Civil society: from Aristotle to nowadays (sociological trends)

Abstract

Presented investigations have been made in the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Many researches from Plato and Aristotle, T. Hobbes and J. Locke, I. Kant and H. Hegel, K. Marx and F. Engels, T. Paine and E. Gellner have been directed to the looking for the meaning of civil society. These thinkers have designated as basic meaning-factors such concepts as the freedom of the individual, its development and participation in public affairs, democracy and private property, the legal equality of all citizens, their self-determination and self-organization. On basis of these meanings the numerous theories of civil society have been created. Then they have been realized in different outcomes.