CULTURAL-HISTORICAL AND SOCIO-PHILOSOPHICAL FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Abstract

The influence of cultural-historical and socio-philosophical factors on the formation and development of ideas of charity, assistance to the needy, social assistance as a social phenomenon and social work as a professional activity is analyzed in the article. The methodological basis of the study is a systematic approach to the study of cultural, historical and sociophilosophical principles of charity and social assistance. The historical method (tracing the historical development of the phenomenon of social assistance and charity, taking into account the specifics of certain historical periods and its impact on charity approaches, the impact of scientific and philosophical knowledge on the formation of theoretical foundations of professional social work, etc.), methods of analysis and synthesis development of the idea of assistance in different historical periods and determining its impact on the formation and development of professional social work in the future) are used. It has been shown that in primitive communities, issues of assistance and mutual assistance were based on the need to ensure the survival of the community. Ideas of help and mercy began to be associated with ideas about the salvation of the soul, and help to neighbor - as an expression of love for God with the emergence and spread of the religious worldview. The influence of religious guidelines on the idea of helping the needy in Europe, the United States and the peculiarities of the influence of religious worldview on the development of charitable ideas in Ukrainian society is shown in the article. The influence of religious attitudes remained strong until the end of the XVII - XVIII centuries, and secular doctrines of charity and its regulation have spread since the era of the New Age and the Enlightenment. The implementation of social assistance is carried out through numerous public charities in the XIX century. It becomes obvious that social assistance and social work should be provided and carried out by professionals who have the appropriate education from the end of the XIX century. The influence of basic philosophical and ethical ideas from antiquity to the present, which focused public opinion on the need for assistance and mutual assistance, social responsibility, etc. is analyzed. The influence of scientific and philosophical ideas on the development of theories and practices of social work in the first half of the twentieth century is emphasized. Significant influence on the development of theoretical foundations in the understanding of social assistance and social work played a scientific and philosophical directions in the early twentieth century: psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, existentialism, humanistic psychology, gestalt psychology. It is concluded that from the end of the XX - beginning of the XXI century in the issues of social assistance and charity the ideas of pragmatic humanism and effective altruism as alternatives to the classical approaches to charity and assistance appeared and spread. The article concludes that cultural, historical, economic, socio-political changes occurring in society during its historical development, decisively affect the formation and development of the idea of social assistance, as well as raise the need to find new approaches to the organization and functioning social assistance systems, taking into account the requirements of modern theory and practice, accumulated domestic and foreign experience.