Social Cognition

The Integrating Principle of Social Cognition

Any social issue can be examined both at the level of everyday consciousness and on a theoretical plane. These levels, necessarily accompanying the process of social cognition, shape the complex structure of social knowledge. This structure primarily includes propositions accepted as true without logical justification, typically formed spontaneously under the direct influence of certain phenomena, existing as postulates, axioms, or dogmas, representing a specific manifestation of customs in intellectual activity. In addition, the structure encompasses traditions of theoretical activity, meaning logically substantiated forms, methods, and techniques of grasping social reality, as well as its mental transformation or preservation. These traditions manifest as individual ideas and viewpoints, worldview positions, and principles that have gained strength, relative stability, repetition, and unofficial normative authority. One of the most crucial elements of this structure is the patterns of social cognition revealed through mental penetration into the essence of societal phenomena, known as principles.

These structural elements are interconnected, mutually conditioning one another. Ideational and logical justification serves as the standard that demarcates traditions and principles of social cognition and theoretical activity from dogmas and postulates. Yet, it must be remembered that this boundary is fluid. Under certain circumstances, traditions and principles can devolve into dogmas and postulates.

What are these circumstances? Generally, we can identify several key factors.

First, there is the tendency to extend the application of certain theoretical propositions beyond their legitimate boundaries. An example of this approach is the attempt by some social scientists to apply specific laws, relevant to only one or several stages of social development, to the entire process as a whole.

Second, there is the premature projection of historical development, the desire to declare as universal certain laws that have yet to come into effect. For instance, the proclamation at a party congress of the establishment of "developed socialism" in the Soviet Union prompted social scientists to "discover" laws of its development, which, for reasons now clear, did not yet exist and could not manifest themselves.

Third, there is the refusal to consider changed circumstances, ignoring new socio-political and economic conditions. Among the many parties and movements currently active in the countries of the CIS, only a few recognize the need for theoretical reflection on the contemporary social reality, which has fundamentally transformed in recent years. It is therefore unsurprising that the social programs of the majority are based on superficial assessments of social phenomena, without uncovering their underlying essence or the deeper causes that determine their existence. This political activity, as a result, is far from the best examples of the recent past.

Like traditions in general, traditions of social cognition are not static—they too evolve, with their ultimate stage being their sanctioning as principles of social cognition, as distinct laws of social cognitive activity. But does this mean that every tradition in social cognition can be sanctioned as a principle without jeopardizing the accuracy of its results, i.e., the truth of social knowledge and its correspondence to the social phenomena it seeks to understand? Certainly not. Only those traditions of social cognition that reflect the essential, enduring, recurring, internal, objective, and necessary connections of the social objects being studied—i.e., the regularities of their development, existing independently of both the subjects of social cognition and their consciousness—can be elevated to the status of a principle.

The justification of any principle is always preceded by a corresponding idea, which has gained stability, repetition, and an unofficial normative character in intellectual apprehension of social reality—this is the tradition. This reveals not only the specificity of traditions in social-theoretical activity but also the law governing the formation and development of social theories. On the other hand, principles themselves, as the foundation of the methodology that conditions social-theoretical activity, determine the process of formation and development of its traditions.

Until relatively recently, few domestic social scientists questioned the reliability of the principles of historical materialism. However, the peculiarities of the current stage of societal development have fundamentally altered this situation. There are ongoing tendencies to discredit the entire decades-long history of Soviet society. Often, this is done by former apologists of that history, who, having adopted new roles, now seek to paint the entire past, including its methodology, in only the darkest colors, thereby fully rejecting it.

Humanity has dealt with scholars of this type before. "Some historians," wrote the famous English thinker R.G. Collingwood, "sometimes entire generations of them, find nothing reasonable in certain periods of history and label them 'dark ages'; but such descriptions tell us nothing about those ages themselves, and a great deal about the people who make such judgments—they show that these individuals are incapable of reproducing the thoughts underlying life in those eras."

Unfortunately, not everyone is capable of understanding this, and the feverish activity of those who denounce and expose in the spirit of the less admirable traditions of the past raises doubts among serious researchers about whether it is even worthwhile to appeal to the principles of historical materialism in attempting to comprehend contemporary social reality. This creates preconditions for the formation of a mechanism that hinders the development of a scientific methodology capable of enabling productive analysis of social problems. As a result, there is a growing tendency to consider such problems only at the level of everyday consciousness—a trend dangerous not only for the future development of social theory but also in practical terms.

The development of scientific methodology is always a complex process. On the one hand, it cannot form without relying on already established traditions and principles, but on the other hand, it cannot become a scientific methodology without breaking with existing traditions and principles, shedding outdated ones, and substantiating new ones that correspond to the ever-developing object of cognition. In this, innovation manifests itself. From this follows that the successful resolution of this problem is possible only through a critical analysis of the methodology that has been previously formed and practiced—namely, historical materialism.

It is commonly accepted that Karl Marx provided a concise formulation of the principles of historical materialism in the well-known preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. There, he wrote: "In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will—relations of production that correspond to a certain stage in the development of their material productive forces. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation upon which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political, and intellectual life processes in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness."

This statement undoubtedly contains an essential characteristic of the process of social development. However, it does not fully reveal the entire system of principles underlying the social cognition of dialectical materialism, particularly its fundamental, integrative principle. This point holds great significance because an analysis of this principle, and our relation to it, enables a fuller understanding of both the past triumphs and the contemporary crisis of this methodology of social cognition and the theory based upon it.

An analysis of the development of Marxism allows us to assert that the integrative principle, upon which the founders of Marxism relied in their study of society, was the principle of the dialectical unity of social theory and social practice. This principle, on the one hand, reveals the objective necessity for the constant renewal of social knowledge, and, on the other hand, provides a reliable criterion for testing its truth. It thus allowed for a pioneering search for a scientific methodology of social cognition, laying the foundation for a significant contribution to the study of society.

Fidelity to this principle of social cognition was also demonstrated by V. I. Lenin. In particular, in his article Our Programme, he wrote: "We do not view Marx's theory as something complete and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it has merely laid the cornerstone of the science that socialists must advance in all directions if they do not wish to lag behind life."

Formed on the basis of uncovering the logic of the historical process, this principle ensured the objective character of the other principles of methodology, the fundamental and essential feature of which is the orientation toward adequately reflecting social reality.

However, it would be a mistake to consider the principle of the dialectical unity of social theory and social practice as something immutable, as though it has always existed. Its existence is the result of a deliberate preservation by the subject as a necessary condition for innovation in the development of social cognition. Ignoring the mechanism of this condition becomes a factor in the formation of an inhibiting mechanism for social cognitive activity, negatively affecting society’s transformative practices. Examples of this are not hard to find. We need only mention one.

It is well-known that after the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia, the theoretical propositions advanced by Marx—concerning the necessary transition from commodity-money relations to product exchange, the nationalization of land, and the "statization" of agricultural production—did not find practical confirmation. A dialectical-materialist analysis of the resulting situation led Lenin to the conclusion about the harmful consequences of the "proletarian" assault on the market and commodity-money relations. It was on the basis of this conclusion that the New Economic Policy (NEP) was formulated, a policy that still attracts the interest of scholars today. Let us recall that during its development, Lenin considered questions whose answers eventually led to the conception of rebuilding society on socialist foundations, as elaborated in his articles "Pages from a Diary," "On Our Revolution," "How We Should Reorganize the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate," "Better Fewer, But Better," and "On Cooperation." The conceptual nature of the ideas expressed in these works was noted by N. I. Bukharin. In a report marking the fifth anniversary of Lenin's death, Bukharin observed: "All these articles, if examined closely, represent not separate, disconnected pieces, but organic parts of a single grand plan for Lenin's strategy and tactics, a plan of development based on a clear perspective."

In creating the conception for building a new society, Lenin, as is well-known, did not have time to complete it, let alone transform it into the highest form of organized scientific knowledge, one that would provide a comprehensive understanding of the laws governing the emerging social organism. This form would not only include the main ideas outlining the contours of the future structure but also methods, principles, and means for their implementation—in other words, a theory in its narrow, specialized sense.

The task of addressing this issue fell upon Stalin after Lenin's death. Stalin, too, clearly saw that the theory of socialism developed by Marx in the latter half of the 19th century did not correspond in key details to the social reality that had emerged in the country by the end of the third decade of the 20th century. However, his theoretical search took a very different path, as it was based on a different integrative principle.

Rather than adapting theory to new social realities, Stalin sought to force practice to conform to theoretical conclusions. A wholly different form of the relationship between the ideal and the real world arose. The principle of dialectical unity between social theory and social practice was deformed and replaced by the principle of forcefully (and thus metaphysically) aligning practice with the conclusions of social theory, which, although broadly reflecting the logic of social development, did not always align with the actual social process.

The integrative principle that emerged during Stalin’s cult of personality became one of the primary factors in the formation of an inhibiting mechanism that stifled the development of scientific methodology in social cognition, and, with it, the entire complex of social sciences. Notably, it underwent no significant changes even after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which denounced the cult of Stalin’s personality. This is evidenced, for example, by the conclusion regarding the possibility of building communism in the shortest possible time, a conclusion presented by the ruling CPSU theorists as the foundation of its program, as well as the concept of developed socialism and other positions that cannot be regarded as innovative.

The distortion of the integrative principle and its subsequent falsification led to the deformation of other principles within the system developed by the classical authors of dialectical materialism for analyzing social phenomena. For instance, the principle of the class approach, which demanded that the tasks of qualitative societal transformation—viewed as a socially necessary process determined by the interests of the working class in alignment with the broader needs of society—should take into account the interests of other classes and social groups, was replaced by a narrowly class-based approach. This latter principle was grounded in the absolutization of the working class’s interests, subordinating the interests of other social groups within society. It was the young working class, its absolutized interests, perspectives, and visions of the new social order—along with its prejudices and mistakes—that formed the basis of Stalin’s ideas. Upon this same foundation, which naturally evolved and changed, rested the intellectual activity of the majority of CPSU theoreticians.

And not only theirs. This is evidenced by the absolutization of the working class’s role in Soviet society, the one-sided approach to evaluating its level of consciousness and organization, and, at the same time, the underestimation of the role and significance of the peasantry and the intelligentsia—attitudes characteristic of many social science researchers and writers. As a result, an ideological factor emerged that restrained the development of the social potential for resolving societal problems, thus hindering the fuller satisfaction of social needs, including those of the working class.

The principle of revolutionary transformation of society was also distorted. The core of this principle required that transformative activity be based on knowledge of the laws of social development, taking into account objective conditions and the state of subjective factors, as well as the particularities of various phases of the transformative process. This principle was replaced by the notion of forcing or accelerating social changes. Such an approach fostered a tendency in social sciences towards subjective evaluations of the achieved level of societal development, left-wing impatience, and the desire to justify social goals for which the necessary preconditions had not yet emerged, to solve all problems swiftly without regard for whether the required conditions existed or whether the subjective factor was ready.

The deformation of the integrative principle, along with the other principles of the methodology of social knowledge, reduced the scientific level of social theory and the practical consciousness based on it—namely, ideology—leading to their dogmatization and mythologization.

At the same time, it is impossible to overlook the fact that the negative influence of this factor persists to this day. Recent attempts to implement blatantly reckless programs for the radical transformation of society in the shortest time possible, as well as attempts to uncritically adopt social theories from Western countries and apply their conclusions to our specific social reality, illustrate this. There have also been efforts to hasten changes in the social structures of young societies.

Today, few social scientists or pragmatic politicians doubt the need for genuine renewal in all spheres of social life. However, in advancing this task, it must be clearly understood that its realization is only possible through a thorough understanding of contemporary social reality and the identification of its inherent laws of development. This, in turn, underscores the urgent need to restore the principle of the dialectical unity of social theory and social practice. Doing so will enable a critical analysis of the existing methodology of social knowledge and foster an effective search for ways to renew it.