Значение личностного, понимающего направления в политической науке

Abstract

The aim of the article is to show the importance of the personalistic, understanding direction in political science, in comparison with the systemic-explanatory direction. The problem of the predominance of “holism” in political science is investigated. It is shown that the personalistic, understanding direction is less common, despite the representativeness in the works by E.B. Shestopal, O.Ju. Malinova and others in Russia. First, the essence of methods of explanation and understanding and their relationship with the “system” and the “personality” are shown. Then the attitudes of the two directions to man – as a complete individual personality or as a biosocial organism-individual – are compared, as well as to consciousness, subjectivity, and experienced meanings. It is substantiated that since consciousness and the meanings of personality are subjective, they are not taken into account by mathematically objective explanatory approaches, and the significance of an individual personality is denied by the predominance of general structures over it, a person is defined as a dependent social individ-ual, a part of the whole. Then two cases are analyzed, revealing the limitations of the systemic-explanatory ap-proach. A case of the mechanical transfer of a democratic or socialist system from one country to another and their failure, which cannot be explained by a systemic-explanatory approach. And the case of the systems ap-proach, that norms and values are simply programmed by the system into the people’s consciousness as indi-viduals who do not have their own personal, subjective, independent views. The advantages of a personalistic, understanding direction that can fill scientific gaps not covered by holistic approaches are revealed.