Biography

Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky was born into the family of an engineer and economic manager P. G. Shchedrovitsky (senior) and microbiologist K. N. Shchedrovitskaya (nee Bayukova; 1904-1994).

In 1937, he entered the second grade of the 2nd secondary school and studied there until his family was evacuated to Kuibyshev. In Kuibyshev, in parallel with his studies at school, he worked as an orderly in a hospital and as a grinder at a military plant. In 1943, he returned to Moscow with his family and continued his studies at school No. 150. In 1946 he graduated from this school with a silver medal.

From 1946 to 1949 he studied at the Faculty of Physics, and from 1949 at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, graduating with honors in 1953. In 1964 he defended his dissertation for the degree of candidate of philosophical sciences.

Member of the CPSU from 1956 to 1968 (expelled for signing the so-called “Letter of 170” in defense of Alexander Ginzburg and Yuri Galanskov).

In 1951-1958 he worked as a school teacher; in 1958-1960, editor of the publishing house APN RSFSR. In 1960-1965, research fellow at the Research Institute of Preschool Education of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR; in 1965-1974 - researcher at research and design organizations; in 1974-1980 - teacher at Moscow State Institute of Physical Culture; in 1980-1983 - research fellow at NIIOPAPN. From 1983 to 1992 - head of laboratories in design and research organizations.

In the period 1990-1994 - editor-in-chief of the journal “Methodology Issues”; since 1988 - Chairman of the Committee on Systematic and Thought-Activity Methodology and ODI of the Board of the Union of Scientific and Engineering Societies of the USSR.

Shchedrovitsky lived and spent his last years among young “bankers” at the International Academy of Business and Banking (MABiBD, Tolyatti, Yagodinsky Forest). Since 2000, the MABiBD project was renamed the Togliatti Academy of Management (TAU, “Russian School of Management”), the rector of which, since 2008, is Shchedrovitsky’s student N.F. Andreichenko. Previous rector A. E. Volkov is working on the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management project.

He was married three times: to N.P. Mostovenko, I.A. Shchedrovitskaya (Krivokoneva) and G. A. Davydova. From the first marriage a daughter was born, from the second - a son, Peter.

He died in the village of Bolshevo, Moscow Region, in the winter of 1994.

Activity

Shchedrovitsky is one of the founders of the Moscow Logical Circle (since 1952; the Circle also included B. A. Grushin, A. A. Zinoviev and M. K. Mamardashvili) and the ideological and organizational leader of its immediate continuation, the Moscow Methodological Circle (MMK).

He defended the idea of ​​priority of the activity approach over the naturalistic one both in epistemological and ontological terms. He developed the idea of ​​self-determination of methodology “as a general framework for all people’s life activities.” He proposed and developed an original logical-methodological program that went through the following stages:

activity approach and general theory of activity (1961-1971),

system-thought-activity approach and general methodology (since 1971).

In the development and socio-practical implementation of his philosophical and methodological ideas, he proposed a new form of organizing collective thinking and activity - organizational activity games (OAGs), combining the properties of educational and business games and intellectual methodological discourse (from 1979 to 1993 he organized and conducted 93 games).

The range of interests and scope of Shchedrovitsky's scientific creativity was extremely wide and varied: pedagogy and logic, general theory of activity and logic and methodology of system-structural research and development, philosophy of science and technology, design and organization, psychology and sociology, linguistics and semiotics - everywhere he left his original mark.

Why did Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky live?

1. Modern man is faced with the question of whether he takes anything seriously. Or - to put it differently - does his life express something, does it have content. Man is called and summoned. But does he know about this? And if so, does he know what he is called to?

This question, despite its apparent identity with the question of the meaning of life, has nothing in common with the latter. Which is, in principle, clear from the very distinction between meaning and content, but the point here is not only in concepts, not only in logic. The meaning of life is supposedly sought by man himself. Allegedly, he himself must endow life - and not in general, but only with his own, his own - with this very meaning. But does life belong to man? Even the entire human race is only an element of life. If we’re going to give meaning, then it’s life, life in general, all life, and not “mine.” But life is intelligent - proof of this, at least, is man. But then maybe giving life meaning is the work of life itself, and not mine? The impasse here is obvious.

For the fact that we are in it, we must thank many people, including Kant. The theses raised by humanism (liberalism) are that a person cannot be a means, that he must be an end, and also that the “moral law” is “within us.” Why "inside"? Because the state and power are “outside” - and it’s better not to deal with them? And where is it - “inside”? In body? In the brain? What does it mean for a person to become a target? At a minimum, this means that he becomes the subject of a new, “humanitarian” power, about which Foucault wrote a lot, but everything was clear to the Germans even before him. After all, a person as a goal of something else is a subject for transformation. Is it possible? After all, if not, then the goal of such a “transformation” is in fact the goal of the most brutal violence that Ancient Rome did not know. Antoine Artaud expressed this well. The institutions of this violence today are not only all kinds of “psychology”, but in general the entire body of socio-humanitarian, “anthropic” techniques. A person who is a target for himself is just an egoist, a consumer and a bastard, glorified by Ayn Rand, even if he is a genius. But he, too, will have to die, despite stem cells, genome decoding, and so on. However, this self-sufficient individual does not recognize death - through the idea of ​​​​unlimited technical extension of his own “life”. Is this life? Denying a person the right to be a means deprives him of his destiny. After all, fate removes the opposition between ends and means. Purpose, vocation, that is, destiny - there is both. No fate - no person. And not only - then there are no gods.

Man is a sign. His life is a word. Its purpose is to designate, to express something. And then there is something he takes seriously.

Shchedrovitsky Georgy Petrovich (02/23/1929 - 02/03/1994)

2. Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky (02/23/1929 - 02/03/1994) - student and follower of A. Zinoviev, the first Russian post-Marxist, himself a Russian post-Marxist, philosopher, creator of a movement in Russian philosophical and scientific thought known as “system- mental-activity methodology”, which claims to replace this same philosophy and science. Known in discussion circles as GP. This is his name as he was alive. That's what we'll call him too.

GP believed that he should express the problem of our time. By modernity we understand the New Time, the time of science, the time of the Cartesian subject, which to this day has penetrated far beyond the confines of philosophical ivory towers and laboratories into all areas of public and private life, into all countries of the planet. We will return to this subject later. What Spengler called the “decline (of Europe)”, and is now politically correctly called a “crisis”, in which almost every individual (person) is involved - either surrendering to this “crisis” with all the passion of self-destruction, or trying to resist it - GP called the “problem " That is, a situation that, unlike a “problem,” has no solution. His postulate was that it is this situation that is the basis for thinking. A person is obliged to think precisely because there is no solution. And everyone must think.

At the same time, the GP did not tire of ironically repeating Uldall’s words that thinking is as rare as horse dancing, it is just as difficult to teach and learn, and people need it to approximately the same extent. In addition to the everyday or social context, this saying of his pointed to an essential circumstance of our modern European situation. We rely on science for everything. The enthusiasm with which Zinoviev and the GP set about their destiny was initially purely scientific: the point was to create a science of thinking. For Zinoviev, this attitude remained within the framework of tradition - logic remained this science for him, and later sociology. The GP found himself in reflection - the focus on the science of thinking, with its consistent implementation, led him at the first stage to the point of “necessity” - thinking about science. It took years. This is not the place to systematically present the findings, but the main conclusion of the GP did not tire of repeating until the end of his life - science does not think. Heidegger came to the same conclusion, albeit in a different way, and pronounced it as sedition. GP began, therefore, as a heretic of scientific faith.

Let us use Heidegger's analysis to outline the situation. The main postulate of science (New Time and its entire ideology) was approved by Descartes. It lies in the metaphysical position of the subject. Only the subject exists, everything else is like objects given to him. Objective is only the way of existence of the objective (objects), counted from the subject. The subject exists due to the self-evidence of itself. He does not need to trust himself, which means he does not need to doubt himself. The subject doubts everything besides himself. The substance of its existence as self-evidence of the subject is cogitation, thinking. Thinking, therefore, cannot become an object. Thinking in general is “in” the subject. The subject took the place of God in metaphysics, which could not be taken by any metaphysical constructions of the Greeks. This is how the Revolution took place - and the social one as well. Man must now become a subject. Or simply declare yourself one. GP often repeated that man existed in the Middle Ages, but was destroyed in Modern Times. But this does not mean that it is impossible to be human. But you'll have to try. Not everyone becomes human.

3. GP never tired of repeating Marx’s thesis from “Theses on Feuerbach” that philosophers only explained the world, the point is to change it. He applied it to himself. What was it like for the GP? It is clear that it is not a social revolution - it has gone further in the USSR than anywhere else. I think “peace” is important here as a mental, philosophical category. Science - i.e. subject - do not have any “world”: the world simply does not exist for them. All objects are not parts of the whole, nothing can be put together from them, except for the “picture of the world”, nothing that exists on its own. Objects are all connected with the subject and only through him. To restore the world, its existence, means to overcome science, it means to overcome the metaphysics of the subject.

The life of the GP became the affirmation of a new metaphysics. There is nothing special here - this is a mandatory requirement for anyone who takes on such a task. Metaphysics, its birth and development must become the content of life, the work. Otherwise, no metaphysics will work.

Marx designated the “negative” metaphysical realm created by the subject of science. This is work. An area where a person’s vital forces are spent, depriving a person of his essence, or rather, depriving him of it in advance. The metaphysics of labor as negative metaphysics is Marx’s contribution to the problematization of the New Time. The fact that Marx's concrete analysis passed through the economic, that is, through the industrial revolution, through the social effects of science that became technology (realized science) often obscures the essence of his metaphysical criticism. This is also a consequence of the fact that Marx did not create a new metaphysics, he only hinted at it in the word “activity”. Therefore, Marx’s answer to the solution to the “crisis” is utopian, that is, non-existent. Since a person declared himself “God”, but only a few managed to socially approach this status, then it is necessary that everyone could do this. The utopia of communism is just the reality of capitalism extrapolated into the realm of equality. It’s just that the fruits of science should go to everyone. As a consequence of the indirect nature of Marx’s criticism of European metaphysics, the sociological specificity of a society organized by science (technology) in Marx turned out to be blurred by the general sociology of power - which was before, during and will be and after the dominance of science. Marx believed that the essence of man stolen from the proletarians ended up with the bourgeoisie. But the fact is that it was also stolen from the latter, as from the former - by the subject of Descartes.

It is impossible to return his essence to a person without deconstructing and dismantling the subject, relying on a new metaphysics. If a person returns his essence, then work will disappear. What will appear? What will the person be involved in? The GP believed that this was an activity. It was the metaphysics of activity as post-scientific (and post-Marxist, respectively) that the GP created.

4. A person is not on his own. Not a subject. Although during the own, “internal” history of the New Time, everything that was possible was subjected to subjectification - society, with the advent of “class”, the state with the advent of the “nation”, the individual - with the advent of a whole bunch of “statuses” of a completely inhuman nature (LGBT, people, connected to machines, consumers, zoo-hybrids - in the foreseeable future, God knows what else). All these realized subjects lay claim to man. And perhaps worse is yet to come.

The Old Testament states that man was created (by evolution?) and sent into the world (by original sin?), and also that he can and must return. This space of the metaphysical is closed to the subject by his own self-evidence. But the problematization of the subject is possible already from the fact that a person is, after all, in the world. This is its current status. The existence of a person outside the world is not the sphere of philosophy (there is no talk of science, although for science it is by definition that he is outside the world), but the sphere of faith and theology - as far as the latter is possible at all. But a person can and should remember about the world (and at the same time about his purpose in it) with the help of the revival of philosophy. True, this philosophy must be able to decompose and dismantle science, not just reject, but overcome the latter, “include” it, explain and re-apply it. Much like Einstein's principles of relativity include Galileo's. Deconstruction and dismantling of science is a practical program for problematizing the subject. Only a fundamentally new philosophy can do this. The GP called it a methodology.

5.The formula of the methodology was ultimately derived by GP as thinking about thinking about the world. In science, thinking is identified with method and as such is uncritical. Only subject knowledge is criticized. This does not mean that facts rule in science. GP very often quoted Galileo - if the facts contradict my theories, then so much the worse for the facts. In the 60s of the last century, “methodologists of science” - Imre Lakatos, Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper already showed - respectively - that every proof is followed by a refutation, that any scientific theory has a core of faith - a paradigm, that scientifically only a refutable statement, and it will always be refuted sooner or later. So, science does not deal with truth, nor is it related to it. This actually means that science does not think. It only builds subject knowledge. The subject knows his subject.

Science is an arbitrariness of method. Having packaged metaphysics into a subject, science freed itself from it and made method its main field. But science does not limit the method, the method is the freedom of the subject. Only the results, the appearance of the object, are important. The GP methodology is constructed as a discipline (of the mind, of life), subjecting the method to criticism, doubt, problematization and special work with it, preserving the significance of the method within the framework of the result. For this purpose, the method is considered as a form of thinking, and thinking itself is considered as a subtle (in the sense of matter), symbolic reproduction of activity, as an imitation of activity, as its reproduction. Ultimately, thinking - as the fate of a person, as something in which he is consciously involved, is constructed as a system of basic intellectual functions - understanding, reflection, thought-communication, thought-action and pure thinking in operations with signs. The GP demanded that the goal of the new philosophy - the methodology of thinking - be the synthesis of knowledge. This demand is a demand for the restoration of ontology as a working metaphysics, as a world to which man is given. Knowledge tied to objects, that is, connected through a subject, is unsuitable for synthesis. Hence the requirement for deobjectification, going beyond the limits of existence (things, objects) to existence, being. Heidegger also made this demand. The methodology must change the type of knowledge to an activity-based one.

Science (the subject) knows only objects. There is no peace for her (him). But human life, his existence (specific, human existence) is impossible outside the world, and without it. Therefore, science (the subject) is forced to invent a surrogate of the world, its “picture”, without the world itself being present, in reality. This is ideology - what Popper is up against, but without which science (and the subject) could not defend its dominant social position, its usurped power.

Science was born in the bosom of faith. To take the place of God, you must first know that God exists. Despite all the brilliant guesses of the Greeks, they did not have this Jewish, and later Muslim, Arabic knowledge. Just as there was no Christian knowledge about the will of God to meet a person halfway, talk to him and open up to him. Therefore, the Greeks did not have science. But science left its fold, just as it rejected it - thanks to the efforts of ideologists on both sides. The ideology of the dominant position of science in society and its seizure of power is known as the Enlightenment. Catholic ideology, a means of establishing the Christian faith as power, is responsible for the expulsion of science from the space of faith. While science has its own function in the space of faith - the extermination of superstitions. This is exactly how Orthodoxy positions it. Simply rejecting science makes no sense. Science, subjectivity is one of the possibilities of assimilation to the image of God. But we need to understand what science (technology, the subject) cannot (cannot) in principle, and, as Marx liked to say, in a purely this-worldly sense. The GP spent his life on this work.

6. Socially, the GP was not a dissident; this would mean for him to consciously degrade, to go backwards to the historical process. Culturally, the GP was against the system. He repeated that there can be no unanimity of thought—only unity of non-thought. He believed that the system needed development and would not survive without it. History has shown that he was right. The GP was a gravedigger of scientific ideology (not science), the utopian constructions of communism, but was not repressed by the communist church, he was only excommunicated from it and deprived of his “rank” (membership in the CPSU). What is natural is that they figured out what he was driving at. But he would never overthrow the government and destroy the state, or the communist church itself. This is barbarism and vandalism. Therefore, he was allowed to work - on his own, outside the department and university, with those who wanted to engage in methodology on the same terms as him. GP - like Heidegger - realized that his program in the cultural part requires a period of 300-500 years, but for GP this is not at all a long and not at all overwhelming period. Vita brevis ars longa. Probably, to overcome the Enlightenment, it takes time comparable to its approval. On this score, the GP had a principle worthy of the most impressive church examples: once you take a position, move as far as you can. By doing so, you may establish your opposite, which will turn out to be the truth. This is the only way for man. The GP gave reports lasting 10-20 hours. His nose might bleed. But he didn’t stop - he simply held out the glass, which gradually filled to the brim (P. Shchedrovitsky told me about this as a moment that traumatized him as a son). The GP said that such efforts are difficult only in the first two or three years. And the remaining fifty years - you get used to it.

But the state enterprise also had a social program. According to it, work really needs to be replaced by activity. He created in general terms and even significant details a project for such a replacement, and methods for its implementation - schemes and principles of activity, including organizational, managerial and pedagogical. The GP saw the future of state capitalism in the USSR in the implementation of this project. He liked to say - well, exploit us already! Let us realize our main right - to work! The social (project) program of the GP is better known as “organizational and activity games.” It started in 1979 with a very remarkable topic from the point of view of today’s “market” (“Development of an assortment of consumer goods for the Ural region”), touched on almost all topics of economics, education and science in applied applications, actually predicted Chernobyl and died out together with the collapse of the USSR. In the fall of 1993, after the shooting of parliament, it became finally clear that not only had the state shrunk, but we had also finally rejected every intellectual, German path of development, every cultural and civilizational claim, that every school of thought in general would be uprooted, that we were covered by a wave the most primitive ideology of degradation, manufactured in the USA, that the revenge of the New World on the Old will go entirely to us. By the end of winter 1994, the GP was gone. There are two fears of death. The first is before death. That is, actually the fear of God. The second is before the non-continuation, unfulfillment, failure of life. The first thing - in relation to the GP - is not for us to judge. As for the second, if the life of the GP was not fulfilled, then its non-fulfillment coincided with the non-fulfillment of our history. But this means that we have a chance to continue. The GP lived by history, he succeeded.

In general, in order to understand GP, we need to remember the German cultural roots of our scientific and philosophical (as well as state and legal) thought. GP and Zinoviev picked up our Russian German (that’s right) tradition, taking advantage of the “ajar door” of Marxism, returning it to the actual status of a philosophical movement, instead of purely religious veneration within the framework of secular faith. And they did this by moving further beyond Marx, something many European philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries sought to do but few such as Nietzsche and Heidegger succeeded in doing. But many people involved in the methodological movement did not understand this at all; they joined the movement either in search of intellectual entertainment or individual gain, that is, on purely neoliberal, as it is now easy to say, grounds. The people whom the GP could most likely call his last students did not accept his legacy, did not take over the school. They did not repeat the work started by Zinoviev, GP, Mamardashvili and Grushin. Collective mental activity did not become the work of the “heirs”, their life. There were also four of them - S. Popov, S. Naumov, Yu. Gromyko and P. Shchedrovitsky. The GP formulated his philosophical and methodological “testament” to them in the fall of 1986, at an organizational and activity game in Krasnoyarsk. “Perestroika” was in full swing, and perhaps it was already clear to the GP that he would not be able to keep up with his social program, which envisaged the existence of the country for at least another twenty to thirty years (similar to Stolypin), with the frantic pace of destruction of the state. The “testament” was about the creation of applied methodological services, the main condition of which, the framework, was the restoration and reconstruction of “big” history and one’s place in it. The key to this was the principle introduced by GP at the very beginning of his journey - to always reconstruct the “small” history - the history of one’s thinking. Among the beneficiaries of his trust, the “heirs,” the matter was limited to a few discussions. In particular, the topic of “life activity” arose. S. Naumov soon emigrated to India, carried away by his extrasensory abilities and experiments with animals, where he later died (although, as it now seems, it would be more logical to reveal the topic of “life activity” through an analysis of economics and economics). Yu. Gromyko began to obtain an academic degree and at the same time went into Orthodox ideology (there is such a thing). The duet-tandem of S. Popov (he was the leader in tandem) and P. Shchedrovitsky lasted until 1989, giving rise to a number of interesting and applied episodes today, after which they broke up - on S.’s initiative. Popova. But already in 1986-1989. in the joint works of S. Popov and P. Shchedrovitsky, liberal ideology was unreflectively borrowed, which had nothing in common with the line of development of the German school set by the GP. After the break in 1989, S. Popov and P. Shchedrovitsky set a course for using the methodological movement to create their own small private enterprises. A curious element of their design was ultimately the requirement for personal loyalty of employees and the inconceivability of any partnership. Subsequently, Yu. Gromyko correctly noted that methodologists lost perestroika to economists.

7. The GP established a way of thinking and a way of life. But he did not require it to be followed and did not explain it as such. In this way he was infinitely far from the desire to create an actual religious organization. The participants in the discussion he organized—the Moscow Methodological Circle—followed by their own choice. Tired, they left. But later some wanted to teach. Here we are already talking about personal devotion, the division between “us and the rest of the world,” and also about the fact that income must be significantly shared with the teacher. That according to A. Dvorkin there are signs of a totalitarian sect. All this has nothing to do with the GP.

The GP did not discuss his ethos as a matter of principle. He generally forbade discussing the topic of ethics and morality, rightly believing that its reflexive chattering in the modern world is the justification for immorality, unethicality and immorality. He demanded to implement his own attitude, by which he meant an attitude towards thinking. One who does not have metaphysics, who does not strive for it, cannot be moral, cannot be a person. But it is metaphysics that is problematized by the New Time.

The most terrible curses for the GP were “naturalism” and its “highest” form - “psychologism”, giving one’s (and others’) emotions and desires the status of existence without idealization and problematization.

GP believed that a person can and should determine for himself what he takes more seriously than his life. He called it self-determination. This is a way of living in conditions of problem and problematization. This is how he went through his life. This could be learned - as something that we can only learn from another person. Ultimately, it is not knowledge or concepts that are contagious, but impulse and pathos. We have not heard the voice of Marx, this sarcastic Jew who smuggled English ideological contraband into German thought, we only know his printed word. But the voice of the GP can still be heard. He's impressive. The GP did not strive to have students. He very often repeated that you need to live and give life to others, and let the dead bury their dead (exactly like that). Who really bothered him with questions about man - outside the working concepts of his “Pedagogy and Logic”, and, so to speak, in a confessional context, he always referred to “The Phenomenon of Man” by Teilhard de Chardin, the only one of its kind, as he said , book. It seems to me that he would rather stand not after Marx, but after de Chardin.

The GP commented on his own life in a book-length interview, which cannot but be recommended to everyone who would like to understand not only the GP, but our current situation in general - both Russian and European in general. This book is called "I Have Always Been an Idealist." A. Zinoviev - and after him and the GP preserved the German school of thought in Russia, which after the Second World War was destroyed both in Germany itself and in its cultural provinces, replaced by American secondary and tertiary derivatives. Americanization came to us only in the 1990s, already in a greatly weakened and caricatured form. This school of Russian post-Marxists is our heritage and historical resource. Perhaps our chance is along with our character, as Spengler predicted.

On the way from Protvino to Moscow, the GP asked me what I basically wanted to become. I answered - an engineer. He said: then methodology is what you need. And so it happened. True, engineering turned out to be much broader than catching neutrinos, which I was then doing as part of a team of many thousands at the Institute of High Energy Physics. Now for me it includes politics. It turned out that I did the same as the GP - I switched from the “physics department to the philosophy department.” The GP was not a model here - I came to this myself. But this is how I understand him. The transition took me much longer than it did for him. Perhaps because my youth was in much more comfortable conditions of the late USSR than his post-war one. But not everything that happens slowly is bad. GP often said that reading more than one page of philosophical text a day is masturbation.

Was GP a Platonist, since he ultimately considered himself an idealist? Alexander Herbertovich Rappoport, a participant in the circle of methodological discussions organized by the GP, the author of the fundamental methodological work “Design without Prototypes”, sharing with me the idea of ​​​​his book about GP (I don’t know if it was written), put forward the hypothesis that GP - the metaphysician of activity - is our Heraclitus time. Heidegger, in search of a way out of the metaphysics of the New Time, the metaphysics of the subject (at its highest point - superman, superpower) turned to the analysis and understanding of the Pre-Socratics, Parmenides and Heraclitus. This direction of understanding the GP seems to me more adequate than the comparison that is found with Socrates, which seems superficial to me. Heidegger understands the drama of European thought, including the opposition of philosophers and poets carried out by Plato, and its consequences. Plato detailed the repression of poets (and poetry) in The Republic. The first philosopher of this type was Aristotle. It seems to me that the life of the GP also plays an important role within this drama. Here I leave the topic I started, devoting the following words to the life of the GP, its content:

Dialogue of poets with Plato.

Having torn off his tunic and jumped off his buskins,
I'll shout over the choir,
That the show went well only so far,
Until a thief got into the theater.

Gesture is a frame—a frame for the body of feeling.

The game is the skeleton of human history.
And our masks are the essence of art,
They are the opposite side of ideas.

Philosophers, you stepsons of poets,
By denying us, they doomed themselves,
Knowing the questions, you won’t know the answers,
Words helplessly, like beads, tugging.

Life cannot be stolen. The authorities should not be trusted.
Style is the unity of a sign and things.
And even if you can measure everything,
Immortality is terrible, like Kashchei.

Life gushes from the word.And we will give back to nature
Everything you took from her.
We were born to create nations,
You are leaving stubble behind.

We don't deny you. We are together
Let's go to the cross. And a lot of those crosses.
But who will knead this dough without us?
And bake the base of all bases?

Irreconcilability of vowels and consonants
Stupid. But together they can speak.
Giving the palm to one is dangerous:
Concentration camps, sanitation, oven.

There is a great cook above us all.
And his bread has its own recipe,
Known to everyone. And we don't need collusion.
We die with a mask on our face.

Drive the philosophers out of the auditorium,
If they want to broadcast, the path to the stage is open.
We are just actors. But not theatergoers.
And we have not forgotten the principle of life.

The performance is over. There is one last way out.
And the darkness of the scenes, the original Nothingness,
Always waiting for us. We have long been accustomed to it.
Everything will happen again. And it will pass again.

We replaced palm leaves with willow.
Enemies are more valuable than friends. And we'll dance a waltz
Great war. And the pilot Ahnenerbe
He will leave me his flying assistant.

Conflictology and conflicts

Publication of a new anthology based on the works of G.P. Shchedrovitsky seems to be a very interesting event, and above all in the lives of those who knew G.P. (and the one who knew called the Teacher that way). We again have a unique, invaluable opportunity to communicate with him, with his thoughts, which, decades later, have not lost any of their sharpness, accuracy, and relevance.

I read the reports of G.P. Shchedrovitsky for students of advanced training courses of the Ministry of Energy and caught myself thinking how modern everything that Georgy Petrovich talked about in 1981. I would venture to suggest that current students of advanced training courses at any ministry and department were It would be useful to at least leaf through this reader for the first time. In any case, I absolutely do not regret the time that I, putting aside all current affairs, devoted to repeating the material I had once covered, and here’s why: for me, the methodological theory of the school of G.P. Shchedrovitsky has long been a theoretical framework for developing management decisions at all levels of the administrative hierarchy, which I managed to pass through.

To most fully understand the correctness of many observations and conclusions of G.P. It happened to me when I was faced with tasks on the scale of the entire System - that same social, managerial System that G.P. taught me to understand. back in the 80s. The main thing is that, armed with a methodological theory, you can no longer use obviously primitive solutions to extremely complex problems.

I would like to emphasize once again that the publication of this anthology is a great holiday for all of us, G.P.’s students.

But we will be doubly glad of the fruits of our grateful apprenticeship if among the readers of this book there are those who hear about the name of G.P. Shchedrovitsky for the first time. He will hear, read and exclaim: “Here it is, everything is written about my work!” In each specific case this will be a triumph for the G.P. school. Shchedrovitsky in the 21st century.

V. B. Khristenko

Reader - translated from Greek as “a book useful in learning.” It should contain materials systematized in accordance with the plan for mastering a particular subject in an educational institution or in the process of self-education. The textbook texts provide insight into the ways of using tools that must be passed on to new generations. In this Guide, these are methodological and theoretical tools that accompany and support the activities of the organizer, leader, manager (ORU).

The audience of users of this textbook is very limited: these are specialists working in various management systems (practicing managers), who set themselves the task of rationalizing and technologizing - and thereby increasing the efficiency - of their thinking and activities, as well as those who are preparing themselves for management and organizational activities.

The bulk of the texts in the anthology belong to G.P. Shchedrovitsky. Georgy Petrovich did not leave a consistent, complete presentation of the fundamentals of the ORU methodology. He practiced - always at the head of a team of colleagues and students - and until the last days of his life he developed this body of tools, principles, concepts. As traces of this practice, numerous publications, unpublished works (series of lectures, individual reports and speeches), project developments, consultations on the course of organizational activity games (OAG) remained.

You can name up to a dozen well-known names of “participants” in developments and try to highlight their specific contributions to the common cause. This will add some interesting texts to the anthology. Nevertheless, none of these people achieved such clarity of presentation and depth of understanding, which Georgy Petrovich flawlessly mastered. That is why we will wait until they work for another couple of decades and enter their names in future “latest” textbooks on the methodology of both outdoor switchgear and other fields of activity.

We took the text of lectures given by G.P. as the basis for the anthology. Shchedrovitsky in 1981 at advanced training courses for managers and specialists of the Ministry of Energy (see the list of references at the end of the work). In these lectures, the main ideas, diagrams and designs are presented extremely simply and clearly, so that they cannot be misunderstood, in other words, almost textbook-like. And no comment is needed on them. It will obviously be weaker than the author’s thoughts and will turn out to be an annoying hindrance for the reader.

The lectures show a clear scheme, almost a technology for a certain organization of communication with a large audience of interested people. Each topic, and there are several dozen of them covered over 12 lectures, is developed in a certain sequence.

First, the lecturer, explicitly or implicitly, the question is formulated, to which there is no direct and unambiguous answer. If the question is understood (i.e. significant for the audience), then work begins on designing a method and method(or an indication of the method and method, if any are available in the arsenal), using which you can answer the question or “get around” it. Here references are made to predecessors, authorities, stories, examples, from which a diagram of the movement of thought, or a tool-concept, emerges. Next step - assigning a structure folded in front of the audience to specific situations in management activities and demonstration of their instrumental capabilities. The lecturer knows well the specifics of the listeners’ activities and therefore boldly and confidently explains to them “how to think and work.” The audience listens, understands, discusses - the effect of “turning on” and mastering the content is obvious.

We decided, if possible, not to violate this scheme and move along the “textbook” questions in the author’s logic. That is why the same topic can appear in the text several times, but each time in a different aspect, as an element of a different solution, for a different situation.

We were not afraid to shorten the text, removing those fragments that tied the presentation to a specific time and event. Despite the fragmentation, the end-to-end logic of presentation is preserved, and numerous repetitions and returns are explained by the principle “repetition is the mother of learning.” According to the reviews of colleagues who worked in the methodological “kitchen,” the result was not a “dry residue” (which Georgy Petrovich always fiercely fought against), but a minimal toolkit ready for “use.”

We introduced separator headings that indicate the topic (main content) of each subsequent piece of text.

We suggest that the persistent user consult the list of references and satisfy his interest in the originals.

GEORGIY PETROVICH SHCHEDROVITSKY

On February 3, 1994, Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky, the creator of the new profession of “methodologist” and the founder of the modern school of methodology, died. A scientist who made significant contributions to many areas of the humanities and social practice has died. The Teacher who trained several generations of the true elite of representatives of humanitarian culture has died. With the death of G.P. Shchedrovitsky, the human spirit, striving for the search for truth, goodness and beauty, suffered an irreparable loss.

Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky was born on February 23, 1929 in Moscow. He studied at Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov and, moving from the Faculty of Physics to the Faculty of Philosophy, graduated in 1953. While still a student, he worked as a teacher at school and taught physics, logic and psychology. In 1963 he successfully defended his PhD thesis in philosophy.

During his professional life, Georgy Petrovich accumulated a truly rich track record of work and positions, but wherever he was, everywhere he attracted attention with the novelty of his ideas and the power of his mind. Where he appeared, a center of multiprofessional communication immediately arose, a center of heated discussions on the most pressing problems of philosophy, logic, psychology, linguistics and scientific methodology. Each time, human talent and the fate of a methodologist chosen by him nominated him to the place of a leader, organizer, researcher, teacher, lecturer.

In recent years, G.P. Shchedrovitsky was the chairman of the Committee on System-Mental-Activity Methodology and Organizational-Activity Games of the Board of the Union of Scientific and Engineering Societies, and the editor-in-chief of the journal "Methodology Issues".

For 40 years G.P. Shchedrovitsky was the permanent leader of the Moscow Methodological Circle. During the first 10 years of MMK activity (1953-1963), the methodologists of the first generation, as they entered the history of the circle, were A.A. Zinoviev, A.M. Pyatigorsky, M.K. Mamardashvili, E.G. Yudin, V.A. Kostelovsky, V.N. Sadovsky, V.A. Lektorsky, N.G. Alekseev and G.P. Shchedrovitsky - created the main body of methodological disciplines: content-genetic logic, system-structural methodology, theory of linguistic thinking, general theory of activity, epistemology, theory of semantics, methodology of psychology. They laid the foundations of modern cultural studies and anthropology and formulated the basic methodological principles of macrosociology for analyzing the development of social production systems. We say “by them”, since Georgy Petrovich was one of the first who loudly declared that the time of single geniuses had passed and the time of collective mental activity was coming. He devoted his entire life to this cause - the cause of the free association of free creative forces. At the same time, his originality introduced such a powerful charge into any collective action that many of the results of the work of his colleagues and students can be said: this is either the influence or the implementation of the ideas of G.P. Shchedrovitsky.

Georgy Petrovich’s own scientific works on problems of methodology and anthropology cannot be overestimated. From him

7 monographs and more than 200 articles have been published. In addition, he authored tens of thousands of pages of texts stored in the library of the Moscow Methodological Circle, the contents of which are addressed by more and more generations of methodologists. The breadth of problems discussed in the circle allowed G.P. Shchedrovitsky to respond to the most acute and crisis situations in the development of methodology, philosophy and science. His articles were published in journals of the USSR Academy of Sciences, periodicals of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, other scientific and popular science journals, collections of works and materials of countless seminars and conferences. Many of his works have been translated into foreign languages ​​and published in foreign publications. In 1990, Georgy Petrovich created the journal “Questions of Methodology” as a platform for modern methodology.

Many works by G.P. Shchedrovitsky are devoted to current problems of psychology, some of them were published in the journal “Questions of Psychology”. Among these works, we note only those that had a significant impact on the development of psychological science as a whole: this is, first of all, the methodology for studying thinking as an activity, content-genetic analysis of the structure of the method and process of solving problems, the methodology of pedagogical research into preschoolers’ play, the general theory of activity and the analysis of cooperation , studying the structure of meaning and processes of understanding in communication, studying the relationships of children in joint activities, problems of psychological methods in pedagogy. Many of his ideas on the development of psychological problems were embodied in the fundamental and applied research of his colleagues and students, but a much larger number of his ideas will still have a powerful influence on the development of psychological science in the future.

Thus, in 1966, with the direct participation and leadership of Georgy Petrovich, a collective monograph “Pedagogy and Logic” was written, which defined on a fundamentally different basis - the foundations of an anti-naturalistic, activity-based doctrine - a program for building a new psychology and pedagogy. Of enduring importance for psychology is the collection "Training and Development", published in 1966 based on the materials of the symposium, where Georgy Petrovich outlined the basic principles of analyzing the problem of training and development in the paradigm of the general theory of activity, thereby creating the foundation of a new approach to determining the place of psychology in the field education.

G.P. Shchedrovitsky had an infinitely broad outlook and sought to convey his vision of the horizons of thought to a large number of listeners, people sincerely interested in the problems of science. In an effort to expand the circle of participants in discussions, in 1979, he, together with his friends and like-minded people, came up with the idea of ​​​​creating an organizational activity game as a form and method of research, social design, a technique for social innovation and a method of practical solution to major national economic problems. This method in a short time took the form of an ever-expanding social movement, incorporating into its orbit more and more new areas of social practice and covering more and more new regions in our country and beyond its borders. For all 15 years, Georgy Petrovich remained the constant leader of this movement, while showing extraordinary organizational and educational talent.

Shchedrovitsky Georgy Petrovich (February 23, 1929, Moscow - February 3, 1994, Moscow) - philosopher and methodologist, professor. Graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University (1953). Founder of a scientific school, leader of the Moscow Methodological Circle (MMK). In 1958 he organized (together with P. A. Shevarev and V. V. Davydov) the Commission on the Psychology of Thinking and Logic of the Society of Psychologists of the USSR (an interdisciplinary association of philosophers, teachers, psychologists, etc.). He defended the activity approach in opposition to the naturalistic one, developing the theory activities. He developed the idea of ​​methodology as a general framework for all mental activity. In its philosophical development, three main stages can be distinguished: content-genetic epistemology (logic) and theory of thinking (1952-61), activity approach and general theory of activity (1961-71), systems-thought approach (since 1971). Categorical and operational means of the ontological scheme of mental activity were developed. The embodiment of these developments has become a new form of organizing thinking and activity - organizational activity games (OAGs). The experience of conducting them allowed us to develop an idea of ​​​​various spaces in the scheme of mental activity: mental, mental-communicative and mental activity. Over the period 1979-91, over 90 games were held (with up to several hundred participants), dedicated to a wide range of socially and culturally significant issues. In 1988 he created the Committee on SMD Methodology and ODI under the Union of Scientific and Engineering Societies of the USSR. Based on his ideas, advisory and expert firms have been created in various fields of activity (school of “Cultural Policy”, director P. G. Shchedrovitsky, etc.). The extensive archive is currently published in electronic form (information on the Internet at: www.circle.ru).

New philosophical encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Guseinov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Mysl, 2010, vol. IV, p. 405.

Shchedrovitsky Georgy Petrovich (23.02.1929 - 03.02.1994, Moscow) - philosopher and methodologist, prof. Graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University (1953). The creator of a scientific school on problems of content-genetic logic, general theory of activity and the study of mental activity. Leader of the Moscow Methodological Circle (since 1952; Shchedrovitsky's students and followers are still working in this area). In 1958 he organized (together with P. A. Shevarev and V. V. Davydov) the Commission on the Psychology of Thinking and Logic. He defended the activity approach in the study of thinking as opposed to the naturalistic one. He developed the idea of ​​methodology as the basis of all forms of mental activity. In its philosophical development, 3 stages can be distinguished: content-genetic logic (1952-1961), an activity approach to the general theory of thinking (1961-1971) and the concept of systemic thought activity (SMD, since 1971). In the last years of Shchedrovitsky’s work, categorical and operational means of constructing an ontology of mental activity were developed. The embodiment of these developments was the special form of organization of thinking and activity that he built - organizational activity games (OAG). The experience of conducting them allowed us to build an idea of ​​the different spaces of mental activity: mental, mental-communicative and mental activity. During the period 1979-1991, Shchedrovitsky and his students conducted more than 90 games (with up to several hundred participants) for a wide range of socially and culturally significant problems. In 1988, Shchedrovitsky created a Committee on SMD methodology and ODI at the Union of Scientific and Engineering Societies of the USSR. Based on the ideas put forward by Shchedrovitsky, advisory and expert firms were formed in various fields of activity (school of “Cultural Policy”, headed by P. G. Shchedrovitsky, etc.). After Shchedrovitsky’s death, about 20 readings were held, devoted to the analysis of the ideas he developed, with the participation of up to 200 people each.

A. A. Piskoppel, V. N. Sadovsky

Russian philosophy. Encyclopedia. Ed. second, modified and expanded. Under the general editorship of M.A. Olive. Comp. P.P. Apryshko, A.P. Polyakov. – M., 2014, p. 786-787.

Essays: Linguistic thinking and its analysis. M., 1957; On the distinction between the initial concepts of formal and substantive logic. M., 1962; Two concepts of a system. M., 1974; Principles and general scheme of methodological organization of system-structural research and development. M., 1981; Favorite works, M., 1995; Philosophy. The science. Methodology. M., 1997; Sign and activity. Book 1-3. M., 2005-2007; I've always been an idealist. M., 2012.

Literature: Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky (Series “Philosophy of Russia in the second half of the 20th century”) / Ed. P. G. Shchedrovitsky, V. L. Danilova. M., 2010; Litvinov V.P. Humanitarian philosophy of G.P. Shchedrovitsky. M., 2008.

Read further:

Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).

Russian national philosophy in the works of its creators (special project of KHRONOS).

Essays:

“Linguistic thinking” and its analysis - “Issues of linguistics”, 1957, No. 1; On possible ways to study thinking as an activity, - Reports of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR, 1957, No. 3; 1958, No. 1, 4; 1959, No. 1, 2, 4; 1960, No. 2, 4, 5, 6; 1961, No. 4, 5; 1962, No. 2-6; On the structure of attributive knowledge. - Reports of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR, 1958, No. 1-4; 1959, No. 2, 4; I960, no. 6; The principle of “parallelism” of the form and content of thinking and its significance for traditional logical and psychological research (co-authored) - Reports of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR, 1960, No. 2, 4; 1961, No. 4, 5; On the distinction between the initial concepts of formal and substantive logic. - In the book: Problems of methodology and logic of science. Tomsk, 1962; System of pedagogical research (methodological analysis). - In the book: Pedagogy and logic. M., 1968; Sense and significance, - In the book: Problems of semantics. M., 1974; Two concepts of a system, - In the book: Proceedings of the International Congress on the History of Science and Technology. M., 1974; Problems of constructing a theory of a complex “popular” object, - In the book: System Research-1975. M., 1976; Principles and general scheme of methodological organization of system-structural research and development. - In the book: System Research-1981. M., 1981; Organizational-activity game as a new form of organization and method of developing collective mental activity (in co-authors). - In the book: Innovations in organizations. Proceedings of VNIISI seminars. M., 1983; Synthesis of knowledge: problems and methods, - In the book: On the way to the theory of scientific knowledge. M., 1984; Scheme of mental activity: system-structural structure, meaning and content, - In the book: System Research - 1986. M., 1987; The methodological meaning of the opposition of a naturalistic and systemic nature, - “Questions of Methodology”, 1991, No. 2; Reflection of activity, - Ibid., 1994, No. 3-4; Favorite works. M., 1995; Philosophy-Science-Methodology. M., 1997; Organization-Leadership-Management. M., 1999; Research and development programming. M., 1999; "I've always been an idealist." M., 1999; Sign and activity. M., 1999.

Literature:

Sadovsky V.N. Philosophy in Moscow in the 50s and 60s, - “VF”, 1993, No. 7;

Biography of G. P. Shchedrovitsky, - “Questions of Methodology”, 1994, No. 1-2.

Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky (Serial “Philosophy of Russia in the second half of the 20th century”) / Ed. P. G. Shchedrovitsky, V. L. Danilova. M., 2010;

Litvinov V.P. Humanitarian philosophy of G.P. Shchedrovitsky. M., 2008.