The existence of people in society is characterized by various forms of life and communication. Everything that is created in society is the result of an aggregate joint activities many generations of people. Actually, society itself is a product of the interaction of people, it exists only where and when people are connected with each other by common interests.

In philosophical science, many definitions of the concept of "society" are offered. In a narrow sense society can be understood as a certain group of people united for communication and joint performance of any activity, as well as a specific stage in the historical development of a people or country.

In a broad sense society - it is a part of the material world isolated from nature, but closely connected with it, which consists of individuals with will and consciousness, and includes ways of interaction of people and forms of their association.

In philosophical science, society is characterized as a dynamic self-developing system, i.e., such a system that is capable of seriously changing, at the same time retaining its essence and qualitative certainty. The system is understood as a complex of interacting elements. In turn, an element is some further indecomposable component of the system that is directly involved in its creation.

To analyze complex systems, like the one that society represents, scientists have developed the concept of "subsystem". Subsystems are called "intermediate" complexes, more complex than the elements, but less complex than the system itself.

1) economic, the elements of which are material production and relations that arise between people in the process of production of material goods, their exchange and distribution;

2) social, consisting of such structural formations as classes, social strata, nations, taken in their relationship and interaction with each other;

3) political, including politics, the state, law, their correlation and functioning;

4) spiritual, covering various forms and levels of social consciousness, which, being embodied in the real process of the life of society, form what is commonly called spiritual culture.

Each of these spheres, being an element of the system called "society", in turn, turns out to be a system in relation to the elements that make it up. All four spheres of social life are not only interconnected, but also mutually condition each other. The division of society into spheres is somewhat arbitrary, but it helps to isolate and study individual areas of a truly integral society, a diverse and complex social life.

Sociologists offer several classifications of society. Societies are:

a) pre-written and written;

b) simple and complex (the criterion in this typology is the number of levels of management of a society, as well as the degree of its differentiation: in simple societies there are no leaders and subordinates, rich and poor, and in complex societies there are several levels of management and several social strata of the population, arranged from top to bottom in descending order of income);

c) society of primitive hunters and gatherers, traditional (agrarian) society, industrial society and post-industrial society;

d) primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society and communist society.

In Western scientific literature in the 1960s. the division of all societies into traditional and industrial ones became widespread (at the same time, capitalism and socialism were considered as two varieties of industrial society).

The German sociologist F. Tennis, the French sociologist R. Aron, and the American economist W. Rostow made a great contribution to the formation of this concept.

The traditional (agrarian) society represented the pre-industrial stage of civilizational development. All societies of antiquity and the Middle Ages were traditional. Their economy was dominated by subsistence agriculture and primitive handicrafts. Extensive technology and hand tools predominated, initially providing economic progress. In his production activities man strives to adapt to environment obeyed the rhythms of nature. Property relations were characterized by the dominance of communal, corporate, conditional, state forms property. Private property was neither sacred nor inviolable. The distribution of material wealth, the product produced depended on the position of a person in the social hierarchy. The social structure of a traditional society is corporate by class, stable and immovable. social mobility was virtually absent: a person was born and died, remaining in the same social group. The main social units were the community and the family. Human behavior in society was regulated corporate norms and principles, customs, beliefs, unwritten laws. Providentialism dominated the public consciousness: social reality, human life were perceived as the implementation of divine providence.

The spiritual world of a person of a traditional society, his system of value orientations, way of thinking are special and noticeably different from modern ones. Individuality, independence were not encouraged: the social group dictated the norms of behavior to the individual. One can even speak of a “group man” who did not analyze his position in the world, and indeed rarely analyzed the phenomena of the surrounding reality. He rather moralizes, evaluates life situations from the standpoint of their social group. The number of educated people was extremely limited ("literacy for the few") oral information prevailed over written information. political sphere traditional society dominated by the church and the army. The person is completely alienated from politics. Power seems to him of greater value than law and law. In general, this society is extremely conservative, stable, immune to innovations and impulses from outside, being a "self-sustaining self-regulating immutability." Changes in it occur spontaneously, slowly, without the conscious intervention of people. The spiritual sphere of human existence is a priority over the economic one.

Traditional societies have survived to this day mainly in the countries of the so-called "third world" (Asia, Africa) (therefore, the concept of "non-Western civilizations", which also claims to be well-known sociological generalizations, is often synonymous with "traditional society"). From a Eurocentric point of view, traditional societies are backward, primitive, closed, unfree social organisms, to which Western sociology opposes industrial and post-industrial civilizations.

As a result of modernization, understood as a complex, contradictory, complex process of transition from a traditional society to an industrial one, the foundations of a new civilization were laid in the countries of Western Europe. They call her industrial, technogenic, scientific and technical or economic. The economic base of an industrial society is industry based on machine technology. The volume of fixed capital increases, long-term average costs per unit of output decrease. In agriculture, labor productivity rises sharply, natural isolation is destroyed. An extensive economy is replaced by an intensive one, and simple reproduction is replaced by an expanded one. All these processes occur through the implementation of principles and structures. market economy, based on scientific and technological progress. A person is freed from direct dependence on nature, partially subordinates it to himself. Stable the economic growth accompanied by an increase in real per capita income. If the pre-industrial period is filled with the fear of hunger and disease, then the industrial society is characterized by an increase in the well-being of the population. AT social sphere industrial society is also collapsing traditional structures, social partitions. Social mobility is significant. As a result of development Agriculture and industry, the proportion of the peasantry in the population is sharply reduced, urbanization is taking place. New classes appear - the industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the middle strata are strengthened. The aristocracy is in decline.

In the spiritual sphere, there is a significant transformation of the value system. The man of the new society is autonomous within the social group, guided by his personal interests. Individualism, rationalism (a person analyzes the world around him and makes decisions on this basis) and utilitarianism (a person acts not in the name of some global goals, but for a certain benefit) are new systems of personality coordinates. There is a secularization of consciousness (liberation from direct dependence on religion). A person in an industrial society strives for self-development, self-improvement. Global changes are also taking place in the political sphere. The role of the state is growing sharply, and a democratic regime is gradually taking shape. Law and law dominate in society, and a person is involved in power relations as an active subject.

A number of sociologists somewhat refine the above scheme. From their point of view, the main content of the modernization process is in changing the model (stereotype) of behavior, in the transition from irrational (characteristic of a traditional society) to rational (characteristic of an industrial society) behavior. To economic aspects rational behavior include the development of commodity-money relations, which determines the role of money as a general equivalent of values, the displacement of barter transactions, the wide scope of market transactions, etc. The most important social consequence of modernization is considered to be a change in the principle of distribution of roles. Previously, society imposed sanctions on social choice, limiting the possibility of a person occupying certain social positions depending on his belonging to a certain group (origin, pedigree, nationality). After modernization, it is approved rational principle distribution of roles, in which the main and only criterion for taking a particular position is the candidate's preparedness to perform these functions.

Thus, industrial civilization opposes traditional society in all directions. The majority of modern industrialized countries (including Russia) are classified as industrial societies.

But modernization gave rise to many new contradictions, which eventually turned into global problems(environmental, energy and other crises). Resolving them, progressively developing, some modern societies are approaching the stage of a post-industrial society, the theoretical parameters of which were developed in the 1970s. American sociologists D. Bell, E. Toffler and others. This society is characterized by the promotion of the service sector, the individualization of production and consumption, the increase specific gravity small-scale production with the loss of dominant positions by mass production, the leading role of science, knowledge and information in society. AT social structure post-industrial society, there is an erasure of class differences, and the convergence of income various groups population leads to the elimination of social polarization and the growth of the proportion of the middle class. The new civilization can be characterized as anthropogenic, in the center of it is man, his individuality. Sometimes it is also called information, which reflects the ever-increasing dependence Everyday life society from information. Transition to a post-industrial society for most countries modern world is a very distant prospect.

In the course of his activity, a person enters into various relationships with other people. Such diverse forms of human interaction, as well as the connections that arise between different social groups(or within them), it is customary to call public relations.

Traditional(agrarian) society represented the pre-industrial stage of civilizational development. All societies of antiquity and the Middle Ages were traditional.

Them the economy was characterized

v dominance of agricultural subsistence farming and primitive handicrafts.

v Extensive technology and hand tools predominated, initially providing economic progress.

v In his production activities, a person sought to adapt to the environment as much as possible, obeyed the rhythms of nature.

v Property relations were characterized by the dominance of communal, corporate, conditional, state forms of ownership. Private property was neither sacred nor inviolable.

v The distribution of material wealth, the product produced depended on the position of a person in the social hierarchy.

v The social structure of a traditional society is corporate, stable and immovable.

v There was virtually no social mobility: a person was born and died, remaining in the same social group.

v The main social units were the community and the family.

v Human behavior in society was regulated by corporate norms and principles, customs, beliefs, unwritten laws.

v The public consciousness was dominated by providentialism: social reality, human life were perceived as the implementation of divine providence.

The spiritual world of a person of a traditional society, his system of value orientations, way of thinking - special and noticeably different from modern ones. Individuality, independence were not encouraged: the social group dictated the norms of behavior to the individual. One can even speak of a “group man” who did not analyze his position in the world, and indeed rarely analyzed the phenomena of the surrounding reality. Rather, he moralizes, evaluates life situations from the standpoint of his social group.

v The number of educated people was extremely limited (“literacy for the few”) oral information prevailed over written information.

In the political sphere of traditional society:

1. dominated by the church and the army.
2. The person is completely alienated from politics.
3. Power seems to him of greater value than law and law.
4. In general, this society is extremely conservative, stable, immune to innovations and impulses from outside, being a "self-sustaining self-regulating immutability." Changes in it occur spontaneously, slowly, without the conscious intervention of people. The spiritual sphere of human existence is a priority over the economic one.

Traditional societies have survived to this day mainly in the countries of the so-called "third world" (Asia, Africa) (therefore, the concept of "non-Western civilizations" is often synonymous with "traditional society".

The inhabitants of Island K lead a subsistence economy. They exchange their wooden crafts with tourists visiting the island for the items they need. Which of the following characteristics supports the conclusion that the inhabitants of the island live in a traditional society?

1) the meeting of the legislative assembly traditionally opens with a speech by the oldest participant
2) commodity-money relations underlie the economic system
3) primary education for children is compulsory
4) the basis of social organization is large families headed by an older man

DECISION:

The traditional (agrarian) society represented the pre-industrial stage of civilizational development. All societies of antiquity and the Middle Ages were traditional.
Their economy was dominated by subsistence agriculture and primitive handicrafts. Extensive technology and hand tools prevailed. In his production activities, man sought to adapt to the environment as much as possible, obeyed the rhythms of nature. Property relations were characterized by the dominance of communal, corporate, conditional, state forms of ownership.
Private property was neither sacred nor inviolable.
The distribution of material wealth, the product produced depended on the position of a person in the social hierarchy. The social structure of a traditional society is corporate by class, stable and immovable. There was virtually no social mobility: a person was born and died, remaining in the same social group. The main social units were the community and the family. Human behavior in society was regulated by corporate norms and principles, traditions, customs, beliefs, unwritten laws. Providentialism dominated the public consciousness: social reality, human life were perceived as the implementation of Divine Providence.
Individuality, independence were not encouraged: the social group dictated the norms of behavior to the individual. The number of educated people was extremely limited.
The political sphere of traditional society is dominated by the church and the army. The person is completely alienated from politics. Power seems to him of greater value than law and law.
In general, this society is extremely conservative, stable, immune to innovations and impulses from outside, being a "self-sustaining self-regulating immutability." Changes in it occur spontaneously, slowly, without the conscious intervention of people.

A. V. Klimenko, V. V. Rumynina

Social science

Foreword

This manual is intended to help high school students and university entrants preparing to take the exam for the course "Social Studies". It will save readers from the long and laborious work of studying a huge amount of literature.

The manual compactly outlines the main problems of the course of social science: society, man, knowledge, economic, social, political, legal and spiritual spheres of life in modern society. The structure and content of the manual are fully consistent with the program of entrance exams in social studies, developed by the team of authors under the leadership of L. N. Bogolyubov and recommended by the Ministry of Education Russian Federation. The sections "Economics" and "Law" are written in more detail and in detail, since it is at the law and economic faculties of Russian universities that an entrance test in social science has been introduced.

Working on the manual, the authors proceeded from the fact that high school students are familiar with the material of the relevant teaching aids: "Man and Society" (edited by L. N. Bogolyubov and A. Yu. Lazebnikova), "Modern World" (edited by V. I. Kuptsov), "Social Science" (author - D. I. Kravchenko). Therefore, we tried not to duplicate the text of textbooks, although we followed their presentation logic.

We hope that this book will not only help you prepare for school graduation and university entrance exams, but will also be useful for self-study of the main problems of social science.

We wish you success!

SOCIETY

sample questions

1. Society as a complex dynamic system. public relations.

2. Development of views on society.

3. Formational and civilizational approaches to the study of society.

4. Social progress and its criteria.

5. Global problems of our time.

1. Society as a complex dynamic system. Public relations

The existence of people in society is characterized by various forms of life and communication. Everything that has been created in society is the result of the cumulative joint activity of many generations of people. Actually, society itself is a product of the interaction of people, it exists only where and when people are connected with each other by common interests.

In philosophical science, many definitions of the concept of "society" are offered. In a narrow sense society can be understood as a certain group of people united for communication and joint performance of any activity, as well as a specific stage in the historical development of a people or country.

In a broad sense society - it is a part of the material world isolated from nature, but closely connected with it, which consists of individuals with will and consciousness, and includes ways of interaction of people and forms of their association.

In philosophical science, society is characterized as a dynamic self-developing system, i.e., such a system that is capable of seriously changing, at the same time retaining its essence and qualitative certainty. The system is understood as a complex of interacting elements. In turn, an element is some further indecomposable component of the system that is directly involved in its creation.

To analyze complex systems, like the one that society represents, scientists have developed the concept of "subsystem". Subsystems are called "intermediate" complexes, more complex than the elements, but less complex than the system itself.

1) economic, the elements of which are material production and relations that arise between people in the process of production of material goods, their exchange and distribution;

2) social, consisting of such structural formations as classes, social strata, nations, taken in their relationship and interaction with each other;

3) political, including politics, the state, law, their correlation and functioning;

4) spiritual, covering various forms and levels of social consciousness, which, being embodied in the real process of the life of society, form what is commonly called spiritual culture.

Each of these spheres, being an element of the system called "society", in turn, turns out to be a system in relation to the elements that make it up. All four spheres of social life are not only interconnected, but also mutually condition each other. The division of society into spheres is somewhat arbitrary, but it helps to isolate and study individual areas of a truly integral society, a diverse and complex social life.

Sociologists offer several classifications of society. Societies are:

a) pre-written and written;

b) simple and complex (the criterion in this typology is the number of levels of management of a society, as well as the degree of its differentiation: in simple societies there are no leaders and subordinates, rich and poor, and in complex societies there are several levels of management and several social strata of the population, arranged from top to bottom in descending order of income);

c) society of primitive hunters and gatherers, traditional (agrarian) society, industrial society and post-industrial society;

d) primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society and communist society.

In Western scientific literature in the 1960s. the division of all societies into traditional and industrial ones became widespread (at the same time, capitalism and socialism were considered as two varieties of industrial society).

The German sociologist F. Tennis, the French sociologist R. Aron, and the American economist W. Rostow made a great contribution to the formation of this concept.

The traditional (agrarian) society represented the pre-industrial stage of civilizational development. All societies of antiquity and the Middle Ages were traditional. Their economy was dominated by subsistence agriculture and primitive handicrafts. Extensive technology and hand tools predominated, initially providing economic progress. In his production activities, man sought to adapt to the environment as much as possible, obeyed the rhythms of nature. Property relations were characterized by the dominance of communal, corporate, conditional, state forms of ownership. Private property was neither sacred nor inviolable. The distribution of material wealth, the product produced depended on the position of a person in the social hierarchy. The social structure of a traditional society is corporate by class, stable and immovable. There was virtually no social mobility: a person was born and died, remaining in the same social group. The main social units were the community and the family. Human behavior in society was regulated by corporate norms and principles, customs, beliefs, unwritten laws. Providentialism dominated the public consciousness: social reality, human life were perceived as the implementation of divine providence.

The spiritual world of a person of a traditional society, his system of value orientations, way of thinking are special and noticeably different from modern ones. Individuality, independence were not encouraged: the social group dictated the norms of behavior to the individual. One can even speak of a “group man” who did not analyze his position in the world, and indeed rarely analyzed the phenomena of the surrounding reality. Rather, he moralizes, evaluates life situations from the standpoint of his social group. The number of educated people was extremely limited (“literacy for the few”) oral information prevailed over written information. The political sphere of traditional society is dominated by the church and the army. The person is completely alienated from politics. Power seems to him of greater value than law and law. In general, this society is extremely conservative, stable, immune to innovations and impulses from outside, being a "self-sustaining self-regulating immutability." Changes in it occur spontaneously, slowly, without the conscious intervention of people. The spiritual sphere of human existence is a priority over the economic one.

The existence of people in society is characterized by various forms of life and communication. Everything that has been created in society is the result of the cumulative joint activity of many generations of people. Actually, society itself is a product of the interaction of people, it exists only where and when people are connected with each other by common interests. In philosophical science, many definitions of the concept of "society" are offered. In a narrow sense, society can be understood as a certain group of people united for communication and joint performance of any activity, as well as a specific stage in the historical development of a people or country. In a broad sense, society is a part of the material world isolated from nature, but closely connected with it, which consists of individuals with will and consciousness, and includes ways of interacting people and forms of their unification. In philosophical science, society is characterized as a dynamic self-developing system, i.e., such a system that is capable of seriously changing, at the same time retaining its essence and qualitative certainty. The system is understood as a complex of interacting elements. In turn, an element is some further indecomposable component of the system that is directly involved in its creation. To analyze complex systems, like the one that society represents, scientists have developed the concept of "subsystem". Subsystems are called "intermediate" complexes, more complex than the elements, but less complex than the system itself. It is customary to consider the spheres of social life as subsystems of society, they are usually distinguished by four: 1) economic, the elements of which are material production and relations that arise between people in the process of production of material goods, their exchange and distribution; 2) social, consisting of such structural formations as classes, social strata, nations, taken in their relationship and interaction with each other; 3) political, including politics, the state, law, their correlation and functioning; 4) spiritual, covering various forms and levels of social consciousness, which, being embodied in the real process of the life of society, form what is commonly called spiritual culture. Each of these spheres, being an element of the system called "society", in turn, turns out to be a system in relation to the elements that make it up. All four spheres of social life are not only interconnected, but also mutually condition each other. The division of society into spheres is somewhat arbitrary, but it helps to isolate and study individual areas of a truly integral society, a diverse and complex social life. Sociologists offer several classifications of society. Societies are: a) pre-literate and written; b) simple and complex (the criterion in this typology is the number of levels of management of a society, as well as the degree of its differentiation: in simple societies there are no leaders and subordinates, rich and poor, and in complex societies there are several levels of management and several social strata of the population, arranged from top to bottom in descending order of income); c) society of primitive hunters and gatherers, traditional (agrarian) society, industrial society and post-industrial society; d) primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society and communist society. In Western scientific literature in the 1960s. the division of all societies into traditional and industrial ones became widespread (at the same time, capitalism and socialism were considered as two varieties of industrial society). The German sociologist F. Tennis, the French sociologist R. Aron, and the American economist W. Rostow made a great contribution to the formation of this concept. The traditional (agrarian) society represented the pre-industrial stage of civilizational development. All societies of antiquity and the Middle Ages were traditional. Their economy was dominated by subsistence agriculture and primitive handicrafts. Extensive technology and hand tools predominated, initially providing economic progress. In his production activities, man sought to adapt to the environment as much as possible, obeyed the rhythms of nature. Property relations were characterized by the dominance of communal, corporate, conditional, state forms of ownership. Private property was neither sacred nor inviolable. The distribution of material wealth, the product produced depended on the position of a person in the social hierarchy. The social structure of a traditional society is corporate by class, stable and immovable. There was virtually no social mobility: a person was born and died, remaining in the same social group. The main social units were the community and the family. Human behavior in society was regulated by corporate norms and principles, customs, beliefs, unwritten laws. Providentialism dominated the public consciousness: social reality, human life were perceived as the implementation of divine providence. The spiritual world of a person of a traditional society, his system of value orientations, way of thinking are special and noticeably different from modern ones. Individuality, independence were not encouraged: the social group dictated the norms of behavior to the individual. One can even speak of a “group man” who did not analyze his position in the world, and indeed rarely analyzed the phenomena of the surrounding reality. Rather, he moralizes, evaluates life situations from the standpoint of his social group. The number of educated people was extremely limited (“literacy for the few”) oral information prevailed over written information. The political sphere of traditional society is dominated by the church and the army. The person is completely alienated from politics. Power seems to him of greater value than law and law. In general, this society is extremely conservative, stable, immune to innovations and impulses from outside, being a "self-sustaining self-regulating immutability." Changes in it occur spontaneously, slowly, without the conscious intervention of people. The spiritual sphere of human existence is a priority over the economic one. Traditional societies have survived to this day mainly in the countries of the so-called "third world" (Asia, Africa) (therefore, the concept of "non-Western civilizations", which also claims to be well-known sociological generalizations, is often synonymous with "traditional society"). From a Eurocentric point of view, traditional societies are backward, primitive, closed, unfree social organisms, to which Western sociology opposes industrial and post-industrial civilizations. As a result of modernization, understood as a complex, contradictory, complex process of transition from a traditional society to an industrial one, the foundations of a new civilization were laid in the countries of Western Europe. It is called industrial, technogenic, scientific and technical or economic. The economic base of an industrial society is industry based on machine technology. The volume of fixed capital increases, long-term average costs per unit of output decrease. In agriculture, labor productivity rises sharply, natural isolation is destroyed. An extensive economy is replaced by an intensive one, and simple reproduction is replaced by an expanded one. All these processes occur through the implementation of the principles and structures of a market economy, based on scientific and technological progress. A person is freed from direct dependence on nature, partially subordinates it to himself. Stable economic growth is accompanied by an increase in real per capita income. If the pre-industrial period is filled with the fear of hunger and disease, then the industrial society is characterized by an increase in the well-being of the population. In the social sphere of an industrial society, traditional structures and social barriers are also collapsing. Social mobility is significant. As a result of the development of agriculture and industry, the proportion of the peasantry in the composition of the population is sharply reduced, and urbanization is taking place. New classes appear - the industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the middle strata are strengthened. The aristocracy is in decline. In the spiritual sphere, there is a significant transformation of the value system. The man of the new society is autonomous within the social group, guided by his personal interests. Individualism, rationalism (a person analyzes the world around him and makes decisions on this basis) and utilitarianism (a person acts not in the name of some global goals, but for a certain benefit) are new systems of personality coordinates. There is a secularization of consciousness (liberation from direct dependence on religion). A person in an industrial society strives for self-development, self-improvement. Global changes are also taking place in the political sphere. The role of the state is growing sharply, and a democratic regime is gradually taking shape. Law and law dominate in society, and a person is involved in power relations as an active subject. A number of sociologists somewhat refine the above scheme. From their point of view, the main content of the modernization process is in changing the model (stereotype) of behavior, in the transition from irrational (characteristic of a traditional society) to rational (characteristic of an industrial society) behavior. The economic aspects of rational behavior include the development of commodity-money relations, which determines the role of money as a general equivalent of values, the displacement of barter transactions, the wide scope of market operations, etc. The most important social consequence of modernization is the change in the principle of distribution of roles. Previously, society imposed sanctions on social choice, limiting the possibility of a person occupying certain social positions depending on his belonging to a certain group (origin, pedigree, nationality). After modernization, a rational principle of distribution of roles is approved, in which the main and only criterion for taking a particular position is the candidate's preparedness to perform these functions. Thus, industrial civilization opposes traditional society in all directions. The majority of modern industrialized countries (including Russia) are classified as industrial societies. But modernization gave rise to many new contradictions, which eventually turned into global problems (environmental, energy and other crises). By resolving them, progressively developing, some modern societies are approaching the stage of a post-industrial society, the theoretical parameters of which were developed in the 1970s. American sociologists D. Bell, E. Toffler and others. This society is characterized by the promotion of the service sector, the individualization of production and consumption, an increase in the share of small-scale production with the loss of dominant positions by mass production, the leading role of science, knowledge and information in society. In the social structure of the post-industrial society, there is an erasure of class differences, and the convergence of the incomes of various groups of the population leads to the elimination of social polarization and the growth of the share of the middle class. The new civilization can be characterized as anthropogenic, in the center of it is man, his individuality. Sometimes it is also called informational, which reflects the ever-increasing dependence of the daily life of society on information. The transition to a post-industrial society for most countries of the modern world is a very distant prospect. In the course of his activity, a person enters into various relationships with other people. Such diverse forms of interaction between people, as well as connections that arise between different social groups (or within them), are usually called social relations. All social relations can be conditionally divided into two large groups - material relations and spiritual (or ideal) relations. Their fundamental difference from each other lies in the fact that material relations arise and develop directly in the course of practical activities of a person, outside the consciousness of a person and independently of him, and spiritual relations are formed, preliminary "passing through the consciousness" of people, are determined by their spiritual values. In turn, material relations are divided into production, environmental and office relations; spiritual on moral, political, legal, artistic, philosophical and religious social relations. A special type of social relations are interpersonal relations. Interpersonal relationships are relationships between individuals. At the same time, individuals, as a rule, belong to different social strata, have different cultural and educational levels, but they are united by common needs and interests in the sphere of leisure or everyday life. The famous sociologist Pitirim Sorokin singled out the following types of interpersonal interaction: a) between two individuals (husband and wife, teacher and student, two comrades); b) between three individuals (father, mother, child); c) between four, five or more people (the singer and his listeners); d) between many and many people (members of an unorganized crowd). Interpersonal relations arise and are realized in society and are social relations even if they are in the nature of purely individual communication. They act as a personified form of social relations.