Retrospective of the utopic discourse

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Abstract:   This article reviews a number of utopic socio-philosophical constructs within the historical retrospective. Using the example of Thomas More’s “Utopia”, an attempt is made to differentiate the perception of the ideal structures during various historical eras, as well as explain the objective reason of ambiguity of their purposeful impact. Based on analysis of the political and economic substantiation of the acceptance or rejection by society of the philosophical utopic ideas for improving the government structure alongside the differences in conceptual interpretation of utopic as the ideal, the author reveals the theoretical ambiguity of fundamental notion of the “utopic”. The historical insight has demonstrated the social determinedness of dual understanding of the “utopic”’: as a positive “utopic”, strategically relevant project, as well as negative “utopist”, inapplicable for realization of the social thought process. Thus, it can be claimed that not every ideal is “utopic”, while the “utopic” is always understood as he ideal model emerged for the criticism of actual reality. The conclusion is made that utopia as the ideal or alternative to the existing project of the future, is able to develop the actual social being, introducing the meaningful ideas of the world structure, as well as manifests a drastic factor of its destruction in search of the transcendental ideal.