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We emphasize the point that the society «goes through» radical social transformations in the transitional phase of development – the reform of social structures, relations and correlations, hierarchy of factors, etc. which take an important part in the system of the reproduction of social life. The processes of transitional conditions of social systems are followed by a sharp weakening of the influence of cause-effect relations which form the basis of the rational method in science. From our point of view, the realization of this fact explains a drop in efficiency and, in some cases, unsoundness of both scientific (rational) knowledge and the method of solving the task of overcoming the social crisis. Those are transitional periods (the times of «disturbance» and crises) when one can observe the growing importance of the traditional knowledge and practices backing on the intuition, popular orientations and methods, coming from ancient times, for solving vital tasks and for prognoses of the future.

It is obvious that the investigation of social development should be carried out on the principles of integration of the ancient and temporary, traditional and innovative knowledge and methods, which only together are able to give the adequate results under conditions of the transitional period of social development on the boundary of millennia.

The main scientific problem of the present research is the social development in the spatio-temporal continuum.

As the object of our analysis, we take the life cycle of the society as a subject of the historical process. We also shall investigate the genesis of societal processes, their characteristics and conditions.

We note that the analogous trend in social philosophy gives no any distinctive criteria for the rational construction of a system of classification and periodization as integral elements of a scientifically grounded foresight. In this connection, a new wave of the «traditional» discussion about progress is very significant. For example, A.Nazaratyan separates five through tendencies (vectors) of changes (on sufficiently large temporal intervals):

1) rise of technologic power;

2) demographic growth;

3) intellectual development;

4) growth of organizational complexity;

5) enhancement of tolerance.

Such an approach to the progress is criticized by A. Korotaev. He states that we do not know whether the humanity is approaching its apotheosis or abyss[11]. Indeed, the utilitarian ideal of progress formulated by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is as follows: the sum of individual profits gives the overall profit – «the biggest happiness for the largest number of people»[12]. But it still remains just a philosophical utopia for the largest part of the population over the world.

The theoretical constructions continue to be created at the corresponding levels of abstraction upon the analysis of objects of various scales. It is necessary to remove the contradiction between the forms of development on the basis of the formulated universal laws and all the variety of achievements of natural sciences. The question is the social science striving to become an exact science normative for the political sphere, especially in the context of social engineering.

The solution of this main task should promote the attainment of the main objective of this research – creation of a universal and, at the same time, applied model of epochal historical cycle as the unit of analysis and the means of prognostics at the level of the specific countries, regions, and civilizations.

The research has a polydisciplinary character, which is related to the development of the main concept of cyclicity of social development in the historical context.

The expected results, which are of hypothetical character prior to a receipt of empiric data, may become a subject for further specific researches in the sphere of the sociology of history, social philosophy, politology, psychology, right, geopolicy, philology, etc.

Thus, the contemporary macrosocial situation and the condition of theoretical developments stimulate the formation of a new research paradigm of the social science on the basis of integral societal indices. Of course, unless the corresponding empirical information is received, the offered concept is a hypothesis.

CHAPTER 2

Problem of historical-
sociological reflection

A historical-sociological conception is represented as a synthesis simultaneously containing the analysis of the most important tendencies of development of specific countries and regions, interpretation of the contemporary epoch, and forecast of long-term historical development. As is well known, the history of sociological science includes similar theories. In the period of the transition from a traditional to industrial society, this problem was solved by the conceptions of O. Comte, E. Durkheim, and K.. Marx. A detailed characteristic of the industrial society was given by M.. Weber[13], and that of the post-industrial society by D. Bell, A. Toffler, and others.

We have already noted that, on the boundary of the third millennium, the global transformation stimulates changes in the spiritual sphere, and actual problems become sharper due to a greater nonpredictability of behaviour of subjects of the historical process. Similar social phenomena stimulate the necessity of harmonization of interdisciplinary scientific studies, new theoretical approaches, adequate methodologies for analysis and forecast which would be relevant to the historical challenge.

Since the history of sociological thoughts is a pure source of principal ideas of the sociology of history, we turn to the analysis of the state of scientific interpretation of the problem of social development.

This problem can be solved by considering the main conceptions of social development in the historical context through the prism of problematic-chronological discourse, which allows one to show the self-identification of the main doctrines and a scientific-critical dialog between them.

On the theoretical level, the basic contraversivity was already considered in the doctrines of O. Comte (1798-1857) and Ch. L. Montesquieu (1689-1775). The latter, as distinct from O. Comte, did not trust in the idea of progress[14]. At the same time, Ch. L. Montesquieu advanced a fruitful idea on the influence of geographical environment on the social development and definition of a historical situation. Here, we can find the origin of geopolicy and geoeconomy which, in the period of globalization, render a growing effect on the historical situation not only in specific countries and regions but on development of the whole civilization.

As distinct from Ch. L. Montesquieu, O. Comte was a supporter of the idea of unity of the whole history of the mankind, because the single intention of the history consists in the progress of human intellect[15]. Therefore, sociology should be a system of positive knowledge on the society. One of the moving forces of the history was a disorder of thinking at every individual historical stage. The process of development was described by O. Comte in terms of «statics» and «dynamics». The last is characterized as a sequential change of the necessary stages of establishment of the human intellect and society for attainment of a static state, i.e., social order. Therefore, progress is comprehended as a development of the rational in persons. As for the progress of a society, O. Comte connected it with the evolution of social (human) consciousness, the sequential change of three dominating types of outlook:

1)theological one, when the leading tendency of social development is the competitiveness between religious ideas and an originating scientific knowledge;

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