Theoretical and methodological foundations of sociopsychological analysis of the “Nihilism” phenomenon
Abstract
There are presented the results of the search for a theoretic-methodological strategy for the study of nihilism as a socio-psychological phenomenon. The main task was to identify the means of sociopsychological understanding of this phenomenon. A retrospective analysis of the philosophical concepts of nihilism and the views of contemporary scholars led to the conclusion that there are at least two approaches to study the nihilism: the first one is the presentation of nihilism as an “onto-historical” phenomenon, the second one identifies nihilism as an attribute of thinking or its specific focus. The analysis also helped to state that the only and natural criterion that combines all the diversity of nihilistic subjects is the ontological dimension. It is presented the author’s understanding of nihilism as a phenomenon that has communicative nature and manifests itself in the process of meaning-making when the denial is a certain statement, which is realized in further protest activity of the individual. It is made an attempt to substantiate this understanding of the essence of a nihilistic attitude towards reality by taking into account the general psychological and socio-psychological theories and concepts. It is emphasized that the nihilistic attitude depends on the formation of personal attitudes and determines the reactions, experiences, and actions of a person in relation to the circumstances of his/her life. The quality of the positive/negative attitude system depends on how a person interacts with the world, and how a person transforms her/his experience into ideas and beliefs, into a conceptual model of “myself in the world”, on the basis of which a person defines personal goals and ways of achieving them, and assesses on what’s going on. It is noted that all this is a product of communication of the person with the humanized world, and “grows” from the interaction processes and phenomena, and determines the personal regulation of this interaction. It is concluded that personal regulation of the interaction process of a person with him/herself and the world is meaningful, because the very understanding of what happens, determines the personal choice of the way of “being in the world”, and the"failure” in the process of communicative sense formation is usually the main cause of nihilistic attitude towards the world
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