22 THE BEGINNING OF THE IDEA OF THE CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL LAWS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF PEOPLE

During the period of rising capitalism, its representatives considered society as a product of the interests and needs of certain subjects (N. Machiavelli, D. Locke, and others).

In the XVIII century. germs of historicism are born. The life of society begins to be understood in the form of a natural, but no longer an automatic, but historical process. Inherited factors are issued as primary to the subject’s activities. Although they could not be subjected to historical-materialistic consideration, their search was important for the progress of not only sociological, but also psychological thought.

The Italian philosopher D. Vico (1668–1744) in his work “Foundations of a New Science on the General Nature of Things” suggested that any society gradually passes through three eras: gods, heroes, and people. Despite the utopian nature of this picture, the approach to social phenomena from the standpoint of their natural development was innovative. It was believed that this evolution is due to its own internal causes, and not because of the play of chance or the predictions of an idol. In particular, he combined the emergence of metaphysical thinking with the formation of trade and political life.

The views of D. Vico include the idea of ​​a suprasubjective inner strength inherent in the people as a whole and constituting the fundamental principle of culture and history. At the place of worship of an individual was put veneration of the national spirit. Claiming the priority of the historically emerging internal forces of society in relation to the activities of an individual, D. Vico discovered a different aspect in the matter of mental determination.

A number of French and German enlighteners of the XVIII century. given this aspect of central importance. The French enlightener S. Montesquieu (1689–1755) made a work “On the Spirit of Laws”, which had become prohibited. Contrary to the doctrine of divine providence, it stated that people are governed by laws that depend on the circumstances of the life of society, primarily geographical conditions.

Another well-known French thinker, J. A. Condorcet (1743–1794), in Sketch of the Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1794), presented the historical formation in the form of infinite progress, determined by both the external nature and the interaction of people.

In Germany, the enlightener Johann Herder (1744–1803), defending the idea that social phenomena change naturally, in a four-volume work, The Ideas of Philosophy of the History of Mankind, explained these modifications as necessary steps in the general development of popular life. The spiritual activity that distinguishes man from animals is revealed, according to I. Gerder, directly in the language. In his work On the Origin of Language, he sought to form a historical view of linguistic creativity and link it with the psychology of thinking.