Genesis and evolution of the concept of societal in the social and human sciences. Part I. Historical-theoretical reconstruction

The article presents a historical and theoretical reconstruction of the genesis and evolution of the concept of “societal” within the social and human sciences — from its early naturalistic and empirical origins to its contemporary systemic and socio-psychological interpretations. It outlines the prerequisites for the emergence of the term in late 19th–early 20th century American sociology (W.G. Sumner, A.G. Keller) and demonstrates its subsequent systematization and development within structural functionalism (T. Parsons). The study traces the critical transformations of the concept in the second half of the 20th century — from conflict theory approach (R. Dahrendorf, C. Mills) and post-structuralist (P. Bourdieu, M. Foucault) approaches to systemic-communicative ones (N. Luhmann, J. Habermas, M. Castells). Further theoretical elaboration of the societal concept is analyzed in the context of macrosociological research, highlighting its interpretive potential for explaining the structural integrity of society (P. Nolan, G. Lenski) and its capacity for revising Parsons’s model to conceptualize the societal community as a dynamic network of conflicting loyalties and normative orders (G. Sciortino). Particular attention is given to S. Moscovici’s integrative psychosocial approach, which reveals the deep, psychologically determined dimension of the societal — understood as a psychosocial process in which the conscious and the unconscious, the individual and the collective, the rational and the affective continuously interact. The article argues that the evolution of the idea of societality reflects a profound epistemological shift in the development of social and humanistic knowledge — from classical systemic models to contemporary integrative approaches that combine multiple levels of social reality. This transformation makes the concept of societality a key analytical instrument for studying the mechanisms of integration, solidarity, and transformation in modern societies — in all their cultural, systemic, and psychological complexity and interdependence.