Chapter 5 Periodization as a Disguised Conceptualization of Historical Development: a Case Study of a Theory of the Historical Process Developed in the Poznań School of Methodology
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Abstract
The aim of this article is to outline the theory of the historical process developed within the framework of the Poznań School of Methodology, mainly by Leszek Nowak and a team of his co-workers. The main interpretative key used in this reconstruction is the vision of the periodization of the historical process accepted in the adaptive reconstruction of historical materialism and in non-Marxian historical materialism. In the adaptive interpretation of historical materialism, the basic mechanism of historical development was the adjustment of property relations to the growth of productive forces, which decided the way of the periodization of the historical process. In non-Marxian historical materialism, the main mechanism of the motion of society was the class struggle between the classes which emerged in the political and economic spheres of social life and the supra-class competition between rulers and owners which led to a new periodization of the historical process: into economic and political epochs.