Crime in the Context of Philosophy of History

Abstract

Methodological foundations for improvement of criminological science involve the expansion of its interdisciplinary connections, including its connections with philosophy and history. This makes it possible to study crime as a certain social process taking place in the general logic of the development of society and subordinate to it. The classical philosophy of history offers several options for understanding the meaning and driving forces of the historical process that predetermine competing views on the history of crime. Theology and Marxism, fundamentally differing in their view of the mechanism of history, provide an understanding of crime as a linearly developing process that has its origins in the past, but inevitably disappears in the future as the «end of history» is reached. Cyclical concepts of the historical process allow us to look at crime as an eternal, indestructible phenomenon that changes its basic forms as historical cycles change and in accordance with the basic parameters of this cycle itself. The concepts of multifactorial historical development determine an emphatically sociological explanation of crime, within which its state can be assessed outside the context of the past and future. The postmodern challenge to universal classical historiosophical concepts has actually destroyed their explanatory significance and methodological value. At the same time, postmodernism creates favorable opportunities for understanding the process of crime as an integral part of many parallel and overlapping histories: the history of liberalism, the history of economics, the history of preserving national identity, etc. In this case, crime stories (plural) appear in place of crime history (singular). And only such a multi-layered view of the processes of crime development and its connection with social processes can provide adequate methodological support for criminological research. In this regard, the results of the study can be considered as a contribution to the development of historical criminology, which is gaining relevance.