Features of socio-philosophical and philosophical-historical approaches to the study of civilizational issues

The author of the paper insists on the need to highlight two complementary aspects in understanding the nature of civilization. In one case, civilization is a historical era, and in the other, it is the civilizational development of individual local states or societies (local civilizations). The paper reveals the thematic field of research on civilizational issues from the perspective of socio-philosophical knowledge (including its philosophical and historical component). It is noted that the uncertainty and vagueness of the concept of civilization is largely due to the fact that its philosophical status has not yet been identified, since the concept is considered, as a rule, without connection with the system of socio-philosophical categories. An important theoretical issue is the question of civilizational self-awareness of society. i.e. awareness of oneself as a civilization. Further, the paper talks about the theoretical and practical significance of studying the level of development of local civilizations during the transition from an independent type of development to a dependent type of development. Much attention is paid in the paper to the analysis of the dependent and backward type of historical development of non-Western civilizations, which lasted during the five-century cycle of world history. The last section of the paper discusses a complex and not fully clarified question, which was posed by S. Fourier in all detail. Does civilization as a historical era have a time frame of existence or is this era forever? Today’s change in the vector of world development, the rejection of unipolarity allows the author to raise the question of the transition of humanity from the era of civilization to a new era, to the New modernity, when the further development of human society will take place according to the laws of culture.