The article presents a retrospective meta-refl exive analysis of the views of thinkers on social confl icts and approaches to their resolution: from the classics of antiquity to the present day through the prism of assessing social confl icts as a subject of mediation - an approach to preventing and resolving confl icts with the participation of an independent neutral mediator (mediation). The goal of the study is to search for theoretical and methodological foundations of mediation in the plane of the sociological approach.
