Toynbee, Arnold Joseph

(1889-1975)
English historian, sociologist and the largest representative of the philosophy of history. Toynbee graduated from Winchester College and Oxford University. A recognized expert in the ancient world, Professor, University of London (1919-1924) and the London School of Economics (1925-1955), author of numerous studies on the historical and philosophical, sociological and political problems. Regulation of scientist-experts involved in world politics at the highest level (expert in international conferences during the first and second world wars), to a large extent determine the nature and scope of his historical thinking.


. 'The study of history' - the main work of Toynbee
. Unlike the positivists, he believed that historical knowledge can not be reduced to collect, collate, systematize facts. 'Necessary to combine the history and social sciences in a common understanding of human affairs'.


. Toynbee rejects the vision of history as a linear motion 'from the Creation to Doomsday', . and interpretation of history as an ascent towards improving the human race, . and positivistic idea of alternating periods of compression and dispersion of structural elements, . a society, . and, . Finally, . attempts to reduce the entire history of mankind in the history of European nations as the sole bearer of progress and civilization.,

. Ancient civilization - these are 'experimental' model, which Toynbee, a connoisseur of classical antiquity, considered the key to understanding the history
. The overall history of mankind, says the historian, there is. Carriers of the historical life is closed, do not depend on each other's society. They differ unique peculiarity of culture, spiritual life, the supreme embodiment of that - religion. Every such society - an independent civilization. Toynbee saw the emergence and growth of civilizations as a manifestation of supernatural cosmic force propelling inert matter. In every civilization, this force manifests itself through the 'creative minority', leading the rest. 'It is individuals, rather than human societies' make 'human history'. Toynbee civilization likened to living organisms, considering that each is in its development, five stages: birth, growth, breakdown or accident, decomposition, death.

Having completed a full cycle, civilization descends from the historical scene. In Toynbee's theory of the cycle has admirers and irreconcilable enemies. For all its contentious in the writings of a scientist is reflected some real processes, assembled an enormous factual material. Look Toynbee on world history is deeply gumanistichen, . for, . Acknowledging the intellectual inequality of men, . he is a determined opponent of racism with his claim of superiority and inferiority of some other nations, . each of which he eventually devotes his role in the fate of the very nature of equal civilizations.,
. Toynbee's philosophy of history (sometimes referred to as its philosophy of history) can be considered a grand hypothesis that combines academic achievement with approaches that lie outside of science and has its own meaning
. Do not accidentally look at the history of mankind as the history of civilizations is becoming more widely recognized. Undoubtedly, the merit Toynbee in that it more than other historians have contributed to this.