Ambivalence of the relationship between subject and environment in the context of evolution

The aim of this study is to identify the specifics of the relationship between humans and their environment, which underlie conceptions of society as a whole – characterized by ambivalence – and to determine their ontological foundation. The article addresses the problem of the duality inherent in the interaction between the subject and the surrounding environment within the context of social evolution, and identifies the organizing principle of the subject’s thought. Taking into account the classification of types of perception, the phenomena of individualism and collectivism in the evolutionary process are characterized, which are conditioned by the following factors: first, the particular nature of social evolution, which is based on the perception of space and anthropological categories; second, the “cycle” of the evolutionary process over time; and third, social evolution encompasses not only the perception of forms of connection, differentiation, and the subject’s adaptive challenges, but also the difficulties in perceiving their magnitude and constructing influence in various spheres of life according to the rules and principles of relativistic ethics. The scientific novelty of the research lies in revealing the ambivalent relations between the subject and the surrounding reality during social evolution, represented by the dichotomy: “Darwinism – individualism” and “synthetic theory of evolution – collectivism.” The analysis of this ambivalence in society leads to the conclusion that contemporary reality demands a rethinking of evolution as a philosophical category, involving a shift in priority from biological approaches toward social ones, which shape subject-object relations in the surrounding reality.