Approaches To The Periodisation Of Socio-Economic Development Of Society In The Formation Of Historical Prerequisites For The Theory Of Post-Industrialism

The purpose of the article is to analyse the existing research paradigms of the historical stages of socio-economic development of society, which opens the possibility of broadening the theoretical base of the study of post-industrialism as a modern state of social evolution and forecasting its main manifestations in the future. Methodology. The results were obtained thanks to the application of the following methods: systematic analysis – when characterising the main paradigms of periodisation of economic history: linear-staged, cyclical and contamination and their components; logical and historical – when studying the process of development of theoretical approaches to periodisation of economic development; method of classifications – when summarising all existing approaches to periodisation into groups; general and special – when establishing the unity of existing theories of periodisation of economic history. Results. It has been noted that against the background of a large number of approaches to periodisation of socio-economic development of society used in scientific literature, each of them builds a conditional, simplified, schematic philosophical model of socio-economic evolution. Thus, the linear stage paradigm, which exists in the evolutionary-progressive, formative and modernist versions, considers social evolution as a predictable linear development under the influence of mainly internal (endogenous) mechanisms of development. The cyclical paradigm emphasises the uniqueness of spatio-temporal cultures-civilisations. It denies unity, consistency and regularity in the progress of society. It has been shown that these paradigms do not provide a way of constructing a complete picture of the socio-cultural development of humanity. Thus, the practicality of using synergistic models of world history is emphasised. Practical implications. The modern transformational character of the development of the social system creates uncertainty in the field of characteristics of its current stage, which is conventionally defined as post-industrialism, as well as future stages. For a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of the modern transformation process and the definition of its driving forces, it is important to use an adequate research paradigm of the process of social evolution. It is shown that such a paradigm should be considered as a synergistic (contamination) paradigm, combining unitary stage, multivariate, civilisation-discrete and other concepts. Value/originality. On the basis of the systematic analysis of the existing paradigms of periodisation of socio-economic development of society, it was established that the contamination (synergetic) paradigm in the methodology of science, characterised by multi-criteria approaches based on the principles of stadiality, polyvariance and civilisational discreteness, allows to more clearly correlate economic transformations with other spheres of people's life. This paradigm is therefore better suited to identifying key moments in the economic history of humanity and to predicting the stages of its future development.