Ideas of Ulrich Beck in the Сontext of Modern Methodological Searches in World Sociology

The article reconstructed the system and method of the German sociologist Ulrich Beck. The importance of this work in the methodological situation in modern sociology is shown. This situation is due to changes in the social world and the fourth scientific revolution, which takes place in science in general. A significant part of the concepts included in the conceptual networks of various paradigms of modern sociology were formed during the second scientific revolution. In addition, sociologists, who investigate the Modernity, face the impact of unscientific circumstances, such as global threats, pressure of the ruling classes, and others. Ulrich Beck influenced world sociology with concepts of risk society, Second Modernity, cosmopolitanism. His critique of methodological nationalism is important. His call for overcoming “zombie concepts” remains valid. At the same time, the German sociologist, calling for a new utopia, saw the path to a cosmopolitan federation of states with divided sovereignty in establishing cooperation between capital, states, and civil society. He could not offer any real mechanisms for this cooperation. For progressive shifts in the problems of modernity, the synthesis of the ideas of the Second Modern, the sociology of creative Marxism, the world-systems analysis and ecological sociology can be useful. By this time, these traditions are divided by barriers of incomprehension and competition for intellectual novelty. In the theory of the Second Modern, the disadvantage is also a strong contextual dependence on the current political situation. U. Beck created his texts as comments to current processes. For ideological synthesis, it is necessary not only to recreate the course of thoughts of sociologists, but to present their ideas in the form of coherent concepts in the context of the requirements of a new methodological situation. The Second Modern and its characteristics such as Globalization can be considered as a stage in the development of the world capitalist system. The idea of a Risk Society can resonate with the development of Environmental Sociology. Criticism of neoliberalism in the sociology of creative Marxism can provide greater objectivity to the idea of cosmopolitanism. But for this, it is necessary to reconstruct the conceptual series of these research directions, their methodological guidelines in connection with the philosophical foundations of their metasociological knowledge.