The «System of Sociology» by Pitirim Sorokin and the systemic communicative approach

Abstract

The authors of the paper reconstruct the contribution of Pitirim Sorokin, an outstanding Russian and American sociologist and philosopher, into the development of social ideas that he made during his Russian period of work. The authors pay special attention to the sociological autonomy program as a transdisciplinary science and note that Sorokin anticipated many ideas of the vastly influential at the time of his work system-communicative theory. He also articulated the most important prerequisites for the crystallization of the modern communicatively differentiated society. Basing on the knowledge of natural science, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, evolutionary theory, etc., Sorokin formulated a positive program of system and communicative approach to the study of society, which was embodied and thus verified only decades later within the framework of the Niklas Luhman’s theory. This program included an analysis of the minimal manifestation of society, which was called «interaction», and which could be identified with the modern concept of communication.

The paper is a partially revised version of the English text by Antonovskiy A.Y. (2020) Sorokin Pitirim Revisited. His place in Social Philosophy as a Transdisciplinary Thinker. Journal of Siberian Federal University, Social Sciences. Vol. 8. No. 13. P. 1250—1263; printed with permission from this journal.