Management and communication ideas in the late 17th – early 19th centuries

• Main Author: Денис Кислов
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: State University of Infrastructure and Technologies 2021-06-01
• Series: Історія науки і техніки
• Subjects: power; state; state administration; communications; comparative historical analysis
• Online Access: https://hst-journal.com/index.php/hst/article/view/458

The article examines the period from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century, when on the basis of deep philosophical concepts, a new vision of the development of statehood and human values raised. At this time, a certain re-thinking of the management and communication ideas of Antiquity and the Renaissance took place, which outlined the main promising trends in the statehood evolution, which to one degree or another were embodied in practice in the 19th and 20th centuries. A systematic approach and a comparative analysis of the causes and consequences of those years achievements for the present and the immediate future of the 21st century served as the methodological basis for a comprehensive review of the studies of that period. The scientific novelty of this study is the demonstration of the theoretical heritage complexity of the Enlightenment for the general history of management and communication ideas. The article presents an analysis of the views and concepts of the late 17th – early 18th century thinkers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, who defend the right to freedom of communication and liberalization of relationships in the system: “person – society – state”, associated with their own understanding of the government role. French enlighteners François Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean d'Alembert, Etienne Condillac were much smaller theorists in management and communication issues, but their successful epistolary and encyclopedic communication practice, starting from the third decade of the XVIII century significantly increased the self-awareness of the masses. The influence of their ideas on the possibility of progressive development of social relations, on improving the national states manageability and on how of a new type scientists were able not only to popularize knowledge, but also to practically make it an object of public communication is shown. In this context, the author considers the importance of political and legal communication problems in the vision of Charles Louis Montesquieu and analyzes the republican governance ideas by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as an outstanding figure of the Enlightenment, who attached great importance to the forms and methods of forming of the state governance structures. At the end of the historical period under consideration, a comparative historical analysis of the most significant statements of such thinkers as Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is presented. These founders of the scientific discourse around the problems of power and state, war and peace, the effectiveness of government and communication in relations with the people laid the enduring foundations of the theoretical argumentation of two opposing views on the cardinal problem of our time – the possibility or impossibility of achieving mutually acceptable foundations of a new world order peacefully, excluding all types of hybrid wars. The general picture of the scientific and technological achievements of this period, influencing the level of understanding of the management and communication functions of the state of that time, is given in comparison with the present.