THE EVOLUTION OF VIEWS ON CIVIL SOCIETY AND STATE RELATIONSHIPS IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

The authors analyze the historical and philosophical background of the idea of civil society. In the era of antiquity, reasoning about the ideal state, Aristotle attributes to it the signs that later thinkers will recognize as necessary conditions for emerging and developing a civil society. In the New Age, there appears a concept of civil society, which will be developed by subsequent generations of thinkers. The ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers will have a significant impact on developing democracy and civil society in European countries and in North America. In the New Age in most countries that have embarked on the path of modernization, civil society is being formed, to one degree or another. However, social reforms can be successful only if they take into account the cultural and historical peculiarities of society. In this regard, a number of experts are trying to theoretically justify the possibility of creating a civil society fundamentally different from the European model based on the traditional values of a particular society. This is fully relevant to Russia, which is currently in political opposition to Western countries, and some representatives of the Russian ruling elite and experts close to them exaggerate the role of the state in developing civil society institutions, while most Western theorists point to the self-organization of citizens as an attribute of civil society. In this case, there is a danger of emasculating the very essence of civil society. Under these conditions, in our opinion, conducting a historical and philosophical analysis of developing the ideas about civil society is valuable. In order to move further in understanding this phenomenon, it is necessary to trace the background of the existing views.