Necessity and Fate

Abstract

The article focuses on the problem of necessity in the social sphere. The concept of necessity is, first, introduced as a derivative of cause-and-effect and logical relations. Then the author emhisezes the peculiarity of the sphere of social interactions which consists of the fact that social reality is constituted by language and can therefore be considered as a discursive universe. Due to this peculiarity, the necessity in the sphere of social relations has not a causal but a quasi-causal character. The latter means that the relationship between individual phenomena has the character of “events” that are formed in a certain narrative context. Here, reality loses the role of the ground for events and performs only the function of reference. In this case, necessity functions as the attribution of the role of cause to certain events. To demonstrate how these theoretical positions work in practice, the author considers the political doctrine of K. P. Pobedonostsev (1827–1907), a jurist, lawyer and prominent political figure of his time, who shares the views of Russian conservative nationalists. This analysis allows us to confirm the hypothesis that there is always a gap between political action and real processes. From this, in turn, it follows that the necessity of political actions is caused not by the logic of the mere fact but by the logic of the interpretation of the facts within the framework of a certain political program. After that, the author argues that, in the field of social, two scenarios for justifying necessity are possible — mythical and argumentative. He analyzes and compares these two types of scenarios as well as the ideas of necessity formed within them. The last part of the work examines the concept of fate as a subjective side of the question of necessity. The author also argues that the place of unfolding fate is a discursive universe. From this, it follows that fate is intertwined with events that are quasi-causal; therefore it has a probabilistic character. Thus, the connection between fate and necessity is broken.