Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. Sectio Philosophica.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)

Pavel Fobel: Social-philosophical aspects of modernizing society

It is important in contemporary societies to identify and obtain early information about the behavior and conditions of the people. There are also the valuable merital co-efficients-standard signs* which enable us to determine conditions and estimate expected changes. Naturally, such philosophical, sociological and economic theories are taken seriously as they define the mechanism of a transitive society most effectively. Modernist and postmodernist theories are aimed at finding more effective mechanisms of modern society, based on the principles of alternation, the autonomy of subsystems and their functional maturity. Previously, such theories searched for new values, new senses of worth in lives. The theories are connected with another level of socio-philosophical thinking, deeper reflexivity, which is characteristic of democratically stabilized societies. In principle it is impossible to find a simple model of the transformation of a system and so it is very difficult to find uniformity in theoretical expression "working" in concrete social systems. But these are some attempts at the theoretical analyses which, in general, express the specific stages of transformation. Most contemporary socio-philosophical conceptions catch these regularities of a society's transition according to their principle mechanisms and aims. Early social, economic and politically orientated analyses make presumtions leading to corrective theories. Previously it was the matter of practical politics and ideological organization of political subjects. Modern pluralism is the dominant principle behind an effective transformation. R. Dahrendorf may sound controversial when he voices his opinions and offers a valuable interpretation of a society's transformation. He considers that ethnic, religious and regional friction causes a weakness in the political center. Various interpretations of the use of the word weakness have been decribed as under-estimated autocracy, legitimacy, maturity, and so on. Everyone's personal interpretation is different. This expert in European conditions echoes Popper's thesis on open societies when he says: "The transition does not mean, and should not have to mean the substitution of one system for another. Transition from socialism to capitalism makes no sense. The way forward, towards freedom, is to transform from a closed to an open society. The open society is not a system but the mechanism with which we can search for alternatives."

5 In this way Dahrendorf shifts the problem into a new position. He points to the mechanism of function, a constitutional reconstruction of the social system. Accordingly with other system theoreticians, he states that economic structures and 40