2.11. Tetrasociology: comparison of social philosophies

Leo Semashko, Russia

Tetrasociology encompasses social reality at all levels, from micro to macro. Tetrasociology spawns a distinctive social philosophy, with a specific social ontology, dialectics, epistemology, and axiology. An appropriate name for this philosophy would be tetrary social philosophy or social tetraphilosophy or tetrasociophilosophy. Its degree of generalization places it between tetrary philosophy and tetrasociology. Tetrasociophilosophy and tetrasociology are inter-inclusive, part of each other. But this is a vast subject, deserving a separate research. This brief article, meanwhile, is an attempt to compare, in a table, tetrasociophilosophy (Semashko, 1992, 1999, 2002) with several other Russia's social philosophy trends, which are explored in the books of Barulin (1999), Momdzhian (1997), Pigrov (1998) and Reznik (1999). Comparing different trends of Russia's social philosophy is tantamount to initiating a dialog among them, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, selecting the maturest trend, and synthesizing, on the basis of the one selected, the other trends' strengths.

The social philosophies are being compared within the frameworks of their major sections: ontology, dialectics, epistemology, and axiology. In every section, various parameters are identified. This comparative effort is not laying claim to completeness or exhaustiveness. It is limited to several major parameters and the most general characteristics. The results of the social philosophies comparison are summarized in the following table:

COMPARATIVE TABLE OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHIES

SECTIONS AND PARAMETERS	Tetrasociophilosophy	V.S.Barulin	K.H.Momdzhian	K.S.Pigrov	Yu.M.Reznik
onTOLOGY
Type of ontology	Postpluralism[1]	Monism Materialism	Monism Idealism	Undefined (Amorphism)[2]	Dualism of matter and spirit ([3]1,23-37)
Social reality	Tetrary (four-dimensional)	Uni-dimensional (material)	Uni-dimensional (spiritual)	Undefined	Undefined[4] (Amorphism)
Reality’s primordial components	Four: Resources, Processes, Structures, States	one: Social matter	one: Conscience (214)	Undefined	Ideal and real (physical) existence (1,23-37)
Priority[5] components of reality	Resources: People, Information, Organization, Things	Things	Conscience	Undefined	Individuality, culture, social organization (2, 206)
Priority resource	PEOPLE	Things	Conscience (information)	Undefined	Undefined
Priority employment of people	Self-reproduction	Undefined	Undefined	Undefined	Undefined
The unity of social reality (social substance)	People’s reproductive employment from birth to death	Material production (social matter)	People’s purposeful, self-conscious activity (177, 381[6])	Undefined	Undefined
The spheres of reality	Four: Socio, Info, Organi, Techno	Four: Material-productive, Social, Political, Spiritual	Four spheres of activity: Spiritual, Material, Organizational, Social (319)	Undefined	Three spheres, or three Worlds: Systemic, Civic, Vital (1, 342,437-476)
Spheres of production	Four: Socio, Info, Organi, Techno	one: Material-productive	Four: Spiritual, Organizational, Social, Material (348)	Undefined	Three Material, Spiritual, Vital (1,45,324)[7]
Object/product of the spheres of production or activity	Four: People, Information, Organization, Things	one: Things	Four elements: Subjects, Things, Signs, Connections or organizations (324-329)	Undefined	Undefined (Amorphism)
Social	Four-dimensional, defined through people’s reproductive employment	Undefined	Antithetical to nature, people’s joint, conscious activity, uni-dimensional (83)	Undefined	Undefined (Amorphism)
Components of the social	Humanitarian Info Organi Material	Undefined	Undefined	Undefined	Individuality, culture, social organization (2, 206)
Social space-time	Four-dimensional Axes of coordinates: Resources, Processes, Structures, States	No	No	No	Postulated (p.200-202) (Amorphism)
Sections of ontology	Statics Dynamics Structuratics Genetics	Three levels: Spheres of society, Laws of society, Society in its entirety	Three levels: Global, Historical, Individual society (111)	Undefined	Three levels: General, Medium, Individual societies (1,13-14)
Social classes	Four sphere classes of population: Socioclass, Infoclass, Organiclass, Technoclass	Two: exploiters and the exploited. Productive and non-productive; in one sphere	Two: proprietors and the working class, and these two encompass ALL spheres (359-365)	Two: The propertied and the oppressed (88)	Four classes-strata (1,473) (Amorphism)
The criterion for class identification	Major reproductive employment in one of the spheres	Ownership of the means of production	Property (356)	Property (79-80)	Property (1,473)
Class struggle as the driving force of history	Rejected, but recognized as a temporary phenomenon, produced by branch-based and antagonistic classes	Recognized as a driving force, but its «absolutization and apologetics» are criticized. Class cooperation is recognized[8]	Undefined	Undefined	Undefined
Government	Sphere, or tetra democracy as the equal distribution of power among sphere classes	The dictatorship of proletariat, but not as the only possible form of transition to communism (332)	Undefined	Undefined	Undefined
DIALECTICS
The foundations of dialectics	Interinclusion of whole/part, necessary/sufficient, equality/difference, prioritization	Interconnection and interaction of spheres and classes of society	Interconnection of whole/parts, primordiality of the whole, compositional intersections (175,249,250)	Substance and attributes, single and multiple, individual and generic, relations and activity (51-58)	Systemic and vital worlds of society (1,342)
The source of growth and change	Unity and harmony of opposites	Struggle of opposites	Undefined	Undefined	Strugge of worlds-spheres (1,342) (Amorphism)
The ultimate goal of social development	Sphere society as the harmony of sphere classes, as continuous aspiration for harmony	Communism, classless society	Undefined	Undefined	Self-programmable or pluralistic society (1,342, 424-426)
Sociocultural technology of non-coercive development	Technology of harmonization of society and individual spheres	No	No	No	Social engineering (2, 204-207) (Amorphism)
EPISTEMOLOGY
The key question of social philosophy	Relations between harmony and disharmony of society’s and individual’s four spheres	Relation between social/public existence and social/public conscience	Relation between matter and conscience, the primordiality of conscience (252)	Undefined	Undefined
Cognition at the levels of statics, dynamics, structuratics, genetics	Sphere statics, dynamics, structuratics, genetics	No	Social statics (310-315); Physiology (367)	Four models of social reality (p. 58-71)	Cognition at the levels of social dynamics and structures (2,97,144)
Relation to pluralism	Positive	Negative	Negative[9]	Neutral[10]	Positive, fragmentary (1,403)
Unitary philosophy	Impossible, although a temporary priority for one of them is possible	Possible	Possible (69)	Undefined	Possible as a «universal social science» (2,73,205-207)
Social verity	Pluralism of social verities	Single social verity	Single social verity (69)	Undefined	Undefined
Sociological statistics	Sphere statistics	No	No	No	No
AXIOLOGY
Supreme value	Social harmony of society’s and individual’s spheres	Communism as a classless society	Undefined	Two values: Happiness, Heroism (91)	Undefined
Struggle, domination, but in a «mild format»	Dialog, tolerance, supplementality, equality		Undefined	Happiness or heroism (91)	Undefined

The comparative table lays the foundation for a systematic dialog among different social philosophies, which can and should be continued in the book-dialogs series. Dialogs of social philosophies are an important and significant component of multicultural dialog.

References

Barulin V.S. Social philosophy. Moscow, 1999.

Momdzhian K.H. Introduction to social philosophy. Moscow, 1997.

Pigrov K.S. Essays on social philosophy. St.-Petersburg, 1998.

Reznik Yu.M. Introduction to social philosophy. Social ontology. Moscow, 1999

Reznik Yu.M. Introduction to social theory. Social epistemology. Moscow, 1999. We will denote Reznik's first book as "1", and the second "2" in the Table

Semashko L.M. Sociology for pragmatists. St.-Petersburg, 1999;

Semashko L.M. Sphere approach. St.-Petersburg, 1992.

Semashko L.M. Tetrasociology: Responses to Challenges. St.-Petersburg., 2002

Notes:

[1] Postpluralism is a variety of pluralism which posits a finite number (two, three, four, five, etc.) of the bases of the world, society, and individuals. Traditional pluralism is different because it theorizes an indefinite number of bases - simply "many." Monism assumes that the world, society, and individuals have only one base. Pluralism and monism originated long ago, in ancient Greece. The debate and the dialog between them continues until today and, apparently, this debate/dialog is perpetual and presents a major philosophical problem. However, at the different stages of society's development, the positions of pluralism and monism have varied. At the beginning, people's beliefs were pluralistic, which is compellingly evidenced by polytheism. Then monistic beliefs, theories and religions took over. And beginning in the second half of the 20th century, pluralism is getting increasingly stronger, which is evidenced by various forms of democracy and the recognition of equipollence of international religions (Plurotheism).

[2] An amorphous, undefined position is identified as "amorphism"

[3] The page numbers of the works quoted are indicated in parentheses

[4] The author provides an extensive literature review, but does not provide his/her own definitions of some of the major categories, which makes his/her position amorphous, undefined

[5] The terms such as "primordial" and "priority" are identical in monism, but different in tetrasociophilosophy. "Primordial" designates components that are equally necessary and sufficient for society's existence, while "priority" designates the varying roles and weight of, and significance attached to, the components in their functioning and interinclusion

[6] Momdzhian, K.H. Op.cit., p.381-393. Momdzhian is "torn" between materialism and idealism, between the primordiality of conscience and activity (practice), which shows his partial departure from monism and drift to dualism

[7] In other passages of his work, the writer already identifies six, not three, "spheres of society's life" as spheres of "production": economic, political, legal, ideological, artistic, humanitarian (1:409-410)

[8] Barulin, V.S. Op.cit., p.328-332. Barulin attempts to smooth away all the jagged edges of Marxism, even though his interpretation runs contrary to the Marxist logic, thus creating yet another ineffectual version of Marxism

[9] Momdzhian, K.H. Op.cit., p.69 and on. Momdzhian rejects pluralism as "science's base," but admits "plurality" of public interests, etc.

[10] K.S.Pigrov's neutral attitude to monism and pluralism is nevertheless injected with the principle of supplementality, or "complementarity" of the four models indicated (p.72), and this tips the balance of his views to pluralism. However, arguing that reality is "spiritually cultivated," he gravitates to idealism. As a result, Pigrov's position is amorphous, ambivalent

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Leo Semashko, Russia

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