The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 2, 2006

Social and Political Philosophy

Iryna Predborska
Pages 17-22

The Concept of "Multi-Dimensionality" in Social Philosophy

This paper deals with the problem of the methodological foundations of social philosophy. The notion of "multidimensionality" as one of the key concepts in the new social philosophy paradigm is analyzed. This notion reflects some expanded pictures of the social and cultural world. The paper makes reference to H. Marcuse's, A. Toynbee's, R. Dahrendorfs, and P. Bourdieu's interpretations of multidimensionality. Their different approaches are considered. The author underlines the common positions of scholars' interpretations and shows the differences in terminology. Primary attention is paid to the analysis of how researchers develop and use this new notion. The significance of this notion for the analysis of social phenomenon is underlined. This explication demonstrates the heuristic possibilities of the concept "multi-dimensionality" for the exploration of society.