author: Revin Frol
Urgency of the research. In contrast to the models of social analysis criticized for totalizing and schematizing the ontology of societal interaction the following analysis bases its findings on socio-philosophical theories concerning the emotional nature of collective phenomena. In particular, the author proposes to examine cooperative activity present in modern societies from the vantage point of affective factors prevalent in interpersonal exchange between members of various formal organizations, spontaneous groups and collectives considering their particular type of nexus, organizational cohesiveness as well as collaboratively achieved results.
Target setting. Oral empirical and identification social processes, in particular, can be evaluated within the framework of the methods and categories proposed in the bosom of the phenomenological philosophy of social and philosophical doctrine, postulating the order of types of social connections, which corresponds to different types of common emotional interdependence.
Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. Critical reflection pertaining to the general foundations of the issues at hand is presented in the works of the following Ukrainian researchers: M. Bulatov, V. Moskalenko, V. Poli shuk, L. Orban-Lembrik, M. Piren, V. Tsiba, A. Kovalenko, M. Kultaeva, M. Kornev. Basic methodological mechanisms and specific conceptual solutions are elucidated in the publications of N. Boichuk, N. Buran, T. Dobko, T. Lutiy, I. Pochinok, O. Khizhniak, A. Malinkin and others.
The research objective. Accordingly, the aim of this work is to apply the previously suggested phenomenological methodology and classification of collective empathetical states aiming to provide the means of adequately interpreting the degree to which a particular social formation is harmonious, determine the emotional preconditions and levers of civic activity whilst analyzing the impact of emotional factors on our joint critical thinking ability, reflective-reactive perception and apprehension of societal transformations.
The statement of basic materials. The emotional component of sociocultural shifts and development is rarely the major subject of major in-depth scientific scrutiny. Taking normative models of social formation as its starting point current social science examines the emergence, functioning and dynamics of stable collective entities based on implicit atomism and border line rationality of socially constituted persons which comprise them. The main aspect of presently scrutinized affective phenomenology has to do with the role that is ascribed to acts of shared sympathy and solidarity when applied to cases of collectively maintained preventive emotional axiology. Reflecting potent galvanizing dispositions, collective emotions are frequently a manifestation of diverse, at times contradictory societal tendencies, able to spread throughout a given social formation by ambivalently shifting their polarity.
Conclusions. One of the most important contributions of social phenomenology to the study of group emotions lies in suggesting a mechanism of regulation coupled with a developmental model of productive communal cohesion whose achievement should be strived for by any harmonious and ethical society. Such interpretation, however, doesn’t presuppose a blatant disregard for our collective cognitive and volitional capacities, but instead calls for a balanced approach to one’s awareness of the moral significance and rational impact within a larger scheme of rigorously stratified society.
Keywords: collective emotions, solidarity, sympathy, shared affective sates, social ontology, mass psychology, phenomenology.
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