The Dialectic of Social Forms of Necessity and Randomness

Philosophy

Abstract

The aim of the study is to highlight the socially necessary content in human existence and to contrast it with the content that has little or even negative significance for the development of society. The socially necessary is understood as necessary in its highest, proper human content, in relation to human nature, society and the individual. Since the necessary and accidental contents in society are dialectically related, the study is reduced to the disclosure of this relationship of social forms of necessity and contingency. The study is based on the concretely general theory of development, developed by a team of authors, led by V.V. Orlov. The concept of man, developed by V.V. Orlov within the framework of this theory, allows us to identify objective grounds for identifying criteria for the degree of necessity of content in society. One of these bases is associated with universal, potentially infinite human essence, its deep laws and needs, and the other, dialectically related to it, is associated with human labor activity, its goals and objectives. These foundations allow us to trace how the necessary content is distributed in the social and individual being of man, to identify the most socially necessary content. Dialectical relationship of these foundations allows us to maintain the traditional approach to the understanding of necessity and contingency as correlated concepts and under certain conditions passing into its own opposite. The study provides an important tool for a critical analysis of the existing orders in society and the trends of its development from the perspective of the deep needs of the universal human essence. From these positions the most necessary content in human existence turns out to be everything that contributes to the disclosure of the fruitful potential of human essence more and more fully and brightly, corresponds to the universal values and humanistic ideals tested in the centuries.