Topic 5. MAN, OR SOCIAL FORM OF MATTER
The crisis nature of human existence in the modern era has extremely aggravated three fundamental questions of human existence - about the essence of man, the method and meaning of his existence, and the prospects for further development. The task of preserving humanity on Earth has given the deepest vital meaning to the most important question for humanity - “to be or not to be.”
In scientific philosophy, the most general aspects of human essence are revealed by the concepts of “man in an infinite world” (universal) and “man in society” (social). Both concepts can be distinguished only with a certain degree of convention; they are inextricably linked and form an integral philosophical concept of man. Certain aspects of human essence are also considered by ethics, aesthetics and other philosophical theories.
If the universal concept reveals the essence of man as a “universal”, and not a purely “local”, “provincial” phenomenon, his special place in the world, greatness, dignity and ability for endless development, then the social concept - as an integral social a being that produces itself and its own social environment. “People,” wrote K. Marx and F. Engels, “can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion, by anything at all. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin produce the means of life they need is a step that is determined by their bodily organization. By producing the means of subsistence they need, people indirectly produce themselves and their material life.”102 Man is a being that produces itself, its being and essence. In this case, the being produced by it arises initially in the form mental prototype. Therefore, man is not only producing, but also conscious being.
Man is the basic element of society, which is nothing more than complexly organized group of individuals, there is a society society of people or people in their activities and relationships with each other. Society, i.e. myself man in his social relations, - This is how Marx defines the human essence of society. The basis of these relations is the unity of the generic and the individual in human essence. The generic in a person is everything that is characteristic of every person, a person in general, as well as humanity as a whole. Generic traits exist only through real individuals. In this case, the generic acts, as will be shown below, as determining only in relation to each individual and what is actually individual in him. It does not dominate the mass of individuals, but, being integral, enters into each individual as a separate entity. If the generic does not exist in the individual as a kind of separateness, it does not exist in the entire mass of individuals. The human essence therefore necessarily individualized, is the essence of each individual.
Social science is almost completely dominated by the assertion that the essence of man lies in set of social relations. This interpretation of human nature is an overly broad interpretation of Marx's sixth thesis on Feuerbach, according to which the essence of man is not an abstraction inherent in the individual; in its reality it is the totality of all social relations. However, the sixth thesis expresses only one side of the Marxist concept of man - the relational one. An attempt to dissolve a person in the totality of relationships, to identify a person as a material being with relationships is in complete contradiction with the spirit of scientific materialism and economic teaching. From these positions, a person is not a set of connections, but a specific, highest form of matter, an objective social being, a substrate (substantial) element of society, located in relationships with its own kind. Marx sharply criticized the idea of man as a kind of incorporeal, non-objective being. “Non-objective being, he emphasized, is impossible, absurd creature" 103. Unfortunately, this absurd idea of man is presented in most studies as a truly Marxist point of view. Marx’s deepest thought about man as “the totality of all social relations” is that man as a social being cannot be understood outside the system of social relations, reason And result which he is. However, man is first and foremost a material, objective being, the main productive force that produces not only consumer goods, but also the economic form of society - economic relations.
The “relational” definition of a person does not reveal the main side of the essence of a person as an active being, a subject of work and relationships. A complete definition of a person includes, first of all, an indication of the role of a person as a productive force, a subject of labor and relationships, and a creator of relationships. "How society itself produces a person as a person, - Marx wrote, and so did he produces society”104. Man is the main objective factor of social life. At the same time in the aspect of your consciousness and activity directly directed by consciousness, man acts as a subjective factor in history. The objective nature and role of man are primary in relation to the subjective side of his existence and activity.
As an organized collective of individuals, society represents the unity of two sides - material and spiritual, expressed in concepts social existence and social consciousness.
In its proper sense, social existence is the existence of a social form of matter, a collective of social material beings in their material activities and relationships. In other words, social being - this is the total existence of individuals, the real process of their life. Analyzing in “Capital” a fairly developed stage of the historical process - capitalist society, Marx defined social being itself as supersensible. This supersensible existence was revealed by him using the example of value as “crystals” of social abstract labor contained in a commodity. He showed that ordinary, sensually perceived things, having become goods, turn “into sensual-supersensible, or social things.” At the same time, supersensible, value relations turn out to be hidden behind property relations, because the specifically social nature of the work of private producers is manifested only within the framework of exchange. Therefore, in the eyes of private producers, their own social movement takes the form of the movement of things. He called this “material appearance of social definitions of labor” commodity fetishism. Human individuals, being material social beings, act as the main, or actually social, the substance of social existence. Having an objective social essence - to add the forces of nature to his own social forces, the actual social individual is at the same time bodily individual. The social essence of man appears in unity with his physicality. The inclusion in the actual social substance - the most complex collective of social beings - of biological, and more broadly, of natural being as the basis on which the actual social being of people exists, serves as the basis for identification social substance with biological. To avoid reductionism, which “entirely” reduces the higher to the lower, it is necessary to take into account the following. Recognition of the real existence of a social substance that is not reducible to a biological organism, or “body,” has “inferential character”. The logical procedure for deriving the concept of a particular material substance (physical, biological, etc.) consists of a conclusion from movement, property or manifestation to their bearer. Since human individuals carry out activities that are qualitatively different from biological ones - labor and thinking, it is necessary to conclude the existence of a social substance that is qualitatively different from the biological body.
In social existence as the total existence of individuals there is universal, generic, characteristic of the life process of the entire mass of individuals. However, the identification of social being with the universal significantly impoverishes its content and deprives the life process of individuals of integrity. At the same time, everything proper is essentially eliminated from the content of social being. individual, inherent in the existence of individuals, all the diversity of their destinies. In reality, the real life process of individuals is unity of the generic and the individual.
Social existence also has as its substance a system of material components - objects created by people, primarily means of labor. However, the sign of sociality cannot be attributed equally to individuals and material elements of society. The last essence transformed natural components of the social. The objectivity of social existence means that it exists independently of consciousness (individual and social), defines his.
Social consciousness in a broad sense, it is a set of ideas, views, perceptions, theories, feelings, illusions, misconceptions of society, i.e. social consciousness. As the consciousness of society, its subject is nature, society and man. In a narrow sense, social consciousness is reflection social existence, its awareness. It reflects, first of all, society and man. At the same time, it also reflects the most general aspects of the world (philosophy), since their awareness depends on social existence. Social consciousness expresses the degree to which a person is aware of the world around him, of his own essence and the meaning of existence. Therefore, the history of the development of social consciousness is the history of man’s consistent penetration into the essence and meaning of his existence.
From the standpoint of scientific philosophy, human existence has meaning in itself, it has no goal outside of it, it itself is the highest goal. The more complex and richer human life is, the more complex its meaning. It is created by a person creating his own, previously non-existent existence. To create one’s own existence is at the same time to create good for humanity, to fight for the human, its preservation and increase. The Austrian psychologist W. Frankl believes that human life has meaning because a person initially, V the power of your nature, aimed at creation and values. At the same time, the creative person perceives reality positively, and the adapting person - negatively105. The adaptation mechanism, as defined by E. Fromm, is “escape from reality.” It allows you to relieve mental stress, but not to find the meaning of life, because by refusing the anxiety caused by reality, a person gives up his own individuality. Life becomes meaningful if individuals are oriented towards the principle of “being”. Meanwhile, in modern society, an orientation towards possession, or, in other words, the attitude of “having” has become widespread.
What is the essence of man or what is man? Each of us already has some understanding of the essence of man, but it never hurts to think about it again. From how we understand essence of man, the direction of our own growth and development (or degradation), and our approach to raising children, and relationships with other people depend... Some options direct us to the fullest realization of our potential, while others, on the contrary, close many prospects.
We are all people, but people can be very different: bad and good, smart and stupid, vile and noble, talented and mediocre... How can the essence of a person be revealed among this diversity? There are a lot of unhappy people, dissatisfied with life, lost... And others are happy, successful, purposeful. Why? Of course, everyone is unique, but can all of our qualities be classified as unique characteristics? Are they sometimes just developmental delays or illnesses? And how to find out? There must be some kind of frame of reference that gives a certain standard of human essence. Our conclusions will depend on the system in which we think.
The essence of man as his potential
By the essence of a person, I, first of all, mean his potential - that a person Maybe implement in life. Or it may not be implemented. For example, an infant can potentially learn to talk and walk. But if he does not learn this, then this potential will not be realized. With children, however, everything is clear. We have tables that tell us what a child should master and at what age during normal development. We will not discuss the degree of adequacy of such tables - at least they exist.
It's more difficult with adults. There are no tables for them, but the huge difference between people suggests that not everyone has fully demonstrated their human essence, achieved personal maturity, or realized their potential. Our trouble is that human essence is not at all obvious; it does not reveal itself and is not realized. The possibility of this implementation largely depends directly on the person himself - on how he understands this task, and his efforts. And the main question is what is considered human potential?
For example, a kitten will grow into a cat, and a rose sprout will grow into a rose bush, in any case, without any effort from oneself or from outside. If the conditions are bad, then the cat or rose may be weak, sick, but their essence will not change from this. But a person does not always even realize his potential. And this can happen only because he understands his essence in such a way that he does not take into account many of the possibilities of this potential. These opportunities have not gone away, but people do not develop them. As a result, an internal conflict arises, which stealthily ruins his life. But he can’t understand what’s the matter...
Options for understanding the essence of man
There are not many options for understanding the essence of a person. All concepts of the essence of man can be divided into 4: man is an animal, man is a part of nature, man is a product / part of society, and man is something more, irreducible to everything else, a unique being. Human development is determined, accordingly, based on an understanding of its essence.
Man is an animal
The materialistic concept of the essence of man defines man as “a representative of the species people from the family of hominids of the primate order,” i.e., as one of the animals. There is practically no talk here about the specific essence of a person and any special potential - a person belongs to his species by birth. Like an animal, his capabilities are not great, even taking into account his intelligence. As a child, he masters the skills of speech, walking upright, using his hands and mind to perform simple survival operations. Well, that’s all :) After all, here a person is, first of all, a body, a biological organism. It is determined by the needs of the body.
If a person is only a biological being, an animal possessing purely technical intelligence, then his development is interpreted as physical development plus the mastery of a certain minimum amount of knowledge and skills achieved by humanity. There is no talk of individuality here. The task of development of such a person is adaptation to environmental conditions and preservation of the species. The main activity of man as an animal is the production of offspring and teaching them the skills necessary for survival. Like an animal, he has virtually no freedom. With all the consequences that follow from this...
Man is part of nature
This view of the essence of man is shared by various people who talk about “harmony with nature.” They view a person solely as part of nature, which, in fact, differ little from materialism. Even though they see “nature” more broadly than materialistic philosophy, seeing in it, in addition to the visible, also invisible “levels” of varying degrees of fantasticality. This does not change the essence - after all, the secret of the universe is that it is all one, everything is just different forms of existence of one energy, this energy is simply “subtle” and “gross”.
They speak beautifully about the essence of man - that it is “divine.” We just need to find this god within ourselves and identify with it. However, it turns out that everything in the world has the same “divine essence”. This philosophy does not make a difference even between living and inanimate nature - not only animals, but also a stone along the road have the same divine essence. The task of man in these teachings is to merge with nature, which means the entire material world, as fully and harmoniously as possible. This is even more radical than considering yourself an animal...
How to merge with nature? This means getting rid of everything that interferes on this path - and self-consciousness and reason interfere, desires interfere, will too... What potential can we unlock with such an understanding of the essence of man? It’s difficult to even say what kind of potential the stone has. But it is obvious that with such a view, many human traits are abolished as completely unnecessary (more on this in the article). And certainly there can be no talk of any uniqueness or individuality. You're just part of nature! Even relationships with other people in this system appear as a mechanical interaction of impersonal “energies” that they conduct through themselves. Nothing personal, in general - just physics :)
Man is a social animal
Everyone knows that if Mowgli is raised outside of human society, then he will not become a full-fledged person - he will not even learn to walk and talk. This means that interaction with one’s own kind is very important for becoming a human being. That is, a person is social animal. This view assumes that the full potential of a person depends on society, and it is there that it is realized. In this case, the development of the individual will consist in the best adaptation to society - that is, in socialization. This is the acquisition of knowledge, skills and character traits necessary to interact with society according to its laws. I learned the laws, learned to apply them - and that’s it! What will be the criterion for development here? That's right - success and respect in society.
In our consumer society, success is measured in terms of money and property, as well as steps on the career ladder. Successful playing of social roles is also important: citizen, man or woman, family member (). This is a very characteristic idea of a person for our society. But roles and place in society are only external aspects of our existence. But what about the internal ones? And what about realizing our uniqueness?
Man is a unique creature
When we talk about the essence of something, we try to find features that distinguish it, and are not common to something else. It seems to me that in order to determine the essence of a person, it is advisable to highlight those features that distinguish him from the rest of the world - after all, this will be his species uniqueness, Right? The view of the essence of man as a being that is fundamentally different from the rest of the world is shared by philosophy/psychology of the humanistic direction and some world religions.
In religion, what distinguishes a person from the rest of the world (animals, plants, inanimate nature) is called in spirit. The spirit is fundamentally not related to the “other world”, “to this world”, being the “image of God” or the “spark” of the transcendental God. Non-theistic humanism simply considers man a unique being, capable of self-creation and creativity, a subject of cognition and activity, relying in his actions on his own mind and creative potential, which is not observed in the rest of nature.
Distinctive features of man as a unique being
- Free will. The rest of the world is governed by laws and instincts, but man is capable of voluntary behavior. Responsibility also follows from this.
- Intelligence. Only a person is capable of thinking and comprehending himself and his surroundings. Animals can think and understand something, but questions of meaning interest only us, only we are capable of reflection and abstract thinking.
- Creation. Only man creates new things, like God. The rest of the world simply exists, adapting and using the environment.
- Development. A person has an innate desire for self-improvement and personal development that continues throughout his life.
- You can also note religiosity, an aesthetic sense and a sense of humor - this is also not observed in the animal world.
Based on these human properties, values such as truth, goodness and beauty exist in the human world. And on these traits is based the possibility of originality, uniqueness - her moral choice, independent thinking, creative self-expression, the ability to love. I think everyone will agree that these traits distinguish only a person and are potentially present in each of us, as well as the fact that in reality not everyone realizes them fully.
Understanding the essence of man as a moral choice
Unfortunately, we can observe people who do not use their freedom, but act under the influence of external factors; people who do not know how to think independently, whose minds are limited; people who only reproduce what they have been taught instead of a creative act; and people who are not developing - those whose lives revolve in a circle for many years, or even those who are degrading... There are a lot of such people, which makes it possible to substantiate theories that describe a person as a part of nature, a biological being, or as a social animal. But what about the fact that a person also has the above traits, even if not everyone has them? They do not fit into these theories, which means that the theories are not complete.
Of course, we are biological beings, members of society, and even part of nature, but if we ignore our higher traits, can we say that we are fully human? Will our life be full and happy? It can be calm and relatively harmonious, there will be small joys in it... But from time to time we will still be visited by thoughts and haunted by a vague longing for something more. The desire for personal development and the realization of one’s potential - to - is still inherent in us, and it will require satisfaction. But whether we can accomplish this depends on what understanding of the essence of man we adhere to.
It is worth noting that none of the described options for understanding the essence of man is something “scientifically proven”. These views belong to the axioms that underlie a particular picture of the world - they are either believed in or not. This means that the person free to choose the concept that he wants to believe. This choice, on the one hand, is determined by his inclinations and personal motives, and on the other, in turn, inevitably influences his life and activities. That is, a question of different understanding the essence of man- This moral choice, and not a question of knowledge. Which option do you choose?
© Nadezhda Dyachenko
During the Second World War, the Nazis killed at least one and a half million people in the death camp alone - Auschwitz. Can we at least to some extent justify this crime against humanity by citing the fact that atrocities are necessary to give meaning to goodness, to highlight and exalt it?!
If we evaluate these statements in the coordinates “smart-stupid” (quality of thinking), then we must admit that all of them - maybe the biggest stupidity said by philosophers. To consider evil necessary for good (or for progress) means to justify and sanctify it (accordingly, to justify all criminals and villains), to consider all the efforts of people to combat evil unnecessary and in vain. There cannot be two truths here: that (1) evil is necessary for good and that (2) evil must be fought. If we recognize evil as necessary for good, then we should not fight it. If we recognize the need to fight evil, then we should not consider it necessary for good. One excludes the other. Otherwise, we are dealing with a logically contradictory statement. (In fact, the statement that evil is necessary for good contains an implicit logical contradiction, because the very concepts of “good” and “evil” characterize the good, the good, the useful, the desirable, the necessary, on the one hand, and then what is not good, useful, desirable, necessary, on the other hand. If evil is necessary for good, then it is necessary for man, and if it is necessary for man, then it is good. Thus, evil is good: not-A is equal. A).
12. The stupidity of the philosopher as a gross error of categorical thinking
In the past, philosophers and historians often explained important historical events and turns as the result of random, insignificant causes. C. Helvetius, in his essay “On Man,” wrote: “As doctors assure, the increased acidity of the seminal substance was the cause of Henry VIII’s irresistible attraction to women. Thus, England owed this acidity for the destruction of Catholicism” (C. Helvetius. Op. Vol. 2 , M., 1974. P. 33). It seemed to Helvetius that England owed the destruction of Catholicism to the personal characteristics of King Henry VIII. He was referring to the marriage of the English king to Anne Boleyn, which caused a break with the Pope. In reality, this marriage was used only as a pretext for breaking with Rome. Randomness, of course, played a certain role here. But behind it stood the historical necessity of reformation. Helvetius exaggerated the role of insignificant chance, elevated it to the rank of necessity, that is, he mistook necessity for chance.
13. The stupidity of the philosopher as a result of superficiality, frivolity
Among philosophers one can often find Khlestakov’s “extraordinary ease of thought.” F. Nietzsche was distinguished by such ease of thought. He said a lot of stupid things. Here are some of them:
13.1. " Are you going to women? Don't forget the whip!"Thus spoke Zarathustra." - No comments needed.
13.2. From Nietzsche comes the expression " push the falling one" (“What falls, you still need to push!” - “Thus spoke Zarathustra.” Part 3 (Nietzsche F. Works. In 2 vols. T. 2. M., 1990. P. 151)). If If a person is weak in some way, then there is no need to help him, but, on the contrary, we need to contribute to his further downfall. There is probably no more cynical statement in the mouth of a philosopher!
13.3. " Morality is the importance of man before nature" I heard this “aphorism” of Nietzsche, if I may say so, on the radio before the news program “Vesti” (9.59) on Sunday, April 27, 2003, in the section “Complete Collection of Revelations” of Radio Russia. What can one say to this? The stupidity of the philosopher knows no bounds ; is dangerous because it is repeated a million times by other people, it spreads like a viral infection, like a contagion. Think about these words of Nietzsche. If morality is self-importance, then, therefore, down with morality, goodness, honor, duty - all this is self-importance of a person. nature, i.e. something unworthy, which must be gotten rid of. See also paragraph 20 (Nietzsche on conscience).
13.4. Here is another stupidity of F. Nietzsche. Without being at all embarrassed, he attributes to philosophers a negative attitude towards married life: “... the philosopher shies away married life and everything that could seduce him towards her - married life, as an obstacle and fatal misfortune on his path to the optimum... A married philosopher is appropriate in comedy, this is my canon"("Towards the Genealogy of Morals"). He clearly passes off wishful thinking. Socrates, Aristotle, F. Bacon, Hegel and many other philosophers were married. Nietzsche has great conceit: very often he passes off his subjective specific view as a generally accepted opinion.
13.5. F. Nietzsche said so many stupid things that they exceed the critical mass and make him a false philosopher, a false sage. His " Evil wisdom"(the title of one of the books) is the height of absurdity. Think about this title. It is monstrously absurd, like a round square or hot snow. Wisdom, in principle, cannot be evil. It is the focus and unification of the three fundamental values of life - goodness, beauty, truth. From such a combination, their strength increases many times over. The newfangled word “synergy” is the best fit for wisdom. It is not alone, nor truth, nor goodness, nor beauty. It is what leads or can lead to truth, goodness and beauty. which is a prerequisite or condition for truth, goodness and beauty. Wisdom is greater wisdom, the better it leads to good and the better it protects from evil, since evil is anti-good.
Nietzsche said to himself that he was an “adventurer of the spirit.” Indeed, his mind is going crazy. Goethe said: where stupidity is a model, there reason is madness. The opposite is also true: where reason is madness, there stupidity is a model (let us remember holy fools of various stripes and how they were revered).
14. K. Castaneda - accusing all people of stupidity
C. Castaneda: “ The warrior treats the world as an endless mystery, and what people do as endless stupidity"("The Teachings of Don Juan", p. 395). The incredible stupidity of a philosopher is to accuse all people of stupidity.
15. K. Marx: the essence of man is the totality of all social relations
K. Marx: "...the essence of man is not an abstraction inherent in an individual. In its reality, it is the totality of all social relations." - Marx K., Engels F. Op. T. 3. P. 3.
Human- a biosocial being, the highest level of the animal type.
Individual- a single person.
Individuality- a special combination in a person of the natural and social, inherent in a specific, individual individual, distinguishing him from others.
1. The socio-biological school (Z. Frady and others) is associated with the struggle in our minds of unconscious instincts and moral prohibitions dictated by society.
2. Let us note that the theory of the “mirror self” (C. Cooley, J. Mead), in which the “I” is part of the personality, which consists of self-awareness and the image of the “I”. In this concept, personality is formed in the process of social interaction and demonstrates a person’s ideas about how he is perceived and evaluated by other people. In the course of interpersonal communication, a person creates a mirror self, which consists of three elements:
1) ideas about how other people perceive him;
2) ideas about how they evaluate it;
3) how a person responds to the perceived reaction of other people.
1. Note that the theory of roles (Ya. Moreno, T. Parsons), according to which personality is a function of the totality of social roles that an individual performs in society.
2. Anthropological school (M. Lundman), which does not separate the concepts of “man” and “personality”.
3. Marxist sociology in the concept of “personality” demonstrates the social essence of a person as a set of social relations, which determine the social, psychological and spiritual qualities of people, socialize their natural and biological properties.
4. The sociological approach, which many modern sociologists are guided by, consists in representing each person as an individual, to the extent that he acquires socially significant traits and qualities. These include the level of education and professional training, the body of knowledge and skills that allow people to realize various positions and roles in society.
Based on the above theoretical principles, one can define personality as an individual manifestation of the totality of social relations, a social characteristic of a person.
As an integral social system, a person has an internal structure consisting of levels.
The biological level contains natural, common in origin personality traits (body structure, gender and age characteristics, temperament, etc.).
The psychological level of a personality unites its psychological characteristics (feelings, will, memory, thinking). Psychological characteristics are in close relationship with the heredity of the individual.
Finally, the social level of the individual is divided into tripartite levels:
1. actually sociological (motives of behavior, interests of the individual, life experience, goals), this sublevel is more closely connected with social consciousness, which is objective in relation to each person, acting as part of the social environment, as material for individual consciousness;
2.specific cultural (value and other attitudes, norms of behavior);
3.moral.
Needs- those forms of interaction with the world (material and spiritual), the need for which is determined by the characteristics of the reproduction and development of its biological, psychological, social certainty, which are realized and felt by a person in some form.
Interests- ϶ᴛᴏ conscious needs of the individual.
33. Social status and social role.
Social status- social position occupied by a social individual or social group in society or a separate social subsystem of society.
Types of statuses:
Each person, as a rule, has not one, but several social statuses. Sociologists distinguish:
A) natural status - the status received by a person at birth (gender, race, nationality, biological stratum). In some cases, birth status may change: the status of a member of the royal family is from birth and as long as the monarchy exists.
B) acquired (achieved) status - a status that a person achieves thanks to his mental and physical efforts (work, connections, position, post).
C) prescribed (attributed) status - a status that a person acquires regardless of his desire (age, status in the family); it can change over the course of life. The prescribed status is either innate or acquired.
Status incompatibility:
Status incompatibility occurs under two circumstances:
1) when an individual occupies a high rank in one group, and a low rank in the second;
2) when the rights and obligations of one status of a person contradict or interfere with the fulfillment of the rights and obligations of another status.
Social role- this is a set of actions that a person occupying a given status in the social system must perform.
Types of social roles:
The types of social roles are determined by the variety of social groups, types of activities and relationships in which the individual is included. Depending on social relations, social and interpersonal social roles are distinguished.
Social roles are associated with social status, profession or type of activity (teacher, student, student, salesperson). These are standardized impersonal roles, built on the basis of rights and responsibilities, regardless of who plays these roles. There are socio-demographic roles: husband, wife, daughter, son, grandson... Man and woman are also social roles, biologically predetermined and presupposing specific modes of behavior, enshrined in social norms and customs.
Interpersonal roles are associated with interpersonal relationships that are regulated at the emotional level (leader, offended, neglected, family idol, loved one, etc.).
Characteristics of a social role:
The main characteristics of the social role were highlighted by the American sociologist Talcott Parsons. He proposed the following four characteristics of any role:
A) By scale. Some roles may be strictly limited, while others may be blurred.
B) By method of receipt. Roles are divided into prescribed and conquered (they are also called achieved).
B) According to the degree of formalization. Activities can take place either within strictly established limits or arbitrarily.
D) By type of motivation. The motivation can be personal profit or public good.
Personality- this is the unity of biogenic, psychogenic and sociogenic properties that determine its behavioral, role activity at the level of the unity of social existence and social consciousness, refracted in the individual as a set of social relations. In other words, personality is a social phenomenon. But, pointing to the essence of a person as a set of social relations, it should be noted, as I. S. Kon does, that the “essence of a person” and a “specific personality” are not the same thing. Can a person, without sinning against the truth, call himself “the totality of all social relations,” when the sphere of activity of any particular individual obviously includes only a small part of these relations?
Indeed, a person, interacting with society, deals with the entire diverse range of relationships that people enter into in the process of their life, forming various social structures: communities, groups, parties, classes, nations, peoples, social institutions, statuses, roles, activities , behavior, communications, connections, in a word, everything that characterizes the social structure of society. But even this does not exhaust everything that a person can come into contact with during his life, since social processes are extremely dynamic. Changes, transformations, movements, campaigns, disasters, conflicts, struggle, development, progress and regression, stagnation and leaps, etc. – all this expands the sphere of human interaction with society. In order to develop optimally, a person must be included in such areas as work, politics, culture and spiritual life, education and science, religion, family and marriage relations, information relations, a system of group interests, and a system of management relations. Naturally, all this diversity, this entire set of social relations is reflected in the essence of man. And precisely in essence, and not in the specific person himself, in personalities, for it reflects only what belongs to it personally, colored by the personal meaning of her being.
According to I. S. Kon, when studying personality, one first of all distinguishes intra-individual(internal) and interindividual(interpersonal) approaches. In the first case, the focus is on the individual and his characteristics. In light of this approach, to understand, for example, such a phenomenon as friendship, it is necessary first of all to study personal properties of the subject that affect his ability to make friends: his tolerance, degree of sensitivity to the experiences of another, irritability, etc. The closer the subject’s qualities are to some ideal model, the greater the likelihood that this subject is able to establish friendly relations with another person. On the contrary, from the position of an interpersonal approach, the researcher studies not a person’s potential ability for friendship, but friendship as an attitude: compatibility of two friends reacting to each other in certain situations, etc. In other words, in the first case, traits, attitudes, and personality properties are studied, in the second - patterns of interaction. These approaches imply each other: personality traits influence the interaction of individuals and, in turn, are themselves formed and modified in this process. Essentially, it is on the basis of the dialectical unity of these two approaches that the entire social life of people is formed as the interaction of the individual with society and society with the individual, but depending on the goals of the study, one or the other approach predominates. In particular, psychology and psychiatry more often use an intraindividual approach, while social psychology and sociology use an interpersonal approach.
Western studies of human behavior problems in general are more oriented towards a psychological (using psychiatry data, for example, Freud's personality theory) rather than a sociological approach. Personality (personality) here primarily means the characteristic features of the behavior of an individual person. In Russian sociology, great importance is traditionally attached to the interaction of the individual with society and society with the individual, and the definition of personality in sociological science is certainly associated with its social connections. Personality appears here as the integrity of a person’s social properties, a product of social development and the inclusion of the individual in the system of social relations through active substantive activity and communication. An individual becomes a personality in the process of mastering social functions and developing self-awareness. The desire to merge with a social community (to identify with it)) and at the same time, to isolate oneself from it and to demonstrate creative individuality makes the individual both an object and a subject of social relations and social development.
Personality formation is carried out in the processes of socialization and directed education, the individual’s mastery of social norms and functions (social roles) through mastering diverse types and forms of activity. In addition to general social ones, personality acquires traits that are determined by the specific life activity of special social communities of which individuals are members. Mastering the traits inherent in these diverse communities, as well as the social roles performed by individuals in group and collective activities, on the one hand, is expressed in socially typical manifestations of behavior and consciousness, on the other hand, gives the individual a unique individuality, since these socially conditioned qualities are structured into stable integrity based on the psychophysical properties of the subject. Thus, personality is integrated with individuality.
As can be seen, this does not contradict the fact that sociological study identifies precisely the socially typical in a person as the integrity of characterological and moral qualities, knowledge and skills, integral orientations and social attitudes, and dominant motives of activity necessary for the performance of social functions. As a subject of social relations, the individual is characterized by active, reality-transforming activity, which becomes possible and productive thanks to the mastery of culture inherited from previous generations.