Sources ecosociology. Series: «Ecosociology». I. P. Kulyasov

fish species, he developed efficient fishery legislation for European Russia. As a result, depletion of the fishery resources began only in the 1960s with the start of commercial fishing by large fishing vessels.

      Danilevsky could be viewed as one of the first ecosociologists as he used sociological methods for studying natural resource use and nature management. This statement can radically change the current opinion in the history of ecosociology that Russian ecosociologists “descend” from the Chicago ecosociologists. It appears that, at this stage of development of Russian ecosociology, we could conduct a more in-depth study of the domestic scientific heritage, doing a “test fit” for works written by the fathers of sociology, where they tested interaction of humans and natural sites, from the ecosociology standpoint. Sadly, historians of sociology often keep silence about these works or mention them cursorily, paying more attention to the historical aspect.

      Interestingly, Danilevsky, reckoned as a follower of the geographic school due to the research and analytical methods used, sharply criticized evolutionism in his work “Darwinism”45. Truly speaking, that criticism was aimed at the advocates of social Darwinism, also followers of the geographical school, along with the supporters of social biologism, rather than Darwin himself. Danilevsky argued that social inequality is radically different from biological one and cannot be a subject of studies for natural sciences.

      This means that fishermen should be studied by sociologists and social sciences while fish – by biologists and natural sciences. This position helped to separate sociology from other sciences and authors writing in the interdisciplinary domain. It also contributed to sociology’s drift towards sociologism, where people interact only with people and all this happens in a non-material social space (social environment).

      Danilevsky criticized social evolutionism for the belief in the existence of planetary humankind with a common history of evolution. He wrote that this view was not supported by any geographical, archeological, culturological or anthropological research. He distinguished a number of geographically isolated cultural-historical society types, in particular, ten old types – Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Chaldean, Persian, Hebrew, Arab, Greek, Roman, and Germanic, also mentioning two immature types – Incas and Mayas – that had been forcibly destroyed, leaving a question mark about the status of the New World in North America. As for the Russian society, he viewed it as a new cultural-historical type.

      Lev Il’ich Mechnikov (1838—1888) was another representative of the geographical school. In his book “Civilization and great historical rivers”, he classifies cultures into riverside, seaside and ocean-side types, associating ancient civilizations with big rivers, antique civilizations – with seas and modern ones – with oceans. This division is based on the social fabric, which influences the level of the geographical environment’s exploration46.

      He leant towards scientific materialism, supporting the idea of universal global development from non-organic (mechanisms) to organic (organisms) and further to intelligent nature (society). The social structure is based on solidarity, which can be compulsory, subordinate and free. These three forms of social structure correspond to three types of civilizations and three types of biogenous water bodies. Solidarity is necessary for survival in adverse conditions of the surrounding physical-geographical environment. It is expressed through teamwork and leads to progress. Progress results in the emergence of free people (anarchists), whose life is associated with the world ocean. For this reason, Mechnikov is regarded as the founder of Russian geopolitics and an ideologist of anarchism.

      The Russian specifics led to a situation when, in the beginning of the 20^th century, the interdisciplinary area between sociology and medicine and statistics became the most promising sociological subject (as related to further development of environmentalism). Theoretical constructions and conclusions were gradually replaced by scientific experiments. The important thing was to obtain, from natural sciences, an exhaustive reply to the questions: Who exactly are humans? How and why do they act (interact with other people and nature)?

      Ivan Mihaylovich Sechenov (1829—1905) turned social science about humans into an exact science. Based on extensive experiments and data, he offered a rational explanation for all nervous and mental signs, including consciousness and its manifestation in the form of an act of will. Leaving the holistic approach to the organism as a whole, he divided acts into subconscious and conscious. He substantiated this view suggesting that all mental signs are also physiological (reflexive), and that acts and interactions of cells, organisms (individuals) and populations (society) with their inner and external environment could be studied using objective methods47.

      He shared and developed the views of Russian cosmists. Together with his wife, he was the first to translate Darwin’s “The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex”48 into Russian, becoming a popularizer of the evolutionary theory, arguing in its favor in terms of physiology and psychology. He is the founding father of the synthetic evolution theory, currently comprising data from paleontology, molecular biology, genetics and systematics.

      Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849—1936) was the first to formulate the physiological principles of higher nervous activity, based on investigation of dogs49, making clear the difference between involuntary and conditional reflexes and the role of the reinforcement mechanism in the conditioning of reflexes. It was now clear that, unlike reinforcement, incentives or punishments fail to form conditional reflexes (habits) among humans as they take effect over time rather than during an act itself.

      Also of interest is Pavlov’s participation in the debate on native temperaments and their influence on behavior and emotional state. This postulate was largely rejected. Experimenting, Pavlov identified three dynamic parameters – intensity, tranquility and agility of the excitative and inhibitory processes, prevalence and various combinations of which influence intra-specie and external interaction. It was discovered that these parameters were conditioned during interaction with various environments, i.e., they were not native, and they influenced behavior (higher nervous activity) after conditioning50. However, supporters of the “ancient knowledge” continue to cling to the transcendental argument that Pavlov’s dogs were doomed to make it to the environment, which developed the qualities later identified by Pavlov.

      Pavlov’s research was used by practicing psychiatrists and psychotherapists. Sociologists extrapolated the results of Pavlov’s experiments to humans and society. Politicians and businessmen received a better understanding of how they could manage, subordinate, interest prospective buyers and sell their products. Western science on behavior (the behaviorist approach to sociology) and neurolinguistics received a momentum for development and by now have taken the form of studies, using quantitative and qualitative methods, of practices and discourses, including ecological ones.

      Vladimir Mihaylovich Bekhterev (1857—1927) extended the objective knowledge about physiology and pathology of human psyche. He also studied certain form of group behavior, for example, mass hysteria when a crowd behaves more stupidly than an individual behaves and ceases to be an assemblage of rational beings51. In 1907, with the support of colleagues and donors, he organized the Saint-Petersburg Psycho-neurological Institute, establishing Russia’s first sociological research and educational institution – the chair of sociology.

      This chair of sociology was headed by Maksim Maksimovich Kovalevsky (1851—1916) and Evgeny Valentinovich De Roberti (1843—1915), who elaborated a prospective research program based on research in physiology and psychology, individual and collective behavior. This institution had pragmatic tasks in the field of pedagogics, law and health care and, as related to reflexology, was to establish

45

Danilevsky N.Y. Darwinism. St. Petersburg. 1885. (in Russian)

46

Mechnikov L.I. La civilisation et les grands fleuves historiques, 1889. (in French)

47

Sechenov I.M. Physiology of the sensory organs. St. Petersburg. 1867.; Psychological studies. St. Petersburg. 1873.; Impressions and reality. St. Petersburg. 1890.; Physiology of the nerve centers. St. Petersburg. 1891.; About the subject thinking from a physiological point of view. St. Petersburg. 1894. (all in Russian)

48

Darwin Ch. R. Descent of man and selection in relation to sex. St. Petersburg: Cherkesov’s Publishing Bookstore. 1873. 2nd edition. Vol. 1—2. 374 p. il. (in Russian, I.M. Sechenov’s and M.A. Sechenova’s translated from English: “Darwin Ch. R. The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. 1871.”).

49

Pavlov I.P. Twenty years of experience objective study of the higher activity (behaviour) of animals. Moscow: Science. 1923. 661 p. (in Russian)

50

Pavlov I.P. Physiological theories about the types of nervous system, temperament (p. 77—78).; General types of higher nervous activity in animals and humans (p. 267—93). Moscow-Leningrad. 1951. Complete works. Vol. 3. Book 2. (in Russian)

51

Bekhterev V.M. Fundamentals of the functions of the brain. St. Petersburg. 1903—1907.; Objective psychology. St. Petersburg. 1907—1910.; Psyche and life. 2nd edition. St. Petersburg. 1904.; Hypnosis and its role in public life. St. Petersburg: Publisher K.L. Rikker. 1908.; Collective reflexology. Petrograd. 1921.; General foundations of the reflexology of man. Moscow-Petrograd. 1923.; The brain and activities. Moscow-Leningrad. 1928. (all in Russian)