From Progress to Contingencies

On Changing Theories of Social and Cultural Evolution

Abstract

In the last third of the 20th century, the researches of sociology, cultural anthropology, and other social sciences abandoned the theory of historical progress. As a result of this, the progressivity that embraced the concept of the socio cultural evolution has changed radically. As a consequence, the concept of the social modernization and the historical view of the social sciences have faded. As a matter of fact, the character of this change is even more complicated, because scientificaly researches, technical developments and economical growth can still be characterized by the concept of progress.