Social thinking as a subject of socio-philosophical analysis: theoretical and methodological aspects

The purpose of the study is to explore the concept of “social thinking” within the socio-philosophical research, as well as theoretical and methodological aspects of its analysis. The paper suggests that the up-to-date understanding of the cognitive dimension of social reality should take into account the findings of natural sciences that allow to identify several dimensions of social reality that shape the overall social order: the dimension of small groups, the dimension of large collectives with egalitarian identity systems, and the dimension of socio-economic order based on the division of labor and social hierarchy. Scientific novelty lies in the following: social thinking can be defined as the process of mutual coordination of cognitive elements (symbols, narratives, practices) of the main dimensions of social reality in order to design and maintain social order. The methodological approach to analyzing the process of social thinking amounts to identifying discourses specific to certain dimensions of social reality and to splitting them into various elements (symbols, instructions, narratives) corresponding to the discourses of other dimensions. The study found that the elements common to different dimensions of society that emerge as a result of the intersection serve as a basis for the design of the social order typical for a certain society.