On the Question of the Theory of Development

Abstract

When studying the development of a particular object, it could be very valuable to use the general theory of development as a methodological basis. But today, unfortunately, this does not exist. However, two theories have claimed, and still claim, for this role: Hegelian dialectics and general systems theory.However, they consider their object from different angles -dialectics from the "internal" side, and general systems theory -from the "external" side (often as a socalled "black box"). The main drawback of the Hegelian dialectic is that it ignores the external relations of the object (theoretically, the Marxist "materialist dialectic" is no different from the Hegelian one in this), as well as the problems of the genesis of the object. But the main drawback of both the "classical" general systems theory and its more modern version, which considers unstable states of a nonlinear system, is the actual ignoring of its internal structure and the presence of other systems. Although, unlike Hegelian dialectics, it mainly considers the so-called "open systems" and fundamentally recognizes the presence and role of the environment, but the latter is actually presented as a kind of "nutrient broth" and a source of "disturbances". In reality, neither one nor the other case in its pure form has a place.The first one is that since in the world there actually exists a general interaction of by no means eternal and not universal objects, and it is possible to abstract from this, relying solely on the self-development of the object -"eternal" and "universal", only in certain cases and relatively. The second is because the system in its elements is not separated from the environment in an absolute sense. Firstly, the individual elements of the system enter it with more or less strong ties, while maintaining fairly significant own ties with non-systemic elements; secondly, there is an inclusion of the system into other systems -both as a whole into systems of a "higher order", and part of the elements into other systems, and, accordingly, the concepts of both a system and an environment turn out to be far from unambiguous, and, finally, thirdly, the interactions between the system and individual elements of the environment are unequal, including because the latter also contains other systems, including similar ones.Thus, dialectics and general systems theory in their classical form are not concerned with real objects, but with some abstractions representing extreme cases in the real state of things. Either the impacts of the external environment are cut off, the consideration of development is limited by the self-movement of the object, or the