The idea of social progress in the work of historians of the "Russian School"

Fedin Aleksandr Nikolaevich ORCID: 0000-0002-0267-4127 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor, Department of State and Legal Disciplines, Saransk Cooperative Institute (branch) of the Russian University of Cooperation 430027, Russia, Republic of Mordovia, Saransk, Transportnaya str., 17 alexfedi@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Pechatkin Aleksandr Sergeevich ORCID: 0000-0002-8174-1366 PhD in Philosophy Lecturer, Department of State and Legal Disciplines, Saransk Cooperative Institute (branch) of the Russian University of Cooperation 430027, Russia, Republic of Mordovia, Saransk, Transportnaya str., 17 a.s.pechatkin@ruc.su

Introduction

The second half of the XIX century. in Russian public thought, as in Europe, is inextricably linked with the phenomenon of social progress. Relying largely on the theoretical and methodological views of their European colleagues, Russian thinkers tried to illuminate the problem of progress through the prism of social changes within their state, their culture and the peculiarities of social differentiation. All that we have described above has led to a great variety of interpretations of progress, the synthesis of ideas of various directions, the desire for the practical implementation of theoretical constructions. The last thesis most clearly reflects the perception of the idea of progress by Russian society: to study the laws of social development is not just a scientific task, but the preparation of society for concrete actions in accordance with the strict laws of social change. First of all, three outstanding historians are referred to the "Russian School": N. I. Kareev, M. M. Kovalevsky and I. V. Luchitsky.  

The relevance of this study is due to insufficient understanding of the evolution of Russian historical thought in relation to the development of the idea of social progress and the role of historians of the "Russian School" in this process. In modern Russian and foreign historiography devoted to the topic of social progress and the works of representatives of the "Russian School", several blocks can be distinguished. The first of them is represented by works of historiosophical orientation, which seek to explore the theories of N. I. Kareev, M. M. Kovalevsky and I. V. Luchitsky in the light of the general development of philosophical thought in Europe and Russia ^[16], ^[17],[24]. Representatives of the second block analyze the genesis of Russian sociology and the relevance of its ideas in modern discourse ^[3], ^[23], ^[26],[28]. The authors of the third block focus on highlighting individual issues of theories of social progress of representatives of the "Russian School" ^[1], ^{[4],[21],[22],[25],[27]}.

The scientific novelty of the research consists in the following aspects:

a) the methodological differences of N.I. Kareev, M.M. Kovalevsky and I.V. Luchitsky with the previous generation of Russian historians, such as V.I. Guerrier and M.N. Petrov, are shown.

b) not only similarities and differences in the concepts of the representatives of the "Russian School" are established, but also the reasons for the imperfection of their approaches are revealed.

c) it is suggested that the criticism of empirical-metaphysical concepts and objective idealism became the basis for skeptical attitude to Marxism on the part of historians of the "Russian School".

Social progress in the works of I.V. Luchitsky

Chronologically, I.V. Luchitsky is the first to address the theory of social development among the three scientists in his articles "Review of literature on the Philosophy of History for 1872" and "The Relation of history to the science of society". The critical analysis of the European concepts of historical development, made by I.V. Luchitsky, allows us to identify the following methodological problems that make it difficult for a historian to understand the logic of social dynamics: a) the lack of a single scientific method and criterion when covering the problem of society development; b) Eurocentrism when trying to establish the laws of the development of all mankind; c) excessive naturalization of the historical process and theoretical-methodological borrowings from natural sciences ^{[18, pp.36-37]}. Among these generalizations there is a place for criticism of the views of historians of the early 1860s, such as M.N. Petrov ^[20] and V.I. Guerrier ^[2]. These scientists methodologically relied on Hegel's objective idealism. Logically, this helped them combine the appeal to strictly established historical facts with the theory of the constant formation of the world Spirit in the process of social dynamics, which allows them to characterize their concepts as empirical and metaphysical. Therefore, in many ways, the basis of their historiosophical research was aimed at studying the transformation of the Roman Republic to the state of the empire in order to show a qualitative transition from a pagan, slave-owning society and the influence of Christian culture on this process.

 The scientific synthesis of the reliability of historical fact and metaphysical ideas about the dominant role of the spirit in history did not seem logical to I.V. Luchitsky. The rejection of empirical-metaphysical constructions in the course of comprehending the historical process contributed to the search for the most promising, from a scientific point of view, methodological tools. Despite the favorable attitude towards the positivist school of O. Comte, which developed a methodology for the consistent study of social dynamics based on a historical source and the logic of the general conclusion ^{[18, p.38]}, I.V. Luchitsky saw flaws in it. The main one should be recognized as the inability of positivist theory to carefully process the abundance of factual historical material, as well as its comparison with data from other fields of knowledge, without which it is impossible to fully illuminate the logic of human actions. Therefore, for I.V. Luchitsky, the idea of social progress becomes inseparable from working with the corpus of historical sources, based on the objectively existing social reality, the developed categorical apparatus and the achievements of other fields of knowledge. Already here we see that for the "Russian School" the principle of historicism is the most important condition in the search for the development of criteria for social progress. Taking into account the criticism of I.V. Luchitsky of the Eurocentric orientation of many concepts of social progress in the mid-nineteenth century, we can state that the Russian researcher insisted on the need to refer to the materials of the history of various epochs of different peoples to search for the relationship of phenomena and establish common criteria for social development.

As S.N. Pogodin notes in his monograph, I.V. Luchitsky's understanding of the idea of social progress will be incomplete without referring to the statistical method that the historian drew from the works of J.S. Rogers ^{[21, pp.218-219]}. To date, the relevance of using the quantitative method in historical science when working with various data sets is not in any doubt. When referring to various indicators of the standard of living of society, the statistical method in sociological science also does not lose relevance in calculating the parameters of social progress. Taking into account the novelty of the quantitative method in the social sciences of the late XIX century. When comprehending the idea of social development, I.V. Luchitsky saw it as a successful tool for researching historical sources, comparing the development of various stages of the life of peoples and, as a result, a complete understanding of the movement of the historical process. It should be noted that for the Russian historian, the statistical method was not the main tool in the search for patterns of development of society, but was always combined with the principles of historicism and psychologism. However, in the era of the spread of the Marxist spiral theory of social progress, which at that time was based on the material and economic explanation of the transition of society from one stage to another, the tendency to the statistical method and the economization of history became the cause of controversy among historians of the "Russian School" and divergences in views on the scientific justification of the idea of social development.

It is worth admitting that in theoretical and methodological terms, the historian's work managed to overcome the excessive romanticization of the empirical and metaphysical concepts of his colleagues M.N. Petrov and V.I. Guerrier. But the practical realization of social progress in the works of historians who adhere to the position of objective idealism, and in the works of the positivist-oriented I.V. Luchitsky, is based on the growth of individual freedom. Despite fruitful work in the field of historical science, coverage of critical stages in the development of Western European society, I.V. Luchitsky could not provide a general scheme of the stadium change of historical epochs and criteria of social progress different from their predecessors.

Objective and subjective in N.I. Kareev's theory of progress

As we noted above, I.V. Luchitsky deduced the theoretical and methodological foundations of his concept from positivism, analyzing and criticizing European theories of social development and domestic historians of the mid-nineteenth century. It should be said that N.I. Kareev was also greatly influenced by O. Comte's theory, since the system of positivism determined the building of a general system of the historical process, the transformation of disparate facts into a general coherent theory. Therefore, the principle of historicism, which was guided by I.V. Luchitsky, N.I. Kareev also considered the basis for studying the processes of social dynamics.  But it was precisely in the issue of studying social progress, unlike I.V. Luchitsky, N.I. Kareev could not take on the theories of O. Comte and G. Spencer, the most prominent representatives of positivism.

In his work "The main questions of the philosophy of History", the Moscow scientist criticized a large number of theoretical and methodological approaches to the problem of social progress. By this time, a huge layer of ideas had developed in Russian literature, focusing on subjective nominalism, objective idealism, providentialism, Romanticism and other European theories. The most important aspects of the idea of social progress in the domestic socio - humanitarian knowledge of that time can be reduced to the following theses: a) the need to solve the problem of the development of one individual and humanity as a whole; b) raising the question of identifying the progress of humanity with the achievements of a single people; c) is it permissible to justify cruelty in the past and present with the term "social progress".

Summarizing the critical analysis of various concepts by N.I. Kareev, we can highlight the following methodological principles at the heart of his understanding of progress: a) both objective idealism and positivism in their foundations are aimed at speculative attempts to calculate the course of history based on abstract laws; b) historical facts are embedded in theory, and do not form it; c) denial of the moral component in the process of historical development ^{[7, pp.195-199]}. The second point again forces us to say that at the end of the XIX century. historians cease to see objective idealism as the basis of scientific research. Thus, the logic of social progress should not subordinate the factology of historical research, but is derived from the totality of objective knowledge. The last point is aimed at overcoming another extreme in the study of social progress, namely, the identification of the development of a specific biological subject and a social organism, which was popularized in Europe by the positivist G. Spencer, and in Russia by N.Y. Danilevsky, K.N. Leontiev, etc. ^[5].

As we can see, N.I. Kareev already in his early works raised the question of the relationship between objective cognition of social reality and subjective ethical assessment of the process of historical development. In the work "The Trial of History. Something about the philosophy of history" the researcher for the first time expresses the idea of a synthesis of the understanding of social development by sociology and spiritual evolution by collective psychology ^{[8, p.4, 35]}. A. S. Popov in his work notes that for Kareev, the principle of holistic perception of historical development is based on the knowledge of subjective aspects within an objectively existing reality ^{[22, p.33]}. Like I.V. Luchitsky, Kareev, as the empirical base of research grows and the methods of social sciences develop, seeks to expand the tools of his theory of social progress and faces the popularization of the statistical method, as well as the Marxist understanding of the historical process. Speaking against the economization of the understanding of social dynamics, the Moscow historian criticized the work of I.V. Luchitsky ^{[10, p.23]} and, at the same time, expressed a judgment on the unscientific nature of economic materialism in relation to the problem of social progress ^{[6, p.274]}.

We dare to assume that reliance on the economic basis contradicted N.I. Kareev's theory of progress and excluded the factor of the subjective aspect, the freedom of human will in the process of social dynamics. In addition, the dialectical method, actively used by K. Marx and his scientific heirs, N.I. Kareev did not separate from Hegel's theory of objective idealism, that is, empirical-metaphysical concepts. The emergence of the kingdom of universal freedom and communism, from the point of view of methodological justification, for Kareev is no different from the metaphysical development of the Spirit in Hegel. Thus, other criteria of social development in the Marxist concept – class struggle, economic basis, change of socio-economic formations – are all speculative arguments devoid of scientific basis and denying the role of the subject in history ^{[10, pp.31-32]}.

A significant difference in the methodology of studying the social development of I.V. Luchitsky and N.I. Kareev should be recognized not only the attitude to the statistical method, but also the fact that the concept of the first developed and supplemented based on the evolution of scientific views, the search for the most effective research methods, and the theory of the second incorporates political beliefs. Analyzing the ideal structure of society from the position of liberal views, the historian proved the need only for evolutionary transformations and as criteria for historical progress proposed the complication of the social structure of society, aimed at the internationalization of public life ^{[5, pp.302-305]}.

In the work of B.G. Safronov, it is noted that the entire system of historical knowledge on Kareev includes the following disciplines: concrete history, philosophy of history, history, sociology, social statics, etc. ^{[25, p.130]}. Let us assume that the theory of progress, which acts as a methodological support for the above-mentioned fields of knowledge, has set an unsolvable task for the scientist to synthesize the following points: a) the world-historical pattern of social development; b) the ratio of randomness and determinism in the process of improving society; c) the progress of human personality actions; d) the ratio of objective reality and subjective actions. Despite this, thanks to the works of N.I. Kareev, the "Russian School" tried to comprehend the criteria of social progress, combining the factors of the objective course of the historical process and the subjective influence of man. However, the deployment of social progress in the spatial-temporal dimension in the "Russian School", characteristic of European theories, appears only in the later works of M.M. Kovalevsky, a prominent historian and jurist of his time.

Contradictions of M.M. Kovalevsky's theory of progress

Like his colleagues in the historical craft, Maxim Maksimovich did not escape the influence of the positivist concept in relation to the development of the theory of social dynamics. In general, Kovalevsky's theory of progress looks the most theoretically developed, but at the same time it contains contradictions of classical theories of European authors. This is explained by the initial search for a methodology for historical and legal research ^{[15, pp.15-21]}, the use of tools for analyzing an array of sources on agrarian issues, the evolution of the family and the state, revolutionary processes. Unlike his colleagues I.V. Luchitsky and N.I. Kareev, M.M. Kovalevsky regularly turned to modern sociological theories to adjust the criteria for the progress of society and the periodization of the historical process ^[12;13]. Methodologically, M.M. Kovalevsky considered the idea of progres as a connecting element of all social sciences. ^{[14, p.340]}. Despite this, only a small article in the Bulletin of Europe is devoted to progress in the scientist's works, which describes the synthesis of the economic development of society with the political organization of the social structure to understand the inevitability of progress. ^{[11, p.232]}.

Highlighting the general methodological principles among the representatives of the "Russian School" in relation to the idea of progress and the study of the role of personality in history, we have already mentioned the appeal to the retrospective method of Luchitsky and Kareev's collective psychology. The role of a person in the formation of a higher–level public organization in Kovalevsky follows from the main criterion of progress - the growth of social solidarity. This criterion exists at the tribal level, then tribal, state and international ^{[13, p.82]}. For the inevitable transition to a progressive stage of social structure, the state must secure for the citizen all new rights and freedoms that lead society to social stability and an evolutionary way of development ^{[15, p.8]}. Accordingly, those public entities that hinder the development of human solidarity face a revolutionary form of progress, which M.M. Kovalevsky recognizes, but he considers it unnatural. It is logical to assume that at the level of spatial unfolding of the historical process, we can compare societies with a "natural" and "unnatural" line of ascent. Proceeding from this, we turn again to the dispute between the representative of the "Russian School" and the Marxist theory of social development. Modern Western researchers often compare the analysis of late medieval society by K. Marx and M.M. Kovalevsky, noting different interpretations of the functioning of the institution of the market, money, the processes of education of the working class and the role of communal land use ^[27]. M.M. Kovalevsky, recognizing the importance of K. Marx's economic conclusions for the completeness of the study of European society, was skeptical of the statistical method and conclusions on based on averaged data, and also rejected the idea of a constant class struggle, emphasizing its inconsistency with "natural" progress.  Researcher M. Dygo writes that despite the frequent use of the statistical method, M.M. Kovalevsky neglected the importance of the level of development of productive forces and capitalization of the economy in the study of social progress in favor of moral criteria ^{[4, pp. 35-39]}.  But even in M.M. Kovalevsky's study of late medieval society, we again do not find empirically confirmed facts of the dominance of the "natural" type of progress over the "unnatural", which is carried out within the framework of the class struggle and revolutionary moments of history. And this already contradicts the principle of building a theory of progress based on an objective study of reality. S.I. Arkhipov, in turn, sees a contradiction in following M.M. Kovalevsky's criteria of solidarity and the growth of moral responsibility of a person, with a refusal to recognize the role of the legal system of the European society of Modern Times for the progress of the communicative sphere ^{[1, p.12]}.

What M.M. Kovalevsky's theory of progress is in solidarity with the ideas of I.V. Luchitsky and N.I. Kareev is the rejection of the Eurocentric view of the problem of social dynamics. In his work "Sociology" Kovalevsky, criticizing first of all the concept of objective idealism of Hegel, defends the position that the growth of solidarity in the process of the ascent of society is a single path of all mankind, simultaneously set in motion by various peoples, finally leading to a single world society ^{[12, p. 66]}. But, unlike the works of I.V. Luchitsky and N.I. Kareev, the works of M.M. Kovalevsky, in addition to criticizing the periodization of history by European scientists, contain their own idea of the stages of development of society based on the criterion of solidarity.  However, at the same time, his theory is not without flaws, which we see in a weak analysis of a large array of disparate facts, lack of systematic presentation of his concept, neglect of historical facts in favor of the idea of "natural" progress and the unresolved dichotomy of the irreversibility of progress and the inevitable influence of man on his course.

Conclusion

Summing up, we note that in the "Russian School" there is no unified theory or a common view of the process of social progress. Having rejected the Hegelian views of V.I. Guerrier and M.N. Petrov, representatives of the "Russian School" firmly took the position of positivism. The general theoretical and methodological foundations – the principle of historicism, the dominance of the historical-comparative method, dedication to ethical subjectivism, denial of Eurocentrism, criticism of Marxism – all this is embodied in the theories of progress of the "Russian School". But the position of historians strongly depended on the object of research and the totality of methodological tools. The contradictions that have arisen as a result of the dispute about the role of the statistical method, the criteria of social development, the periods of development of human history, the relationship of history and sociology, show us several fundamental differences among outstanding historians:

1) for I.V. Luchitsky, the theory of progress is a priori present in his works, but the main goal is to analyze the array of historical data and evaluate the historical period under study;

2) for N.I. Kareev, the primary task in constructing the theory of progress is the correlation of the laws of objective social reality with the collective manifestation of human activity as a subject of history;

3) for M.M. Kovalevsky, the theory of progress is the key to understanding social development, the goal of any social science for a natural understanding of society and the basis for interpreting the historical facts obtained.

Nevertheless, the theories of social progress among historians of the "Russian School" were a new round in the comprehension of social development by national thought. They are clearly distinguished by the reliance on the study of society in its entirety, the comparison of the laws of sociological and historical development, the use of a historical source as proof of the unity of social dynamics and the rejection of the momentary desire to transform social relations based on the laws of social development. But it was the belief in the unchangeable progress in the process of society's actions that led all three researchers to unsolvable problems:

a) I.V. Luchitsky, speaking against the concepts of objective idealism, could not offer another basis for stating the fact of the transition of society from one stage to another;

b) N.I. Kareev, having brilliantly proved himself in the field of various scientific disciplines, could not link the contradictions of objective and subjective factors into a single system, and therefore derived his criteria for progress on the basis of political ideas;

c) M.M. Kovalevsky, basing his historical and sociological research on the moral side of the unfolding of social progress, overlooked the growing influence of economic changes, both when analyzing the transition of society from a feudal structure to a capitalist one in European society and in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.