Choice of methodological foundations for the study

Choice of methodological foundations for the study. Methodological bases of the new paradigm have to ensure the analysis of social-historical development at the level of specific countries, regions, and civilizations, to adequately interpret important events of the contemporary epoch, and to allow one to foresee principal tendencies and perspective of the historical development. In the modern sociological science, there occurs an actual global transformation stimulating a change of basic categorial characteristics, which implies a change in representations of the common and the single.

Objectively, the time of a change of the paradigm of social-historical development came. By a paradigm, we mean theoretically and practically important scientific achievement which give a model, statements of problems, and their solution to the scientific community for a certain timeBurgin M.S Onoprienko V.I. Social stereotypes and scientific paradigms as regulators of scientific activity in Russian Kiev, 1996 P. 22 A result of study will depend on the basic choice of a methodological approach.

The criterion of objectivity and universality of sociological knowledge requires to study a situation in all regions and countries of the world in view of global tendencies. This allows one to clarify the fact of the termination of one epoch and appearance of the other and possible ways of the transition to it. In this context, the American sociologist I. Wallerstein outlines the aspiration of sociology to become the exact science normative for the sphere of policyRomanovsky N.V. Sociology and sociologists before global cataclysms in Russian Sotsiol.

Issled 1999 No. 3 P. 4-5 M. Archer comprehends conceptual problems of sociology in the opposite manner. She outlines that social science cannot play the role of radical transformer from the viewpoint of Comtes programming of the societyRomanovsky N.V. Sociology and sociologists before global cataclysms in Russian Sotsiol.

Issled 1999 No. 3 P. 7 On the other hand, a use of the methodology of social engineering is connected with the orientation of scientific tools to mathematical logicRyzhkov V.A. Conception as a form of scientific knowledge in Ukrainian Kiev, 1995 P. 17 In the context of the present investigation of social-historical development, we assume an applied utilization of appropriate methods in the process of analysis of indices of societal characteristics.

After the derivation of empiric indices, they should be undergone to comparative analysis. A realization of the methodological approach to the study must ensure the possibility of a harmonic transition from the common to the partial civilization - country and conversely, with the purpose to determine regular ties between social-historical phenomena and their specificity. In this case, all our positions will be restricted the time and experience we have cognizedAron R. Stages of development of sociological thought in Russian Moscow, 1992 P. 413 On the basis of representations of cyclicity of the social development, the main methodological idea of the project proposes the instrumental possibility, which is adequate to tasks of the study, to reconstruct the objective logic of principal historical changes, which are characterized such events as revolutions, transformations, state overturns, diverse social protests, numerous civil conflicts, local and global wars. Similar phenomena, as a rule, appear in the so-called transient states of social development, which can serve hypothetical indicators of epochal changes.

For analysis of these phenomena, we consider the study of A.L.Chi-zhevskyChizhevsky A.L. Cosmic pulse of life in Russian Moscow, 1995. as methodologically acceptable.

He demonstrated the interrelation between a historical process in the form of the social-historical activity of the mankind and processes in the Sun, a degree of its astrophysical activity.

Having established a direct connection, Chizhevsky proved his hypothesis on the actual historic data starting from 500 BC and till the XIX century. Moreover, he emphasized that non every maximum of solar activity unconditionally stimulates the corresponding maximum of the historical activity. In order that happens, the proper immanent conditions should be available as a necessary requirement in Chizhevskys opinion, these are social-economic and political along with, possibly, spiritual or social-psychological conditions. An important methodological basis of the present investigation is the idea of cyclic character of the psychical development of the man because a personality is one of the main elements of any social structure.

In this context, we distinguish theoretical-practical generalizations made by D.FeldshteinFeldshtein D.I. Psychology of development of personality in ontogenesis in Russian Moscow, 1989 P. 208 which are substantial for our approach.

By basing on the occupational approach S. Rubinshtein, A. Leontev, A. Brushlinsky, et al. and age periodization of psychological development of a personality in ontogenesis D. Elkonin, which were advanced in psychology, Feldshtein demonstrated a cyclic periodic character of changes in the psychological structure of a personality and, respectively, in the psychological structure of activity, in which the communicative and objective plans are alternatively actualized.

The historical origin of leading activities allows one to rationall