Dialectic of essentialism and constructivism in modern sociohumanistic research (illustrated by ethical and religious range of problems)

Abstract

The article defines the possibilities and character of complex application of essentialist and constructivist approaches in the study of socio-humanistic processes and phenomena. Modern scientific methodology should abandon the “shallow”, one-sided rational thinking, incapable of encompassing and comprehending multi-faceted, complex and ambivalent social and individual reality. The study of productivity of interrelated essentialism and constructivism methodologies in concrete scientific inquiry is one of the steps in this direction. The subgoal of this article is to broaden and refine the knowledge regarding the potential linking of essentialist and constructivist attitudes in specific scientific socio-humanistic research. The general goal and novelty of the article is the preparation of theoretical background to develop the current modern version of the multidimensional rationality concept of the human with multifaceted objectives and activity. These goals are reached by determining the productivity/unproductivity of one-sided absolutization of the above approaches in the analysis of modern socio-humanistic processes and phenomena and by clarifying their complementarity and its character. On the basis of addressing essentialist and constructivist traditions of describing Orthodoxy and Christianity at large, consideration of fundamentalism phenomenon in various denominations, comparison of essential and constructivist-mythological approaches to ethic phenomena analysis, the conclusion is made that the tradition of clear division between essentialism and constructivism is becoming irrelevant; comprehensive and therewith multi-criteria analysis of modern socio-humanistic range of problems suggests defining both its permanent essential component and its dynamic, constructing trends. These approaches should be used in their dialectic unity: inviolability of fundamental cultural values and their new “integration” in changing social life conditions every time constitute the most important condition for creative constriction and study of social reality.