Bogdanov's Tectology: Between the World Revolution and Science

Abstract

This article is an analysis of A.A. Bogdanov's tectology. The author of the article tries to look at the genesis and essence of tectology from the point of view of socio-cultural methodology, that is, by attracting an idea of socio-cultural factors that can be considered to set the direction and nature of this theorist's thinking. The main content of the analysis is to show the contradiction between metaphysics and science, which is characteristic of the avant-garde theories-practices of the first half of the twentieth century and which is present in Bogdanov's teaching. On the one hand, Bogdanov's theory can be seen as an expression of the avant–garde pathos of world transformation, and on the other hand, an expression of the intention to assert one's knowledge and one's orientation as scientific, that is, corresponding to the essence of the reality to which it is directed, and is opposed to philosophy as a purely theoretical approach to understanding problems and not based on a single method. The specificity of Bogdanov's position is expressed in the statement of a single method — the “organizational point of view”. His world revolution is transformed by this point of view into a world organizational revolution. The “organizational point of view”, claimed in tectology, is containing the intention to bring harmony into a world filled with chaos. The desire to make his position scientific expresses Bogdanov's intention for the objectivity-practicality of his approach. Nevertheless, this does not negate the fact that Bogdanov was originally set by the magic of the world revolutionary transformation, which in modern interpretations of his tectology turns into nothing more than an anticipation of a scientific theory — the theory of systems.