The Concept of «Risk» in Sociological Perspective: Etymology, Features of the Definition and Contemporary Approaches in Research

Abstract

The article analyzes the features of the content and origins of the concept of "risk" through the optics of different sociological approaches. On the basis of dualism objectivist and socio-constructivist approaches to the definition of risk, the author focuses on the duality of activity risks and the  environmental risks. The paper refuted several "myths" about the risk - the myth of the "tightness" and the myth of the "catastrophic" risk. The risk is considered as a characteristic attribute of human activity that contributes to the "disclosure" of subjectivity in the decision-making agent. According to the author, the prospect of awareness and understanding of risk has the potential partial risk management. The research focuses on the study of the etymology of the concept of "risk" as a result it was concluded that there is no "time" and "space" the containment of risk and the prevalence of the use of the term for nomination of identical phenomena in different cultures. The analysis of the substantive content of the notion of "risk" in the sociology of social and humanitarian disciplines. The author offers the research emphases, which help to understand the specifics of such a social phenomenon as the risk, in the logic of the development of sociological thought and scientific doctrines in general. Particular attention is focused on the analysis of synthetic sociological approaches to the study of the risks, which the author considers most heuristic for the study of this phenomenon.