DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2021-1-87-96
The society as a mimetic field: the dynamics of the social
Aleksey I. Pavlovskij
Ph.D. in Philosophy, Docent,
Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy
Tyumen State University,
6, Volodarskiy st., Tyumen, 625003, Russia;
e-mail: a.i.pavlovskij@utmn.ru
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4265-6844
ResearcherID: AAK-3090-2020
The article discusses the feasibility and vistas of re-defining the concept «society» in an effort to make it fit for studying the current situation. The constant mobility of actors and the new virtual reality transcend the boundaries between social groups, which calls methodological capacity of any static and especially essentialistic understanding of the phenomenon called «society» into question. The author starts from defining society through communication acts, but at the same time distinguishes between them by the level of mutual understanding attained through communication, which makes it possible to scrutinize the internal structure of the term in question. Understanding of communication acts as a medium of memetic influence that shapes a person’s agency and ensures synchronicity between persons, adequate for a certain level of mutual understanding, enables the author to view society as a dynamic process, as a memetic field amid constantly changing and diverse challenges. The landscape contour of the challenges adds constant disturbing differentiations that guarantee continual social changes. By contrasting practical and discursive minds, the author discriminates non-reflexive mimetic processes of practical knowledge transfer from their reflexive comprehension. Thus, the author distinguishes two levels in social processes, incompatibility between which adds complexity to social dynamics. Using this understanding of the social, the author shows how in certain conditions a person may identify with a certain social group. In conclusion, the paper formulates three main practical questions the answers to which will let us assess the possibilities for further development of society.
Keywords: actors, challenge-and-answer, discursive consciousness, communication, mimesis, practical consciousness, situation, joint activity, agency, essentialism, ethnic communities.
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Received: 27.09.2020. Revised: 11.02.2021. Accepted: 20.02.2021
For citation:
Pavlovskij A.I. [The society as a mimetic field: the dynamics of the social]. Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. Filosofia. Psihologia. Sociologia [Perm University Herald. Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology], 2021, issue 1, pp. 87–96 (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2021-1-87-96