Alexandrov D. The Concept of Interest as an object of proto-sociological and sociological theory

The dissertation is devoted to analyses the epistemological loading and specific of elaboration of concept of interest in social theory. The author made an attempt to define heuristic, methodological and logic functions of concept of interest in sociology. The use of historical method, system method and conceptual analysis enabled to trace the evolution of scientific outlook of interest as a phenomenon in proto-sociological and sociological context. The historical approach defined the strategic of scientific research. The use of system approach provided the association of concepts, by which interests were interpreted in different sociological theories. By means of conceptual analysis it was set the semantics of the social concept, methodological conditionality of its values.