METHODOLOGICAL FUNDAMENTALS OF STATOLOGY (SCIENCE OF THE STATE)

Abstract

The article reveals the basics of the methodology of statology as a multi-level, integral system of methods by which the state is comprehensively studied. Its structure is defined, which consists of two groups of methods: philosophical and worldview and instrumental, and their characteristics are given. It is proved that the elements of the group of philosophical and ideological methods are the dominant worldview, scientific paradigm, style of scientific thinking and principles of scientific knowledge, the significance of which is to outline the conceptual and ideological path of the State’s research on the basis of the scientific worldview, pluralistic style of thinking, the relevant paradigm of the State’s understanding and such cognitive principles as historicism, objectivity and social humanism. Particular attention is paid to another group of methods – instrumental methods, which consists of three subgroups of methods: general philosophical (universal), general scientific and special. The group of universal methods is represented by such methods as dialectical and formal-logical, where the former allows to reveal the internal content of social and state relations that are constantly changing, and the latter contributes to the logical ordering of the research process and the mental design of its results. In the group of general scientific methods, special attention is paid to the systemic method, since the state is one of the most important subsystems of society. It is shown that in a certain static sense, the State is cognised by the structural method, in a dynamic sense – by the functional method, as a social institution – with the assistance of the institutional method, and as an element of an open system – by the synergistic method. The article reveals the specificity of the group of special methods of cognition, which consists in the fact that statology, as an autonomous science that has not yet been formed, without having its own special method, must use the methods of other sciences: sociology, political science, economics, jurisprudence, psychology, ethics, aesthetics, geography, limology, etc.