Destruction And Reconstruction Of The Concept Of "Materialied Society" In Classical Sociology

President Hu Jintao initialized the main contents of"Scientific Outlook on Development"on 2003, July, which was then listed in the Seventeenth CPC Report and the Twelfth Five-year Planning Compendium. It shows the transformation of China's understanding of development. Both the"Scientific Outlook on Development"and China's New Type of Modernization require a new concept of society in current times. This thesis tries to trace back to the classical period of sociological theories, and find some helpful legacies through methodical repudiation.The methodological principles of this thesis are dual focus on theoretical innovation and application in reality, combination of historical analysis and instant practice, as well as the synchronization of destruction and reconstruction of classical social theories.As for the contents, the second chapter describes the historical and knowledge backgrounds of the concept of"materialized society"in classical sociology. Both the early explosion of modernization in west European countries and the Positive Principles brought by the rapid development of natural sciences give rise to the materialization of the concept of"society". In the following third and fourth chapter, this thesis cast emphasis in the destruction of the aspects of substantiality and external restriction of"society". According to Comte and Durkheim, society was a kind of objective existence. They even equated it to"material"just like those objects in natural sciences. Society was regarded to be separated from people, and cast restriction on people who live within it. Compared with such opinions, this thesis pays attention to the other two aspects of equal significance. They are respectively the aspect of value and the process of interaction and mutual generation between people and society. Only through such necessary complementation could we get an all-round and actual understanding of"society".Based on the destruction and reconstruction of the concept of"materialized society"presented above, the fifth chapter puts forward the theory that"life is the noumenon of society". While life is the contents and noumenon of society, the society is the realization form of life. We could never talk about one of them without mentioning the other. Thus, the term of society is finally defined as"life community and life world based on certain types of relationship built by people who live under certain material and spiritual conditions". It is where people's life generates and regenerates.In terms of actual application, this thesis offers a new concept of society as for the guidance of China's New Type of Modernization and Scientific Development. At the same time, this thesis, with its destruction and reconstruction of the concept of"materialized society"in classical sociology, will also help to promote the theoretical innovation in modern times both by its methods adopted and final results.