functional theory) without conceding the issue to cultural determinism. Civilizational formations are based on combinations of cultural visions of the world with regulative frameworks of social life, but the relationship between the two levels is open to conflicting interpretations and strategic uses of them. Axial age civilizations open up new structural and historical dimensions (...) of interaction between cultural and social patterns, and are therefore central to the agenda of civilizational analysis. Among the later breakthroughs which draw on Axial sources, the emergence of modernity stands out as particularly important; the cultural and political program of modernity may be seen as a new and distinctive civilization, but it remains open to more or less formative influences from older civilizational legacies. (shrink)

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

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

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

The concept of civilization is intrinsic to the English School’s understanding of international society. At the same time, engagement with discourses of civilization has been an important site of c...

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

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

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

An analysis of Gibbon's five signs of civilizational decay.

The article investigates the philosophical views of the Ukrainian scholar S. Rudnytsky, who justifies the Ukrainians’ right to establish their own national state on the basis of his analysis of historical development, geopolitical situation of Ukraine, and the idea of natural right of the nation to have its own state.

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

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

This paper examines and analyzes five definitions of ‘existential risk.’ It tentatively adopts a pluralistic approach according to which the definition that scholars employ should depend upon the particular context of use. More specifically, the notion that existential risks are ‘risks of human extinction or civilizational collapse’ is best when communicating with the public, whereas equating existential risks with a ‘significant loss of expected value’ may be the most effective definition for establishing existential risk studies as a legitimate field (...) of scientific and philosophical inquiry. In making these arguments, the present paper hopes to provide a modicum of clarity to foundational issues relating to the central concept of arguably the most important discussion of our times. (shrink)

The article considers Max Weber’s model of plebiscitary leadership and historical examples of plebiscitary democracy. It is argued that there is no clear distinction between plebiscitary democracy and dictatorship inWeber’s writings. As Stefan Breuer demonstrates, such a distinction allows us to broaden the application of Weberian concepts. Plebiscitary elements can be seen in the political life of non-Western states, which have been discussed from the multiple modernities perspective. However, while that perspective develops the Weberian sociological tradition, its representatives mostly do (...) not use the concept of plebiscitary leadership. Thus, Shmuel Eisenstadt draws primarily on Weber’s sociology of religion in his analysis of different types of modernity. Specifically, Eisenstadt considers the impact of civilizational legacies on political processes in India and Latin America. Peter Wagner discusses the relevance of Weber’s rationalization thesis and theory of capitalism rather than the concepts of Weberian political sociology. In his study of democratization in Brazil and South Africa, Wagner emphasizes the progressive character of political changes but does not consider the possibility of a reversal of these processes. The article argues that the contemporary reconstruction of Weber’s model of plebiscitary leadership can complement the analyses of democratization in non-Western societies from the multiple modernities perspective. (shrink)

The paper consists of three parts. In the first one, I consider the validity of the “civilizational paradigm” in contemporary social sciences and humanities, with special emphasis on philosophy and comparative historiographical studies. In the second one, I juxtapose selected Western approaches to civilization—those of Arnold Toynbee, Fernand Braudel and Corroll Quigley—with the perspective proposed by Ibn Khaldūn, the scholar and thinker widely recognized as the father of social sciences, especially those focused on or at least related to (...) class='Hi'>civilizational investigations. In the third part of the article, I raise questions about the prospects of reforming and reviving civilizations which undergo a crisis or experience a twilight phase in their development. Finally, in the context of the idea of Islamization of thought and knowledge, as postulated by Abdulhamid Abusu-layma, I address the question of the relationship between civilization and religion. (shrink)

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

Civilizational analysis of the kind propounded by Eisenstadt and globalization theory are apparently wholly incommensurate paradigms, with radically differing visions of the contemporary world order, the former championing the notion of ‘multiple modernities’ and the latter envisioning a world of trans-national processes and institutions. This articles challenges such a dichotomizing view, and seeks to illustrate how in various ways they overlap and can come to inform each other. Particular attention is given to how a focus on inter-civilizational (...) interactions can lead to productive rapprochements between civilizational analysis and globalization theory, as it allows some of the themes of the latter to be analysed through civilization-analytic lenses. The pioneering work in this regard of Benjamin Nelson is shown to provide a basis for future civilizational analyses of globalization, especially in the pre-modern world. (shrink)

Civilizational analysis is increasingly being used to capture the plurality of routes to and through the modern world order. However, the concept of civilization betrays a colonial legacy, namely, a denial that colonized peoples possessed the creative ability to cultivate their own subjecthoods. This denial was especially acute when it came to enslaved Africans in the New World whose bodies were imagined to be deracinated and deculturated. This article proposes that civilizational analysis has yet to fully (...) address this legacy and, to clarify the stakes at play, compares and contrasts the historical sociology of CLR James with the mytho-poetics of Derek Walcott. Both authors, in different ways, have attempted to endow that quintessentially un-civilizable body – the New World slave – with subjecthood. From this discussion, the article makes the case for developing a ‘poetics of slavery’ that could help to address the colonial strictures still residual in the concept of civilization. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the philosophical consideration of anthropological crisis in the risk society in his historical transformation. The research is aimed to anthropological analysis of the risk society in order to identify its new features in the modern era. As a methodological principle of research, the author defines the distinction between anthropological and cosmological approaches in philosophy. It is about their complex relationships and contradictions in the development of the civilizational process. The anthropological crisis becomes apparent (...) when society becomes a “society of risk” in the modern era. The article reveals the cause of the anthropological crisis in the risk society: the social production of wealth becomes the production of risks. In the XXI century there is a “world society of risk”, which is associated with the process of globalization. The risk research methodology suggests the need to anticipate unpredictable. The main difficulty in risk analysis is that the risk is between certainty and uncertainty, between rational and irrational. Two main trends - the reflexivity of the unknown and the cosmopolitan moment - point to a global change in the society in the 21st century, whose priority is security. In the historical and social philosophical perspective, security is understood as a concept that encompasses integrity, inviolability, inviolability with respect to corporeality, life and property. In the context of the modern anthropological crisis, security has become the main value concept of the social political language. The logic of uniqueness gives way to the logic of ambiguity, which finds its expression in the connection of the risk society with the cosmopolitism. The “cosmopolitan moment” of the world risk society presupposes recognition of the uniqueness of the Other as an opportunity to overcome the anthropological crisis. (shrink)

This article aims to define natural human rights in the context of forming postmodern views on an individual today. Natural rights exist, regardless of whether they are enshrined somewhere or not: they are clear from the natural context and essence of human activity. The postmodern world is experiencing a crisis of fatigue from life, fatigue of culture, which for the global world has become a political and economic crisis of ineffectiveness of the policy of multi-culturalism and poly-culturalism and the growing (...) dangers and threats associated with it. Therefore, it is crucial to find out how natural human rights are realized in postmodern society. Importantly, the article analyzes the basic theoretical and methodical principles of creating the postmodern environment and its impact on people. It also defines the main concepts and categories of human rights in the context of evolution of postmodern society. To study the socio-cultural impact on personality development in the postmodern era, the article explores how legal culture is formed in the course of civilizational-evolutionary development of society. Research methods are as follows: analytical methods, descriptive and explanatory methods, synthesis and analysis. The obtained results prove that natural human rights manifest the evolution of cultural progress and prospects for further analysis of their socio-cultural effects on the development of postmodern society. (shrink)

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

Civilization, Modernity, and Critique provides the first comprehensive, cutting edge engagement with the work of one of the most foundational figures in civilizational analysis: Johann P. Arnason. In order to do justice to Arnason's seminal and wide-ranging contributions to sociology, social theory and history, it brings together distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical contexts. Through a critical, interdisciplinary dialogue, it offers an enrichment and expansion of the methodological, theoretical, and applicative scope of civilizational (...) analysis, by addressing some of the most complex and pressing problems of contemporary global society. A unique and timely contribution to the ongoing task of advancing the project of a critical theory of society, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in historical sociology, critical theory and civilizational analysis. (shrink)

This book studies the diverse societies, cities, nations, economies, and regions of the Americas as they emerged in the Western hemisphere in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on the paradigms of social imaginaries and civilizational analysis, it explores regions of Central America, the Caribbean, the United States, and Latin America.

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

This work brings together Max Lemer's extended and enduring essays on Aristotle, Niccolb Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, Thorstein Veblen, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Combining biography and interpretation, Lerner insightfully examines a cluster of thinkers who helped shape his own influential work in political theory and civilizational analysis. Viewed collectively, these essays show Turner's method and mind at their best. Like Lerner himself, the "masters" were tough-minded realists--philosophers who saw human experience in all of its (...) variety as central to study. Less inclined to metaphysical speculation, they wrestled with the real concerns and circumstances of therr times--but always within the larger context of ultimate meaning and consequence. Lerner eloquently introduces each philosopher and his work, but he also provides his own criticism and commentary. Complicated subjects are clearly presented, and cross-disciplinary analysis enhances the reader's sense of the whole. In his introduction, Robert Schmuhl discusses why Lerner was attracted to these particular thinkers and how they refined his approach to the human sciences. Schmuhl also traces the influence of these figures on Lemer's work. Magisterial Imagination will be of importance to philosophers, political theorists, and sociologists. (shrink)

Johann Arnason’s exploration of the historical constellation of East Asia has helped reproblematize the conceptual framework of modernity and civilization. This article outlines Arnason’s innovations in civilizational analysis and social theory in the field of comparative studies of Japan. It sets out the terms on which a nuanced elaboration of Arnason’s framework could occur. Two areas warrant closer attention: state formation and the institution of capitalism. It is argued that there are signs of what might be termed a (...) ‘tertiary’ phase of state formation, implicit in Arnason’s discussion of advanced modernity. Moreover, this phase brought Japan into close contact with the newly unfolding context of the West’s civilizational imaginary, particularly in its ideological expressions of evolutionism. The article ends on the problematic of capitalism, raising questions about further potential theoretical developments based on Arnason’s conclusions and other inventive studies of Japanese capitalism. (shrink)

The French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote provocatively about world civilization from his dual expertise as paleontologist and Catholic priest. This paper will extract from his many writings references to civilizational process in terms of his concept of the noosphere, that is, the transhuman accumulation of knowledge. Basing himself on the notion of a geogenetic process that he described in his important publication, Le Phenomenene Humain (1955), de Chardin considered the evolution of humankind to involve not merely the (...) change of individual members of the species, but in the development of the capacity to shape the earth and its forces by the invention of technology. He foresaw the human creation of a new level of understanding (some would say this is the cyberspace of the Internet) that would be the achievement of a unifying human civilization. The impulse to contribute to and benefit from this wealth of shared knowledge constituted for the Jesuit a quasi-magnetic force that brought together disparate human experiences. Borne in part by his religious faith, de Chardin described in a second masterpiece, Le Milieu Divin (1957) this unifying force as “love”. When a new world civilization learned to harness this kind of love in common purpose, said de Chardin, “for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire”. Possibly because of his religiously tinted language and mystical orientation, Teilhard has not always been viewed a contributor to the field. This paper will offer suggestions for ways to incorporate the French Jesuit among the sources for civilizational analysis. (shrink)

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

This article examines the ways in which Islamic civilization has faced the challenges of the modern age and of globalization. The expansion of Islam in world history is itself a global or proto-global process with its own distinctive internal dynamics. The main challenge to modern Islam, coming from the global political culture in the form of constitutionalism and democratization and human rights, has set in motion a civilizational encounter that has significantly altered the politico-religious dynamics of the proto-global, pre-modern (...) Islamic pattern. The intermingling of these inter- and intra-civilizational processes is traced with respect to the subversion of constitutionalism by ideology during the 1945–1989 period, and the slow recovery of the rule of law since 1989. The same framework of civilizational analysis is used for understanding Islamic fundamentalism, and counter-global defensive developments in contemporary Islam. (shrink)