SOBORNOST’ AND SOCIABILITY: SYNONYMITY IN GEORGES GURVITCH’S MULTILANGUAGE TREATMENT OF SOCIAL COHESION


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A careful juxtaposition of conceptual frameworks used in philosophical vocabularies of different cultures is central to the success of cross-cultural philosophical studies. Yet there is a risk of misinterpreting the meanings of juxtaposed notions and erroneously reducing multiple definitions to a single one. This study is an attempt at a solution to this problem.

Gurvitch propounded his ideas about social law in publications aimed at both Francophone and Russophone intellectual communities. Following the methods of philosophical comparison and correlation, I set out to prove that Gurvitch used sobornost’ and sociabilité as synonyms to refer to social cohesion.

When reflecting on social cohesion and explicating the basics of his model of social law, Gurvitch employs the concepts of sobornost’ in his publications in Russian émigré periodicals and sociabilité in his French-language works. To interpret social unity, he places it in the context of philosophy of law and assumes that cohesion, as opposed to a sum of individuals, is a matter of social order. Gurvitch believes that the law, which is created exclusively by the state, limits the scope for self-fulfilment of all individuals and precludes social cohesion. Instead, he proposes the idea of social law: any social regulation is the law. This gives rise to a range of social formations — communities, institutions, and organisations, from which individuals choose those that contribute to their self-fulfilment. Social law expedites social unity. The meaning of sobornost’, which is comprehended as a sociologicallegal phenomenon, corresponds exactly with the European phenomenon of sociability in terms of function.

The fact that the philosopher communicated his ideas simultaneously in two linguistic environments, which is a rather unique situation, suggests that sobornost’ and sociability convey the same meaning of social cohesion. Comparisons and correlations aid in detecting convergences of meanings and, should fundamental similarities be revealed, in justifying the equivalence of the two terms. This way, correlating notions belonging to vocabularies of different cultures may provide a framework for evaluating the significance of ideas and solutions proposed by philosophers as well as for cross-cultural studies in social philosophy and interdisciplinary research.

Keywords: sobornost’, sociability, social law

Mikhail Yu. Zagirnyak

Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (IKBFU) Kaliningrad, Russia

e-mail: MZagirnyak@kantiana.ru ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4024-0044

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