Historical anthropology as a modern philosophy of history and theoretical sociology: social-cultural dynamics analysis

Abstract

The article analyzes the impact of scientific approaches of historical anthropology as a modern philosophy of history on the theoretical sociology’s understanding of social and cultural dynamics in the planes of “local civilizations” and global. The methodology of this work includes the principles of complementarity, structure, and dialogue. In the study of the problematic field of labor, the following methods were applied: philosophical hermeneutics, systemic- structural, and interdisciplinary. Historical anthropology as a philosophical- historical discipline, that analyzes the mental- cultural horizon of causality, the essence of historical processes and their possible projection into the future has a significant potential for the understanding of global social- cultural dynamics by theoretical sociology. An important problem for its understanding is the analysis of the essence and trends of globalization and civilizational development. The scientific influence of historical anthropology as a modern philosophy of history on theoretical sociology brings to this social and humanitarian discipline conceptual approaches for researching psychological and worldview- cultural causality and the essence of processes, that are part of its problem field. Among the issues that belong to the intellectual space of theoretical and sociological studies and can be effectively investigated using the concepts of historical anthropology, the following should be noted:
– the study of the mental and cultural horizon of the social dynamics of civilizational communities
– understanding the humanitarian plane of the historical foundations and development trends of “local civilizations”;
– study of correlation of globalization and civilizational trends of modern socio- cultural dynamics;
– proposing and understanding the scenarios of further global socio- cultural development;
– research of the content and features of alternative models of global socio- cultural dynamics and assessment of the probability of their implementation.
Solving these cognitive issues by theoretical sociology using the conceptual approaches of historical anthropology as a modern philosophy of history allows this discipline to form knowledge about the important mental and cultural foundations of causality, essence and probable prospects of sociocultural dynamics both at the level of “local civilizations” and at the global level. The significance of the analysis of a wide range of psychological and cultural- worldview foundations of socio- cultural processes is explained by the multifaceted and deep nature of their influence on various segments of global social reality, including economic, demographic, scientific- technological, educational, etc.