Different logics of social and political analysis

Ilinskaya Svetlana ORCID: 0000-0002-7402-5265 PhD in Politics Associate professor, Head of the Department of Philosophical Problems in Politics, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences 109240, Russia, Moscow, Goncharnaya str., 12, p.1, office 421 svetlana_ilinska@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Sirina Ekaterina Arturovna ORCID: 0000-0003-1246-4091 Postgraduate Student, Department of Social Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences 109240, Russia, Moscow, Goncharnaya str., 12/1 ekasirina@gmail.com

Introduction

The book "The Logic of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory" by professors of the University of Essex, Great Britain, Jason Glinos and David Howarth, albeit published quite a long time ago, in 2007, is extremely relevant today for several reasons at once.

First, (1) Glinos and Howarth represent the direction of poststructuralist discourse analysis, the so-called Essex School founded by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclo. Discourse analysis (discursive research) is one of the most interesting trends in the development of modern social thought, a powerful interdisciplinary trend that emerged at the intersection of social philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, cultural studies, media studies, cognitive sciences, sociology, political science, which is becoming increasingly popular in Russia, but the direction of critical thinking has gained great popularity in Russia. discourse analysis (CDA, in English–language literature - CDA).

The work of Tien Van Dyck has been translated into Russian ^[1], Christopher Hart's methods have been considered in detail ^{[2, 3]}. Despite their undoubted value, they, in our opinion, do not give a complete picture of the "discursive paradigm" (although they share its specific ontology). KDA, like many other "schools" of discourse analysis, although they have a pronounced interdisciplinary character, are founded by representatives of language disciplines and are developed at the departments of linguistics. Naturally, first of all, concepts and theories created within the framework of the "language sciences" are applied here. The theoretical baggage of linguistics and semiotics enriches discursive research with a powerful arsenal of tools.  Mastering these tools is important and useful, but, as the analysis of the research carried out in Russia within the framework of the KDA (mainly in the framework of philology, less often – political science and sociology, media studies, sometimes - cultural studies and philosophy) shows, it is often carried out without clarifying ontological positions. "Before using discourse in the categories of linguistics or sociology, one should turn to its philosophical origins," A. Oleshkova rightly notes ^{[4, p. 15]}, analyzing the socio–philosophical aspects of critical discourse analysis according to the methods of Norman Fairclough. It should be noted that Fairclough, who belongs to the critical school of discursive research, as well as poststructuralists, pays considerable attention to ontological issues, his ideas and concepts largely overlap with what Glinos and Howarth write about in the peer-reviewed work.  This once again speaks of a common basis of approaches. However, it is in the works of Mouff-Laclos and their followers that the "discursive paradigm" is built and described most fully.

Neglect of the analysis of the foundations of methodology in multi–paradigm social knowledge is a problem that social thinkers are increasingly reminded of (see, for example, ^[5]).  "Methodological issues necessarily affect the ontological and epistemological dimension of any social research, as well as data collection and analysis techniques in a particular case" ^{[6, p. 6]}.

The second reason for the relevance (2) is that the "new ontology", according to Glinos and Howarth, is able to give grounds for a new model of social sciences, which the authors call "postpositivist" and which has "an objective dimension, but at the same time avoids the limitations of positivist approaches based on the causal paradigm of natural sciences sciences" ^{[6, p. 81]}. The need for an alternative model of thinking is read in many texts of various social disciplines. In the preface, Ernest Laclau characterizes the work of Glinos and Howarth as an attempt to offer a common framework for social research from a poststructuralist point of view. And, perhaps, it is poststructuralism that claims to become a new stage in the development of social sciences, in the terms of Thomas Kuhn, who first posed the question: "Is it so obvious that it is better to talk about the adaptation of language to the world, and not about the adaptation of the world to language? ... Maybe what we call "the world" is nothing more than the result of mutual adaptation of experience and language?" ^{[7, p. 449]}

At the same time, the transition is realized from the philosophical level ("global optics"), to the level of practice, where the ultimate goal is an adequate social and political analysis. In the social sciences, a "practical turn" is gradually taking place, due to the fact that knowledge should provide answers to problems relevant to society. Following Heidegger, Glinos and Howarth pay attention to the relationship between ontology and ontics (thinking about things, but not about the existence of things), the possibilities of operationalization of the proposed models. In the words of another reviewer of the book Hugh Miller (Hugh T. Miller), they offer a "context-dependent research protocol".

The third reason for relevance (3) is that, developing a postpositivist model of social sciences, Glinos and Howarth use and clarify the poststructuralist understanding of logic laid down by Wittgenstein, developed by poststructuralists, for example, Deleuze in his "Logic of Meaning" ^[8]. And such an understanding is increasingly shared ^[9] as fundamentally important for an adequate analysis of modern social reality and emerging social problems. The "discursive paradigm" substantiates the ontological possibility of many logics and determines their place in the analysis.

"Non-obvious" ontology

"The importance of ontology lies not only in determining what things exist, but also in determining how and why they exist," emphasize Glinos and Howarth ^{[6, p. 11]}. Since antiquity, philosophy has given different answers to these questions, and the presence of a set of answers, in the absence of a "final" one, determines the multiparadigmality of social knowledge. Poststructuralists (which usually include representatives of the Frankfurt School, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Slavoy  Trying to overcome the canons of "rational", "positivist", claiming to be universal objectivity of the concepts of the modern era and being in search of a new language to describe social reality, they associate possible answers with the cultural and historical context.

For Habermas, the main task of philosophy has always been to overcome "gaps" when one way of perceiving the world is replaced by another, and this task "moves" the history of philosophy, which does not exist by itself, but "responds to changes in the development of society", satisfying the "demand" for their understanding ^[10].  Gramsci also asked the same question: "It is necessary ... to explain how it turns out that at all times there are many philosophical systems and currents, to explain how they are born, how they spread, why when they spread they find certain break lines, take a certain direction" ^{[11, p. 14]}. The "discursive paradigm" offers a rather convincing way of understanding gaps, interpreting them as a change of "discursive formations".

The concept of discourse in the concept of Muff-Laclo is total. Derrida's metaphorical formula "everything is discourse", they conceptualize in a model that connects the objective and subjective dimensions of social reality, symbolic and material levels of social order, thereby removing problematic oppositions of social sciences, including the Marxist opposition between "basis" and "superstructure". With regard to discursive research in general, and poststructuralist discourse theory in particular, misunderstandings can often be found: they are interpreted as approaches that consider society as a purely symbolic reality. However, as Glinos and Howarth emphasize, we are talking about "a materialistic ontology based on the relational concept of reality and the radical randomness of social relations and identities" ^{[6, p. 102]}. Misunderstanding, in our opinion, occurs due to attempts to comprehend a different, different from positivist, logic of reasoning in the spirit of positivism, to explain the concepts of one "language" with the concepts of another. The study of the poststructuralist view of the world (like any other system of views) requires immersion in texts. One of the few successful examples is N.A. Autonomova's comments on her translations of texts by Derrida and other poststructuralists ^{[12, pp. 7-110]}.

At the same time, the positivist approach to cognition based on operations with "ideal models", focused on the study of stable and predictable systems, is not denied in poststructuralist discourse theory. Its place as one of the possible types of ontologies is outlined, its possibilities and limitations are indicated. The principal feature of poststructuralist discourse theory is that it grants the "right to exist" to different ontologies, and that is why it can claim the status of a new paradigm.

The consequence of this approach is a set of conclusions and proposals that Laclo and Mouffe, as well as their followers, develop in their works. For all their "non-obviousness" from positivist positions, they largely coincide with the conclusions and proposals reached by modern social thinkers who consider communication as a systemic foundation of society (for example, ^[13]).  Recognition of the fundamental (ontological) possibility of different pictures of the world leads to the realization of the key role of communication and the development of "new rules of communication" of the ontologies themselves. 

The concept of Mouff-Laclos is analytically complex, and its summary does not always allow you to "grasp an idea" based on interdisciplinary knowledge. Glinos and Howarth throughout the book unfold this "non-obvious" ontology, answering questions arising to it concerning the ontology itself, the "grammar" and "logic" of reasoning arising from it, the most postpositivist view of social knowledge.

Let's identify the key components of this concept.  First of all, its understanding (as well as the discursive paradigm in general) is impossible without accepting the idea outlined by Ferdinand de Saussure in the field of language analysis ^[14] and developed by Lacan in the field of psychoanalysis – the gap between the "signifier" and the "signified", which Glinos and Howarth call the "ontology of lack" (ontology of lack). "The shortage lies in the realm of the symbolic, but our feelings about it are quite real," Lacan writes ^{[15, p. 168]}. The discrepancy, the "gap" between the real and the symbolic, between the "signifier" and the "signified", turns out to be destructive or "disruptive", "marks the impossibility of any supposed completeness of being, whether at the level of structures, subjects or discourses" ^{[6, p. 11]}. Muff and Laclos transfer the "structures" of the cognitive and mental level indicated by Saussure and Lacan to the social level, which cannot but be mediated by them.  And they conclude about the fundamental incompleteness of any symbolic order, accompanied by the need inherent in human nature for its completion – "objectification" at the level of social life (see, for example, ^{[16, pp. 54-57]}).

Any social system, relations, order (in a word, everything social) is mediated by the endless "sliding of the signifier over the signified" ^{[17, p. 137]}.  The meanings of the elements (signifiers) can always be changed, therefore, social entities are discursive, unstable, unstable in nature. Mouffe and Laclos call this the "radical contingency" of social relations.   Social entities are both "possible" and "impossible", they can be stable, but they can also be changed. Rather, there are no entities, but there are "projects". "There is no society at all, but only competing projects of society," writes Olga Orisheva ^{[17, p. 138]}. The adequacy of the proposed picture of the world is confirmed by the fact that the concepts of "project", "project thinking" are increasingly becoming elements of the picture of the world of modern man. The fundamental possibility of change in this approach is a "political dimension", which for post-Marxists Mouff and Laclos becomes determinatively important.

Let's denote other elements of the concept. The Marxist concept of "hegemony", conceived by Antonio Gramsci as a "cultural" (symbolic) "hegemony", is brought to its logical conclusion and becomes a key element of the "discursive paradigm". Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony assumes that the dominant worldviews are at the heart of stability or changes in social structures. Mouff and Laclos connect the levels of the symbolic and the objective: cultural hegemony structures practices, everyday life in which people exist and act. And, at the same time, real practices, as the "social fabric" of life, form worldviews.  

The totality of dominant (hegemonic) discourses and practices is formed into the concept of "regime", which defines "order", "system", "discursive formation", "institutions", i.e. formations of the structural level ^{[6, p. 105]}. In the chapter "Ontology", Glinos and Howarth propose a scheme of regimes and practices. The concepts of "social" and "political" practices were introduced by Mouff and Laclos ^[18] and correspond to states of stability and change: "social" practices support existing regimes, while "political" contribute to their changes. The general configuration of conditions creates conditions for the possibility or impossibility of changes.  

Note another key concept of the new paradigm, to which Glinos and Howarth assign a separate chapter.  Articulation is a way of constructing a chain of "signifiers", a way of approving one of the possible "projects", ideas about social reality, which forms a picture of the world and identity. Also, as in the case of the word "project", the concept of "articulation" is becoming increasingly widespread in a wide public and scientific discourse, where it removes the question of multiple definitions, allowing not to give phenomena the status of stable entities, but to articulate specific connections and manifestations.  The new language is accepted as more adequate to describe the modern world.

Poststructuralism in general and the "discursive paradigm" in particular offer solutions to many problems that the social sciences have faced. This concerns, for example, the possibility of creating models and tools for analyzing changes, the lack of which is stated by many social scientists. Both the states of stability and the processes of transformation can be analyzed at various levels, both at the levels of structures and everyday practices, and at the "global level" of understanding these processes in social philosophy ^{[6, p. 103]}. Consideration of the "movement" of historical and philosophical thought, from the point of view of the discursive paradigm, allows us to describe it as a process of changing discursive formations, and hence the social and "political" regimes of science and philosophy itself, including specific practices of knowledge production. To talk about changing research practices would probably be an exaggeration. But it is obviously possible to talk about changing the practices of representation, proof and assertion. Glinos and Howarth discuss this topic in detail in the chapter "Retroduction".

The work of Glinos and Howarth is a socio–philosophical text, in their arguments the authors rely on the history and philosophy of science, conduct a dialogue with those who have made a significant contribution to its understanding (we will mention only Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charles Sanders Pierce, Karl Popper, Hans Reichenbach), each of them finding criticism of the transfer of the model of natural sciences (and its postulates) on social sciences.

From the point of view of the "discursive paradigm", social reality is an endless change in the hegemony of various "discursive realities". Philosophy and scientific cognition are also discursive realities.  Positivism, which has become an "ideal model" of cognition in the natural sciences and contributes to many achievements, has, for historical reasons, taken a hegemonic position in the social sciences as well. The task of modern social science, from the point of view of poststructuralists (understood by them as a "political" task) is to break this hegemony, to challenge the "universalizing causal laws of positivism that inappropriately colonized the world" ^{[6, p. 5]}.

Instead of a positivist approach to social research, which includes the development of a hypothesis, its verification on empirical material and the subsequent creation of an explanatory model, a postpositivist model of social sciences is proposed. Its key elements are: problem-driven approach, or problematization in Foucault's terms; priority of abduction (retroduction) as a way of reasoning not only at the stage of hypotheses, but also at the stage of their justification; the inclusion of "contextualized self-interpretations" as a necessary element of social analysis, provided that the "objective dimension" is preserved.

The problem-oriented approach allows "to build theoretical and empirical research objects based on the pressing practical concerns of our time" ^{[6, p. 11]}, to avoid the "traps" of both theory-driven and methodologically-driven approaches, so common in social and political research and contributing a lot to the separation social scientists from reality, the emergence of a gap between theory and practice. Moreover, relying on the problem as a starting point for research also removes the very common discussions in the social sciences about the possibility of "methodological synergy" (see, for example, ^{[19, pp. 273-306]}).  Provided the ontological positions are clarified, synergy becomes not only possible, but also desirable, even necessary.  If different "schools" of discursive research explicitly or implicitly share a specific ontology, which we call the "discursive paradigm", then the application of various models and methods becomes just a matter of practical choice, just as it happens in applied research focused on obtaining information for decision-making.

A separate chapter is devoted to the assertion of the priority of abduction, in which the authors, referring to Aristotle, Peirce, Popper, theorists of the history and philosophy of science, build a sufficiently convincing argument, the main message of which is the impossibility of a rigid separation in the social sciences of the "context of discovery" and the "context of validation", on the basis of which an "ideal model" of cognition in natural sciences.

The method of "validation" proposed by Glinos and Howard is likely to cause rejection among many "theorists" of the social sciences, but perhaps it is the only way to make social knowledge adequate to public needs, "working" in practice. As a substitute for an experiment in the natural sciences, they suggest comparing the proposed models with real practices, discussing them with members of professional and non-professional communities. And in this sense they act as consistent Marxists.  

Two chapters of the book are devoted to the analysis of alternative positivist models: hermeneutics (three "hermeneutic" approaches are analyzed) and an approach that replaces the paradigm of cause-and-effect relationships with an appeal to the study of cause-and-effect mechanisms (the work of Jon Elster and his followers). The authors of the reviewed book refuse to consider these approaches as a real alternative to positivism. In the first case, due to the exclusion of the "objective" measurement, in the second – due to the fact that the proposed theoretical models ultimately still rely on the positivist paradigm ^{[6, pp. 81-102]}. The result of the analysis of Glinos and Howarth are two conclusions. The first is the inability to completely ignore the self-interpretation of actors involved in the practice under study, which happens when following the positivist paradigm. The hermeneutical minimum is necessary, – the authors of the "Logic of Critical Explanation ..." admit. The second conclusion can be described as the opposite: when explaining social and political phenomena, one cannot rely only on what people say, on their self-understanding, even if these views should be taken into account. "Thus, an adequate legitimate approach to socio-political analysis should take into account self–interpretation, but is not reduced to it," Glinos and Howarth summarize ^{[6, p. 13]}. Then the key question becomes: where is the border, what is considered to be inside, and what is beyond self-interpretations? Finding the answer to it is a significant task for social and political philosophy.  Nevertheless, the discursive paradigm offers an explanatory model that, on the one hand, includes "contextualized self-interpretations of subjects as an integral element of any full-fledged explanation in the social sciences," while avoiding "excessively descriptive or particular solutions." On the other hand, it has "an objective dimension, but at the same time avoids the limitations of positivist approaches based on the causal paradigm" ^{[6, p. 81]}.

It is extremely important in the work of Glinos and Howarth to develop a connection between ontology and ontics (as non-philosophical thinking). Discursive ontology allows for multi-level analysis using different "optics". Accordingly, there is a need for terms, designations, a new "dictionary" for descriptions. Glinos and Howarth use the word "dimension", offering an ontic model in which the "social", "political", "ideological" and "ethical" dimensions of social reality are distinguished ^{[6, p. 104]}. Naturally, the term "measurements" is used not only by them. For example, one of the key representatives of the school of critical discourse analysis, Tien Van Dijk, writes about different "dimensions", this concept is used not only by those who are engaged in discourse analysis. In this case, it is important that conceptually formulated ideas that arise from different scientists, in different (not only social) disciplines, acquire a theoretical basis. A new scientific language is being formed, and adherents of the "discursive paradigm" are making a significant contribution to it.

The models proposed by the authors of the reviewed monograph: a) have a well-built connection with the ontological basis; b) are analytically valuable because they have a problematic and practical orientation, and are not the result of constructions whose starting point is theory or method; c) are articulated as a "model", that is, a tool for socio-political analysis.  The poststructuralist concept of "dimensions" can also be interpreted as an angle. The "social", "political", "ideological" and "ethical" angles are projections of a complex and multidimensional reality, each of which is studied as an ontic one ^{[6, p. 15]}.

Logics in the social sciences

Pluralism of logics is an inevitable consequence of the proposed ontology. "A lot of logic is necessary to explain complex and historically conditioned complexes of social circumstances," the authors of the book emphasize ^{[6, p. 12]}. "The concept of logic defended in this text is bound to have a lasting impact on the work of social and political scientists," Ernesto Laclo noted in the preface to the work of Glinos and Howarth. "The initial intuition determines the requirements for detailed reasoning and its logic," writes Andrey Smirnov ^{[20, p. 81]}. "The connection with scarcity is so essential for the construction of any logic that the entire history of logic can be imagined as a series of successful attempts to mask this shortage," Lacan explained ^{[15, p. 163]}. This idea is constantly heard in Lacanian seminars in different formulations and in different contexts. The "signifiers" forming chains of meanings can be arranged in various ways, the same can be said about scientific reasoning about the logic of analysis.  

"Formal" logic" is thus only a tool, but not a way to prove or describe social reality. This is clearly visible on the example of mass digitalization, whose algorithms constantly face the "imperfection" of real life, although they aggressively try to subdue it. "Our concept of logic has to do with goals, ontological prerequisites and rules that make a practice or a regime of practices possible. The logic of practice includes not only its description and characterization, but also the conditions that make this practice function," write Glinos and Howarth ^{[6, p. 15]}.

In constructing their concept of the multiplicity of logics, the authors under study, following Mouff and Laclos, rely on the ideas of Saussure and Lacan, deploying what Wittgenstein calls "language games" ^[21]. You can read more about this in the corresponding chapter "Logic of critical explanation ...". In his Course of General Linguistics, Saussure identifies two types of fundamental relations in the system(s) of language – associative and syntagmatic. On this basis, Mouff and Laclos proposed to analyze the mechanisms that organize discourse – the discursive logics of "differentiation" (differences) and "equivalence" ^{[18, p. 130]}. Not being able to analyze in detail the "analytically complex" model (the authors of the book do this), we note that "logics" act as ways of connecting values, and these ways depend on the question posed.  "Roughly speaking, we can say that three types of logic correspond to three types of questions that we can ask about a problematized phenomenon, and each of which is important for a critical explanation: what, how and why" ^{[6, p. 108]}. The three mentioned types of logic are "social", "political" and logic, which Ernesto Laclo called (fantasmatic) ^{[22, pp. 54-68]} and which, in our opinion, can best be translated as the logic of "imagination". The "logic of the social" allows us to identify existing practices, analyze how social order is reproduced through them and the existing discourse, thus "grasping" the mechanisms of stability. "Logic of the political" is about the mechanisms of change, as well as about the mechanisms of resistance to change: it shows "how practitioners compete with each other and defend themselves." "The logic of imagination" "makes it possible to understand the reasons for the transformation and reproduction of practices," while knowledge about human nature, mental and cognitive mechanisms is used for its analysis ^{[6, p. 108]}. The highlighted aspects are interrelated in the same way as the questions "what, how and why". At the ontic level, these are different planes (dimensions) ^{[6, p. 15]}. But we are not talking only about dimensions, logics in this case act as reflections of different ontological pictures corresponding to different states of reality, and the task of social research is to establish the relationships behind these states ^{[23, p. 130]}.

 The "non-obvious" idea is now finding more and more supporters, including among those who study physical reality. Both quantum physics and many other, less well-known, but revolutionary scientific discoveries in the natural sciences have contributed to attention to states of instability (randomness) that require different approaches (recognition of a different "picture of the world") and do not obey the logic of positivism, which, according to the reflections of the Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry for his work in the field of nonequilibrium thermodynamics Ilya Prigozhin, can be described as the logic of "control".  The desire to study those phenomena and problems (no matter the physical or immaterial world) that belong to the sphere of stability (and, therefore, predictability), as the psychoanalyst Lacan emphasized, is a property of the human psyche. But perhaps overcoming natural aspirations is the mechanism that drives the development of mankind, including in science. "Instability, unpredictability and, ultimately, time as an essential variable have now begun to play an important role in overcoming the disunity that has always existed between social research and the natural sciences" ^{[24, p. 47]}. From this point of view, the very fact of offering logics for the analysis of "instability", contrasting them with the existing "logics" of socio-political analysis ^{[6, p. 106]} is a great value of the "discursive paradigm" and its followers Glinos and Howarth.

Conclusion

Interest in poststructuralist discourse theory is growing in Russia, works are appearing, although there are few of them yet (see, for example, ^[25]). The concept claiming the status of a "new paradigm" and a "new ontology" evokes lively responses in various regions of the world: both in the "West" and in the "East". The philosophical, research and practical significance of the "discursive paradigm" is all the more high because it provides answers to many "insoluble" from the point of view of classical socio-political theory and extremely relevant issues for society, offering a different view, for example, on the classic dilemma between the right of peoples to self-determination and the inviolability of state borders. A constructive "political" approach is the concept of "agonism" formulated by Chantal Mouff: "ontological" acceptance of differences requires not finding ways to prove someone's rightness, but finding a way to co–exist in conditions when "everyone has their own truth" ^[26]. And if such a vector of development of both social and political thought finds more and more supporters, if "rationality", which has already proved its inconsistency in understanding the social, is "reworked" taking into account new (and unified) knowledge about man, with which sciences, including natural sciences, have been enriched since the modern era time, perhaps, the world will become more humane and safer.  

The value of the approach is not limited to the "political angle". With the development of information technologies, artificial intelligence, "digital reality", philosophical issues are becoming more and more relevant for natural and exact sciences. Now there is more and more talk about an "ontological turn" both in computer science and in applied knowledge – engineering, management. The solution of complex tasks for the construction, management and control of large-scale systems and processes requires the identification and unification of various "ontologies", the development of models for their unification.

The book by Jason Glinos and David Howarth became a solid contribution to the development of the "discursive paradigm". "Paradigm" in this case seems to be the most accurate name – it is a way of thinking that allows us to look at the "social" in a different way, not only at society, its history, politics, culture, and even the economy, but also at our knowledge about this society. In some cases, new dimensions and perspective are "included", in others, a revision, sometimes cardinal, of the attitudes "generally accepted" not only at the level of everyday consciousness, but also in politics, in science is proposed. After all, these attitudes are part of the currently dominant discursive formation. Currently, at the global level, it is a discursive formation of Western rationality.

For the discursive paradigm, the concept of "political" is comprehensive, as is the concept of "ideological", since ideas and practices are always interrelated and influence each other. "Ideology" is not only an integral element of everyday life, but also an integral element of knowledge itself, and hence science as an institution. Poststructuralist discourse theory conceptualizes this at the level of theoretical constructions. The recognition of our "a priori dependence" on the values that we share also changes the view of a scientific statement. Then reflection becomes an obligatory scientific procedure not only about ontological, but also about ideological attitudes (see, for example, ^[1]). The problem is the blind borrowing and use of the increasingly popular "tools" of discourse analysis - theoretical models, research methodology outside of their critical comprehension for compliance with the Russian logic of meaning. The study of poststructuralist discourse theory, in particular the work of Glinos and Howarth, helps to avoid this. 

Fundamental, in our opinion, is the justification that the logic of reasoning in the social sciences is not limited to a set of formal logics, but has a culturally and historically determined component. The discursive paradigm offers tools for analyzing the "relationship of logics", for example, when the procedural and substantive logic of meaning collide, the fundamental difference of which is analyzed in detail by A.V. Smirnov ^[20]. Another important conclusion for us is the requirement to analyze any scientific text in its "own logic", which does not always happen.

Based on the ontological attitudes of the discursive paradigm, Glinos and Howarth propose a postpositivist model of social sciences based on abduction, a problem-oriented approach (problematization), the need to take into account both the "hermeneutic" and "materialistic" components, both the objective and subjective sides of the social. The models they offer for socio-political analysis allow this to be done and appear to be analytically valuable. Of course, alternatives can be offered to them, but one of the key consequences of the discursive paradigm is the installation not on the competition of ontic models and approaches, but on their unification – it is important what this or that model (approach) brings to social knowledge, and not what it contradicts to another model (approach).

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