What does the word culture mean in short? What is culture? The essence of culture

The word “culture” is on the list of the most used in modern language. But this fact does not indicate that this concept has been studied, but rather the polysemy of meanings hidden behind it, used both in everyday life and in scientific definitions.

Most of all, we are accustomed to talking about spiritual and material culture. At the same time, it becomes clear to everyone that we are talking about theater, religion, music, gardening, agriculture and much more. However, the concept of culture is not at all limited to these areas. The versatility of this word will be discussed in this article.

Definition of the term

The concept of culture includes a certain historical level in the development of society, as well as human abilities and powers, which are expressed in the forms and types of organization of life. By this term we also understand spiritual and material values ​​created by people.

The world of culture, any of its phenomena and objects are not the result of natural forces. This is the result of the efforts made by a person. That is why culture and society must be considered inextricably linked. Only this will allow us to understand the essence of this phenomenon.

Main components

All types of culture that exist in society include three main components. Namely:

1. Concepts. These elements are usually contained in language, helping a person to order and organize his own experience. Each of us perceives the world through the taste, color and shape of objects. However, it is known that in different cultures reality is organized differently. And in this regard, language and culture become inseparable concepts. A person learns the words that he needs to navigate the world around him through the assimilation, accumulation and organization of his experience. How closely language and culture are connected can be judged by the fact that some peoples believe that “who” is only a person, and “what” is not only inanimate objects of the surrounding world, but also animals. And this is something worth thinking about. After all, people who evaluate dogs and cats as a thing will not be able to treat them in the same way as those who see animals as their smaller brothers.
2. Relationship. The formation of culture occurs not only through the description of those concepts that indicate to a person what the world consists of. This process also involves certain ideas about how all objects are interconnected in time, in space, according to their purpose. Thus, the culture of the people of a particular country is distinguished by its own views on the concepts of not only the real, but also the supernatural world.
3. Values. This element is also inherent in culture and represents the beliefs existing in society regarding the goals that a person should strive for. Different cultures have different values. And it depends on the social structure. Society itself makes the choice of what is considered valuable for it and what is not.

Material culture

Modern culture is a rather complex phenomenon, which, for the sake of completeness, is considered in two aspects - static and dynamic. Only in this case is a synchronous approach achieved, allowing for the most accurate study of this concept.

Statics gives the structure of culture, dividing it into material, spiritual, artistic and physical. Let's look at each of these categories in more detail.

And let's start with material culture. This definition refers to the environment that surrounds a person. Every day thanks to the hard work of each of us material culture is being improved and updated. All this leads to the emergence of a new standard of living, changing the demands of society.

The peculiarities of culture of a material nature lie in the fact that its objects are means and tools of labor, life and housing, that is, everything that is the result production activities person. At the same time, several of the most important areas are highlighted. The first of these is agriculture. This area includes animal breeds and plant varieties developed as a result of breeding work. This also includes soil cultivation. Human survival directly depends on these links of material culture, since from them he receives not only food, but also raw materials used in industrial production.

The structure of material culture also includes buildings. These are places intended for people to live in which they realize various shapes life and various human activities. The field of material culture also includes structures designed to improve living conditions.

To provide all the variety of types of mental and physical labor, a person uses various tools. They are also one of the elements of material culture. With the help of tools, people directly influence processed materials in all sectors of their activity - communications, transport, industry, agriculture etc.

Part of the material culture is transport and all available means of communication. These include:

• bridges, roads, airport runways, embankments;
• all transport – pipeline, water, air, railway, road and horse-drawn vehicles;
• railway stations, ports, airports, harbors, etc., built to support the operation of the vehicle.

With the participation of this area of ​​material culture, the exchange of goods and people between settlements and regions. This, in turn, contributes to the development of society.

Another area of ​​material culture is communication. It includes post and telegraph, radio and telephone, computer networks. Communication, like transport, connects people with each other, giving them the opportunity to exchange information.

Another essential component of material culture is skills and knowledge. They represent technologies that find application in each of the above areas.

Spiritual culture

This area is based on a creative and rational type of activity. Spiritual culture, unlike material culture, finds its expression in subjective form. At the same time, it satisfies the secondary needs of people. The elements of spiritual culture are morality, spiritual communication, art (artistic creativity). Religion is one of its important components.

Spiritual culture is nothing more than the ideal side of human material labor. After all, any thing created by people was originally designed and subsequently embodied certain knowledge. And being called upon to satisfy certain human needs, any product becomes valuable to us. Thus, the material and spiritual forms of culture become inseparable from each other. This is especially evident in the example of any of the works of art.

Due to the fact that the material and spiritual types of culture have such subtle differences, there are criteria for accurately assigning a particular result of activity to a particular area. For this purpose, the assessment of objects according to their intended purpose is used. A thing or phenomenon designed to satisfy the secondary needs of people is classified as spiritual culture. And vice versa. If objects are necessary to satisfy the primary or biological needs of a person, then they are classified as material culture.

The spiritual sphere has a complex composition. It includes the following types of culture:

Moral, which includes ethics, morality and ethics;

Religious, which includes modern teachings and cults, ethnographic religiosity, traditional denominations and confessions;

Political, representing traditional political regimes, ideology and norms of interaction between political subjects;

Legal, which includes legislation, legal proceedings, law-abiding and the executive system;

Pedagogical, considered as the practice and ideals of upbringing and education;

Intellectual in the form of science, history and philosophy.

It is worth keeping in mind that cultural institutions such as museums and libraries concert halls and courts, cinemas and educational institutions also belong to the spiritual world.

This area has one more gradation. It includes the following areas:

1. Projective activity. It offers drawings and ideal models of machines, structures, technical structures, as well as projects for social transformations and new forms political system. Everything that is created has the greatest cultural value. Today, projective activity is classified in accordance with the objects it creates into engineering, social and pedagogical.
2. The body of knowledge about society, nature, man and his inner world. Knowledge is the most important element of spiritual culture. Moreover, they are most fully represented in the scientific sphere.
3. Value-oriented activities. This is the third area of ​​spiritual culture, which is in direct connection with knowledge. It serves to evaluate objects and phenomena, filling the human world with meanings and meanings. This sphere is divided into the following types of culture: moral, artistic and religious.
4. Spiritual communication between people. It occurs in all forms determined by the objects of communication. The spiritual contact that exists between partners, during which information is exchanged, is the greatest cultural value. However, such communication occurs not only on a personal level. The results of the spiritual activity of society, constituting its cultural fund accumulated over many years, find their expression in books, speech and works of art.

Communication between people is extremely important for the development of culture and society. That is why it is worth considering in a little more detail.

Human communication

The concept of speech culture determines the level spiritual development person. In addition, she talks about the value of the spiritual wealth of society. Speech culture is an expression of respect and love for one’s native language, which is directly related to the traditions and history of the country. The main elements of this area are not only literacy, but also compliance with generally accepted norms of the literary word.

Speech culture includes the correct use of many other means of language. Among them: stylistics and phonetics, vocabulary, etc. Thus, truly cultural speech is not only correct, but also rich. And this depends on a person’s lexical knowledge. In order to improve your speech culture, it is important to constantly replenish your lexicon, as well as read works of various thematic and stylistic directions. Such work will allow you to change the direction of thoughts from which words are formed.

Modern speech culture is a very broad concept. It includes more than just a person's linguistic abilities. This area cannot be considered without the general culture of the individual, which has its own psychological and aesthetic perception of people and the world around them.

Communication for a person is one of the most important moments of his life. And to create a normal communication channel, each of us needs to constantly maintain the culture of our speech. IN in this case it will consist of politeness and attentiveness, as well as the ability to support the interlocutor and any conversation. A culture of speech will make communication free and easy. After all, she will allow you to express your opinion without offending or offending anyone. Well-chosen, beautiful words contain power stronger than physical strength. Speech culture and society are in close relationship with each other. Indeed, the level of the linguistic spiritual sphere reflects the way of life of the entire people.

Art culture

As mentioned above, in each of the specific objects of the surrounding world there are simultaneously two spheres - material and spiritual. This can also be said about artistic culture, which is based on the creative, irrational type of human activity and satisfies his secondary needs. What gave rise to this phenomenon? A person’s ability to be creative and have an emotional and sensory perception of the world around them.

Artistic culture is an integral element of the spiritual sphere. Its main essence is to reflect society and nature. For this purpose, artistic images are used.

This type of culture includes:

• art (group and individual);
• artistic values ​​and works;
• cultural institutions that ensure its dissemination, development and preservation (demonstration sites, creative organizations, educational institutions etc.);
• spiritual atmosphere, that is, society’s perception of art, government policy in this area, etc.

In a narrow sense, artistic culture is expressed by graphics and painting, literature and music, architecture and dance, circus, photography and theater. All these are objects of professional and everyday art. Within each of them, works of an artistic nature are created - performances and films, books and paintings, sculptures, etc.

Culture and art, which is its integral part, contribute to the transfer by people of their subjective vision of the world, and also help a person to assimilate the experience accumulated by society and the correct perception of collective attitudes and moral values.

Spiritual culture and art, in which all its functions are represented, are an important part of the life of society. Thus, in artistic creativity there is a transformative human activity. The transmission of information is reflected in culture in the form of human consumption of works of art. Value-oriented activity serves to evaluate creations. Art is also open to cognitive activity. The latter manifests itself in the form of a specific interest in works.

Artistic forms also include such forms of culture as mass, elite, and folk. This also includes the aesthetic side of legal, economic, political activity and much more.

World and national culture

The level of material and spiritual development of society has another gradation. It is identified by its carrier. In this regard, there are such main types of culture as world and national. The first of them is a synthesis of the best achievements of the peoples living on our planet.

World culture is diverse in space and time. It is practically inexhaustible in its directions, each of which amazes with its richness of forms. Today, this concept includes such types of cultures as bourgeois and socialist, developing countries, etc.

The pinnacle of world civilization is success in the field of science, the latest technologies developed, and achievements in art.

But national culture is the highest form of development of ethnic culture, which is appreciated by world civilization. This includes the totality of the spiritual and material values ​​of a particular people, as well as the methods of interaction they practice with the social environment and nature. Manifestations national culture can be clearly seen in the activities of society, its spiritual values, moral standards, lifestyle and language characteristics, as well as in the work of state and social institutions.

Types of crops according to the principle of distribution

There is another gradation of material and spiritual values. According to the principle of their distribution, they are distinguished: dominant culture, subculture and counterculture. The first of them includes a set of customs, beliefs, traditions and values ​​that guide the majority of members of society. But at the same time, any nation includes many groups of a national, demographic, professional, social and other nature. Each of them develops its own system of rules of behavior and values. Such small worlds are classified as subcultures. This form can be youth and urban, rural, professional, etc.

A subculture may differ from the dominant one in behavior, language, or outlook on life. But these two categories are never opposed to each other.

If any of the small cultural layers is in conflict with the values ​​that dominate society, then it is called counterculture.

Gradation of material and spiritual values ​​by level and origins

In addition to those listed above, there are such forms of culture as elite, folk and mass. This gradation characterizes the level of values ​​and their creator.

For example, elite culture (high) is the fruit of the activities of a privileged part of society or professional creators who worked on its orders. This is the so-called pure art, which in its perception is ahead of all artistic products existing in society.

Folk culture, in contrast to elite culture, is created by anonymous creators who have no professional training. That is why this type culture is sometimes called amateur or collective. In this case, the term folklore is also applicable.

Unlike the two previous types, mass culture is not the bearer of either the spirituality of the people or the delights of the aristocracy. Greatest development This trend began in the mid-20th century. It was during this period that the penetration of mass media into most countries began.

Mass culture is inextricably linked with the market. This is art for everyone. That is why it takes into account the needs and tastes of the entire society. The value of mass culture is incomparably lower than elitist and folk culture. She satisfies the immediate needs of members of society, quickly responding to every event in the life of the people and reflecting it in her works.

Physical Culture

This is a creative, rational type of human activity, expressed in bodily (subjective) form. Its main focus is improving health while simultaneously developing physical abilities. These activities include:

• culture physical development from general health exercises to professional sports;
• recreational culture that supports and restores health, which includes tourism and medicine.

Culture

Basically, culture means human activity in its most varied manifestations, including all forms and methods of human self-expression and self-knowledge, the accumulation of skills and abilities by man and society as a whole. Culture also appears as a manifestation of human subjectivity and objectivity (character, competencies, skills, abilities and knowledge).

Culture is a set of sustainable forms of human activity, without which it cannot be reproduced, and therefore cannot exist.

Culture is a set of codes that prescribe to a person certain behavior with his inherent experiences and thoughts, thereby exerting a managerial influence on him. Therefore, for every researcher the question about the starting point of research in this regard cannot but arise.

Different definitions of culture

The variety of philosophical and scientific definitions of culture existing in the world does not allow us to refer to this concept as the most obvious designation of an object and subject of culture and requires a clearer and narrower specification: Culture is understood as...

History of the term

Antiquity

IN Ancient Greece close to the term culture was paideia, which expressed the concept of “internal culture,” or, in other words, “culture of the soul.”

In Latin sources, the word first appears in the treatise on agriculture by Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) De Agri Cultura(c. 160 BC) - himself early monument Latin prose.

This treatise is devoted not just to cultivating the land, but to caring for the field, which presupposes not only cultivation, but also a special emotional attitude towards it. For example, Cato gives the following advice on acquiring land plot: you need not to be lazy and walk around the plot of land you are buying several times; If the site is good, the more often you inspect it, the more you will like it. This is the “like” you should definitely have. If it is not there, then there will be no good care, i.e. there will be no culture.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

IN Latin the word has several meanings:

The Romans used the word culture with some object in the genitive case, that is, only in phrases meaning improvement, improvement of what was combined with: “culture juries” - development of rules of behavior, “culture lingual” - improvement of language, etc.

In Europe in the 17th-18th centuries

Johann Gottfried Herder

In the meaning of an independent concept culture appeared in the works of the German lawyer and historian Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694). He used this term in relation to “artificial man”, brought up in society, as opposed to “natural” man, uneducated.

In philosophical, and then scientific and everyday use, the first word culture launched by the German educator I. K. Adelung, who published the book “An Experience in the History of the Culture of the Human Race” in 1782.

We can call this human genesis in the second sense whatever we want, we can call it culture, that is, cultivation of the soil, or we can remember the image of light and call it enlightenment, then the chain of culture and light will stretch to the very ends of the earth.

In Russia in the 18th-19th centuries

In the 18th century and in the first quarter of the 19th, the lexeme “culture” was absent from the Russian language, as evidenced, for example, by N. M. Yanovsky’s “New Interpreter, Arranged Alphabetically” (St. Petersburg, 1804. Part II. From K to N.S. 454). Bilingual dictionaries offered possible translations of the word into Russian. The two German words proposed by Herder as synonyms to denote a new concept had only one correspondence in the Russian language - enlightenment.

Word culture entered Russian only in the mid-30s of the 19th century. Availability of this word in the Russian lexicon was recorded by I. Renofantz, published in 1837, “A Pocket Book for an Enthusiast of Reading Russian Books, Newspapers and Magazines.” The said dictionary distinguished two meanings of the lexeme: firstly, “plowing, farming”; secondly, “education”.

A year before the publication of the Renofantz dictionary, from the definitions of which it is clear that the word culture has not yet entered the consciousness of society as scientific term, as a philosophical category, a work appeared in Russia, the author of which not only addressed the concept culture, but also gave it a detailed definition and theoretical justification. We are talking about the essay by academician and emeritus professor of the Imperial St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy Danila Mikhailovich Vellansky (1774-1847) “Basic outlines of general and particular physiology or physics organic world" It is from this natural philosophical work of a medical scientist and Schellingian philosopher that one should begin not only with the introduction of the term “culture” into scientific use, but also with the formation of cultural and philosophical ideas in Russia.

Nature, cultivated by the human spirit, is Culture, corresponding to Nature in the same way that a concept corresponds to a thing. The subject of Culture consists of ideal things, and the subject of Nature consists of real concepts. Actions in Culture are carried out with conscience, works in Nature occur without conscience. Therefore, Culture has an ideal quality, Nature has a real quality. - Both, in their content, are parallel; and the three kingdoms of Nature: fossil, vegetable and animal, correspond to the regions of Culture, containing the subjects of the Arts, Sciences and Moral Education.

Material objects of Nature correspond ideal concepts Cultures, which, according to the content of their knowledge, are physical qualities and mental properties. Objective concepts relate to the study of physical objects, while subjective concepts relate to the occurrences of the human spirit and its aesthetic works.

In Russia in the 19th-20th centuries

Berdyaev, Nikolai Alexandrovich

The contrast and juxtaposition of nature and culture in Vellansky’s work is not the classical opposition of nature and “second nature” (man-made), but a correlation real world and him ideal image. Culture is a spiritual principle, a reflection of the World Spirit, which can have both a physical embodiment and an ideal embodiment - in abstract concepts (objective and subjective, judging by the subject to which knowledge is directed).

Culture is connected with a cult, it develops from a religious cult, it is the result of the differentiation of a cult, the unfolding of its content in different directions. Philosophical thought, scientific knowledge, architecture, painting, sculpture, music, poetry, morality - everything is organically contained in the church cult, in a form that has not yet been developed and differentiated. The most ancient of Cultures - the Culture of Egypt began in the temple, and its first creators were the priests. Culture is associated with the cult of ancestors, with legend and tradition. It is full of sacred symbolism, it contains signs and similarities of another, spiritual reality. Every Culture (even material Culture) is a Culture of the spirit, every Culture has a spiritual basis - it is a product of the creative work of the spirit on natural elements.

Roerich, Nikolai Konstantinovich

Expanded and deepened the interpretation of the word culture, his contemporary, Russian artist, philosopher, publicist, archaeologist, traveler and public figure - Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich (1874-1947), who devoted most of his life to the development, dissemination and protection of culture. He more than once called Culture “worship of Light”, and in the article “Synthesis” he even split the lexeme into parts: “Cult” and “Ur”:

The cult will always remain the veneration of the Good Beginning, and the word Ur reminds us of an old eastern root meaning Light, Fire.

In the same article he writes:

...Now I would like to clarify the definition of two concepts that we encounter every day in our everyday life. It is significant to repeat the concept of Culture and Civilization. Surprisingly, one has to notice that these concepts, seemingly so refined by their roots, are already subject to reinterpretation and distortion. For example, many people still believe it is quite possible to replace the word Culture with civilization. At the same time, it is completely missed that the Latin root Cult itself has a very deep spiritual meaning, while civilization at its root has a civil, social structure of life. It would seem to be absolutely clear that each country goes through a degree of publicity, that is, civilization, which in a high synthesis creates the eternal, indestructible concept of Culture. As we see in many examples, civilization can perish, can be completely destroyed, but Culture in indestructible spiritual tablets creates a great heritage that feeds future young shoots.

Every manufacturer of standard products, every factory owner, of course, is already a civilized person, but no one will insist that every factory owner is already a cultured person. And it may very well turn out that the lowest worker in a factory can be the bearer of undoubted Culture, while its owner will be only within the boundaries of civilization. You can easily imagine a “House of Culture,” but it will sound very awkward: “House of Civilization.” The name “cultural worker” sounds quite definite, but “civilized worker” will mean something completely different. Every university professor will be quite satisfied with the title of cultural worker, but try telling the venerable professor that he is a civilized worker; For such a nickname, every scientist, every creator will feel internal awkwardness, if not resentment. We know the expressions “civilization of Greece”, “civilization of Egypt”, “civilization of France”, but they in no way exclude the following, highest in its inviolability, expression when we talk about great culture Egypt, Greece, Rome, France...

Periodization of cultural history

IN modern cultural studies The following periodization of the history of European culture has been adopted:

• Primitive culture (up to 4 thousand BC);
• The culture of the Ancient World (4 thousand BC - 5th century AD), in which the culture of the Ancient East and the culture of Antiquity are distinguished;
• Culture of the Middle Ages (V-XIV centuries);
• Culture of the Renaissance or Renaissance (XIV-XVI centuries);
• Culture of the New Time (16th-19th centuries);

The main feature of the periodization of cultural history is the identification of the culture of the Renaissance as an independent period of cultural development, while in historical science this era is considered to be the late Middle Ages or early modern times.

Culture and nature

It is not difficult to see that the removal of man from the principles of rational cooperation with the nature that generates him leads to the decline of the accumulated cultural heritage, and then to the decline of civilized life itself. An example of this is the decline of many developed states of the ancient world and the numerous manifestations of the cultural crisis in the life of modern megacities.

Modern understanding of culture

In practice, the concept of culture refers to all the best products and actions, including in the fields of art and classical music. From this point of view, the concept of “cultural” includes people who are in some way connected with these areas. At the same time, people involved in classical music are, by definition, at a higher level than rap fans from working-class neighborhoods or the aborigines of Australia.

However, within the framework of this worldview, there is a current - where less “cultured” people are seen, in many ways, as more “natural”, and suppression is attributed to “high” culture “ human nature" This point of view is found in the works of many authors since the 18th century. They emphasize, for example, that folk music (as created by ordinary people) more honestly expresses the natural way of life, while classical music looks superficial and decadent. Following this view, people outside of “Western civilization” are “noble savages”, uncorrupted by Western capitalism.

Today, most researchers reject both extremes. They do not accept either the concept of the “only correct” culture or its complete opposition to nature. In this case, it is recognized that the “non-elite” can have the same high culture as the “elite”, and “non-Western” residents can be just as cultured, it’s just that their culture is expressed in different ways. However, this concept makes a distinction between “high” culture as the culture of elites and “mass” culture, implying goods and works aimed at the needs of ordinary people. It should also be noted that in some works both types of culture, “high” and “low”, simply refer to different subcultures.

Artifacts, or works of material culture, are usually derived from the first two components.

Examples.

Thus, culture (assessed as experience and knowledge), when assimilated into the sphere of architecture, becomes an element of material culture - a building. A building, as an object of the material world, affects a person through his senses.

When assimilating the experience and knowledge of a people by one person (the study of mathematics, history, politics, etc.), we get a person who has a mathematical culture, political culture, etc.

Subculture concept

The subculture has the following explanation. Since the distribution of knowledge and experience in society is not uniform (people have different mental abilities), and experience that is relevant for one social stratum will not be relevant for another (the rich do not need to save on products, choosing what is cheaper), in this regard, culture will have fragmentation.

Changes in culture

Development, change and progress in culture are almost identically equal to dynamics; it acts as a more general concept. Dynamics is an ordered set of multidirectional processes and transformations in culture, taken within a certain period

• any changes in culture are causally determined by many factors
• dependence of the development of any culture on the measure of innovation (the ratio of stable elements of culture and the scope of experiments)

• Natural resources
• communication
• cultural diffusion (mutual penetration (borrowing) of cultural traits and complexes from one society to another when they come into contact (cultural contact)
• economic technologies
• social institutions and organizations
• value-semantic
• rational-cognitive

Cultural studies

Culture is a subject of study and reflection within a number of academic disciplines. Among the main ones are cultural studies, cultural studies, cultural anthropology, philosophy of culture, sociology of culture and others. In Russia, the main science of culture is considered to be culturology, while in Western, predominantly English-speaking countries, the term culturology is usually understood in a narrower sense as the study of culture as cultural system. A common interdisciplinary field of study of cultural processes in these countries is cultural studies. cultural studies) . Cultural anthropology studies the diversity of human culture and society, and one of its main tasks is to explain the reasons for the existence of this diversity. The sociology of culture is engaged in the study of culture and its phenomena using the methodological means of sociology and the establishment of dependencies between culture and society. Philosophy of culture is a specifically philosophical study of the essence, meaning and status of culture.

Notes

1. *Culturology. XX century Encyclopedia in two volumes / Chief Editor and compiled by S.Ya. Levit. - St. Petersburg. : University Book, 1998. - 640 p. - 10,000 copies, copies. - ISBN 5-7914-0022-5
2. Vyzhletsov G.P. Axiology of culture. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University. - P.66
3. Pelipenko A. A., Yakovenko I. G. Culture as a system. - M.: Languages ​​of Russian culture, 1998.
4. Etymology of the word “culture” - Cultural Studies mailing archive
5. "cultura" in translation dictionaries - Yandex. Dictionaries
6. Sugai L. A. The terms “culture”, “civilization” and “enlightenment” in Russia XIX- beginning of the 20th century // Proceedings of GASK. Issue II. World of Culture.-M.: GASK, 2000.-p.39-53
7. Gulyga A.V. Kant today // I. Kant. Treatises and letters. M.: Nauka, 1980. P. 26
8. Renofants I. A pocket book for those who like to read Russian books, newspapers and magazines. St. Petersburg, 1837. P. 139.
9. Chernykh P.Ya Historical and etymological dictionary of the modern Russian language. M., 1993. T. I. P. 453.
10. Vellansky D.M. Basic outlines of general and particular physiology or physics of the organic world. St. Petersburg, 1836. pp. 196-197.
11. Vellansky D.M. Basic outlines of general and specific physiology or physics of the organic world. St. Petersburg, 1836. P. 209.
12. Sugai L. A. The terms “culture”, “civilization” and “enlightenment” in Russia in the 19th - early 20th centuries // Proceedings of GASK. Issue II. World of Culture.-M.: GASK, 2000.-pp.39-53.
13. Berdyaev N. A. The meaning of history. M., 1990 °C. 166.
14. Roerich N.K. Culture and civilization M., 1994. P. 109.
15. Nicholas Roerich. Synthesis
16. White A Symbolism as a worldview C 18
17. White A Symbolism as a worldview C 308
18. Article “Pain of the Planet” from the collection “Fiery Stronghold” http://magister.msk.ru/library/roerich/roer252.htm
19. New philosophical encyclopedia. M., 2001.
20. White, Leslie "The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome." McGraw-Hill, New York (1959)
21. White, Leslie, (1975) "The Concept of Cultural Systems: A Key to Understanding Tribes and Nations", Columbia University, New York
22. Usmanova A. R. “Cultural research” // Postmodernism: Encyclopedia / Mn.: Interpressservice; Book House, 2001. - 1040 p. - (World of Encyclopedias)
23. Abushenko V.L. Sociology of culture // Sociology: Encyclopedia / Comp. A. A. Gritsanov, V. L. Abushenko, G. M. Evelkin, G. N. Sokolova, O. V. Tereshchenko. - Mn.: Book House, 2003. - 1312 p. - (World of Encyclopedias)
24. Davydov Yu. N. Philosophy of culture // Great Soviet Encyclopedia

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• Markaryan E. S. Theory of culture and modern science. - M.: Mysl, 1983.
• Flier A. Ya. History of culture as a change in dominant types of identity // Personality. Culture. Society. 2012. Volume 14. Issue. 1 (69-70). pp. 108-122.
• Flier A. Ya. Vector cultural evolution// Observatory of Culture. 2011. No. 5. P. 4-16.
• Shendrik A.I. Theory of culture. - M.: Publishing house of political literature "Unity", 2002. - 519 p.

see also

• World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

Links

• Vavilin E. A., Fofanov V. P.

Culture(lat. culture, from colo, colere - cultivation, later - upbringing, education, development, veneration) - a concept that has great amount meanings in various areas of human life. Culture is the subject of study of philosophy, cultural studies, history, linguistics (ethnolinguistics), political science, ethnology, psychology, economics, pedagogy, etc.

Basically, culture is understood as human activity in its most diverse manifestations, including all forms and methods of human self-expression and self-knowledge, the accumulation of skills and abilities by man and society as a whole. Culture also appears as a manifestation of human subjectivity and objectivity (character, competencies, skills, abilities and knowledge).

Culture represents a set of sustainable forms of human activity, without which it cannot be reproduced, and therefore cannot exist.

Culture- this is a set of codes that prescribe a person a certain behavior with his inherent experiences and thoughts, thereby exerting a managerial influence on him. Therefore, for every researcher the question about the starting point of research in this regard cannot but arise.

Different definitions of culture

The diversity of philosophical and scientific definitions culture does not allow us to refer to this concept as the most obvious designation of an object and subject of culture and requires a clearer and narrower specification: Culture is understood as...

Culture and civilization

The modern concept was mainly formed in the 18th - early XIX centuries in Western Europe. Subsequently, this concept, on the one hand, began to include differences between different groups people in Europe itself, and on the other hand, the differences between the metropolises and their colonies around the world. Hence the fact that in this case the concept of “culture” is the equivalent of “,” that is, the antipode of the concept of “nature”. Using this definition, one can easily classify individuals and even entire countries in terms of level of civilization. Some authors even define culture simply as “all the best things in the world that have been created and said” (Matthew Arnold), and everything that does not fall into this definition is chaos and anarchy. From this point of view, culture is closely related to social development and progress in society. Arnold consistently uses his definition: “...culture is the result of constant improvement arising from the processes of acquiring knowledge about everything that concerns us, it consists of all the best that has been said and thought” (Arnold, 1882).

In practice, the concept of culture refers to all the best products and actions, including in the field of classical music. From this point of view, the concept of “cultural” includes people who are in some way connected with these areas. At the same time, people involved in classical music are, by definition, at a higher level than rap fans from working-class neighborhoods or the aborigines of Australia.

However, within the framework of this worldview, there is a current - where less “cultured” people are seen, in many ways, as more “natural”, and the suppression of “human nature” is attributed to “high” culture. This point of view is found in the works of many authors since the 18th century. For example, they emphasize that folk music(as created by ordinary people) more honestly expresses the natural way of life, while classical music appears superficial and decadent. Following this view, people outside of “Western civilization” are “noble savages”, uncorrupted by Western capitalism.

Today, most researchers reject both extremes. They do not accept either the concept of the “only correct” culture or its complete opposition to nature. In this case, it is recognized that the “non-elite” can have the same high culture as the “elite”, and “non-Western” residents can be just as cultured, it’s just that their culture is expressed in different ways. However, this concept makes a distinction between “high” culture, as the culture of the elite, and “mass” culture, which refers to goods and works aimed at the needs of ordinary people. It should also be noted that in some works both types of culture, “high” and “low”, simply refer to different subcultures.

The German representative of the philosophy of life, Oswald Spengler, presented a view of culture as a multitude of independent organisms (different peoples), which go through their own evolutionary cycle, lasting several hundred years, and, dying, are reborn into their opposite - civilization. Civilization is opposed to culture as a successive stage of development, where the creative potential of the individual is not in demand and dead, inhuman technicalism is dominant.

Culture as a worldview

During the Romantic era, scholars in Germany, especially interested in national movements aimed at unifying the country from separate principalities, as well as movements of national minorities against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, formed the concept of culture as a “worldview.” In such a belief system, different and incomparable worldviews are the main differences ethnic groups. Although progressive compared to earlier views, this approach still maintained the distinction between "civilized" culture and "primitive" or "tribal" culture.

TO end of the 19th century Over the centuries, anthropologists have expanded the concept of culture to include a greater variety of societies. Based on evolutionary theory, they assumed that people should develop in the same way, and the very fact that people have culture follows from the very definition of the process human development. In doing so, however, they showed a reluctance to take biological evolution into account to illustrate the differences between certain cultures - an approach that later resulted in various forms of racism. They believed that biological evolution most fully reflected the very concept of culture, a concept that anthropologists could apply to societies without and with literacy, nomadic and sedentary peoples. They argued this by saying that in the course of his evolution man developed unified system obtaining and applying knowledge, as well as the ability to transmit it to other people in the form of abstract symbols. Once human individuals recognized and learned such symbolic systems, these systems began to evolve independently of biological evolution (in other words, one person can gain the knowledge of another person even if the two are not biologically related in any way). This ability to manipulate symbols and acquire social skills confuses the old arguments in the "human nature" versus "nurture" debate. Thus, Clifford Geertz and others argued that human physiology and thought developed as a result of early cultural activities, and Middleton concluded that human "instincts were shaped by culture."

Groups of people living separately from each other create different cultures, between which, however, partial exchange can occur. Culture is constantly changing, and people can study it, making this process the simplest form of adaptation to changing external conditions. Today, anthropologists view culture not simply as a product of biological evolution, but as its integral element, the main mechanism of human adaptation to the outside world.

According to these views, culture is conceived as a system of symbols with an adaptive function that can vary from one place to another, allowing anthropologists to study differences expressed in specific forms of myths and rituals, tools, forms of housing, and principles of village organization. Thus, anthropologists distinguish between “material culture” and “symbolic culture” not only because these concepts reflect different spheres of human activity, but also because they contain different inputs that require different approaches to analysis.

This view of culture, which became dominant between the two world wars, suggests that each culture has its own boundaries and should be considered as a whole using its own provisions. As a result of this, the concept of "cultural relativism" emerged, the view that one person can accept the actions of another person by using the concepts of his culture, and the elements of his culture (rites, etc.) by understanding the system of symbols of which they are part.

Thus, the view that culture contains symbolic codes and the way they are transmitted from one person to another means that culture, although limited, is constantly changing. Cultural changes can either be the result of the creation of new things or occur at the moment of contact with another culture. Remaining within a peaceful framework, contact between cultures leads to the borrowing (through study) of various elements, that is, the interpenetration of cultures. In conditions of confrontation or political inequality, people of one culture, of course, can seize the cultural values ​​of another community or impose their values ​​(“cultivation”).

During the existence of civilization, all communities took part in the processes of dissemination, interpenetration and imposition of their culture, so today few anthropologists consider each culture only within its own framework. Modern scientists believe that the element of culture cannot be considered only within its own framework; this can only be done in a broad context of relationships between different cultures.

In addition to these processes, the elements of culture are strongly influenced by human migration. The phenomenon of colonial expansion, as well as mass migration, including in the form of the slave trade, became a significant factor influencing different cultures. As a result, some communities have acquired significant heterogeneity. Some anthropologists argue that such groups unite common culture, the advantage of which is the ability to study heterogeneous elements as subcultures. Others argue that a single culture cannot exist, and heterogeneous elements form a multicultural community. The spread of the doctrine of multiculturalism coincided with a surge in self-identification movements that demand recognition of the cultural uniqueness of social subgroups.

Sociobiologists also argue that culture can be viewed in terms of the elementary elements through which cultural exchange occurs. Such elements, or "memes" as they were called by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene, published in 1976, are analogous to the concept of genes in biology. Although this view has gained some popularity, it is completely rejected by most academic scientists.

Generalized definition of culture

Culture is the positive experience and knowledge of a person or group of people, assimilated into one of the spheres of life (in man, in politics, in art, etc.).

Culture - artificial environment (V.P. Komarov, Faculty of Management Systems, Informatics, Electric Power Engineering, Moscow Aviation Institute). The word “culture” refers to absolutely everything created by man. Any object created by man is part of culture.

Positive experience and knowledge are experiences and knowledge that are beneficial for their bearer and, as a result, are used by them.

Assimilation refers to the process of transformation of an entity in which the entity becomes an active part of another sphere of life. Assimilation involves changing the form of an entity.

The active part of the sphere of life is the part that influences a person.

Academician V.S. Stepin defined culture as a system of historically developing supra-biological programs of human life, ensuring the reproduction and change of social life in all its main manifestations.

A systematic presentation of problems involves addressing various issues of cultural theory. The most important of them are the introduction and definition of the basic concepts and categories of cultural studies, among which the concept of “culture” occupies a central position. Due to the fact that the concept of “culture” is universal, it is used not only as a scientific term in all social sciences and humanities. It is used no less widely in everyday life, in art, and philosophy. Therefore, before talking about the definitions of culture, it is advisable to understand the many semantic shades of this concept, to consider possible options for its use not only in science, but also in other spheres of human existence and society.

More than 2 thousand years have passed since the Latin word “colere” was used to denote cultivation of the soil. But the memory of this is still preserved in numerous agricultural and biological terms “agriculture”, “potato culture”, “cultivated pastures”, “microbe culture”, etc.

The concept of “culture”, its meanings and definitions

Already in the 1st century. BC. Cicero applied the concept of “culture” to man, after which culture began to be understood as the upbringing and education of a person, an ideal citizen. At the same time, there are signs cultured person his voluntary self-restraint, submission to legal, religious, moral and other norms were considered. The concept of “culture” extended to society as a whole, which meant an order of things that opposed the natural state with its spontaneous actions. This is how the classical understanding of culture as the upbringing and education of a person was formed, and the term “culture” began to be used to designate the general process of intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic development man and society, separating the world created by man from the natural world.

The word "culture" is often used to mean culture different nations in certain historical eras, the specifics of the mode of existence or way of life of a society, group of people or a certain historical period, to characterize the way of life of individual social groups or areas of activity. Thus, on the pages of textbooks the phrases “culture” are very often used Ancient Egypt”, “Renaissance culture”, “Russian culture”, “youth culture”, “family culture”, “village culture”, “urban culture”, “work culture”, “leisure culture”, etc.

IN ordinary consciousness the concept of “culture” is mainly associated with works of literature and art, theaters, museums, archives - everything that is under the jurisdiction of the ministry of culture (or similar institution) in any country. Therefore, this term denotes forms and products of intellectual and artistic activity, the entire area of ​​spiritual culture.

In everyday life, the word “culture” expresses approval, is understood as the presence of an ideal or an ideal state with which we implicitly compare the facts or phenomena being evaluated. For example, they talk about high professional culture, the culture of performing something. People's behavior is assessed from the same positions. But when a person is assessed as cultured or uncultured, they mean well-educated or poorly educated people. Entire societies are sometimes assessed in the same way if they are based on law, order, and gentleness of morals as opposed to a state of barbarism.

This is what has led to the emergence of many definitions of culture, the number of which is constantly growing. Thus, in 1952, American cultural scientists A. Kroeber and K. Kluckhohn, systematizing the definitions of culture known to them, counted 164 definitions. In the 1970s the number of definitions reached 300 in the 1990s. exceeded 500. Currently there are about 1000 of them, which is not surprising, since everything created by man, the entire human world, is culture. It is possible to classify existing definitions by highlighting several important groups.

IN general view There are three approaches to defining culture - anthropological, sociological and philosophical (Table 5.1).

Table 5.1. Basic approaches to the study of culture

Philosophical approach gives the broadest panorama of the vision of culture, suggesting the study of the fundamental foundations of human existence, the depths of the self-awareness of the people. The task of this approach is not just to provide a description or enumeration of cultural phenomena, but to penetrate into their essence. As a rule, the essence of culture is seen in conscious human activity in the transformation of the surrounding world and the people themselves.

Within the framework of the philosophical approach today there are several positions that express various shades and semantic meanings of the concept “culture”. Firstly, it is emphasized that culture is “second nature”, an artificial world consciously and purposefully created by man, and the mediator between these two worlds is human activity, which is viewed extremely broadly as technology and the production of culture, as the production of not only the material environment , but also the entire social existence of man. Secondly, culture is interpreted as a way of development and self-development of a person as a tribal being, i.e. conscious, creative, amateur. Of course, these attempts deserve attention, but they emphasize only certain aspects, narrowing the concept of culture.

The essence anthropological approach - in recognizing the intrinsic value of the culture of each people, which underlies the way of life of both individuals and entire societies. In other words, culture is the way of human existence through numerous local cultures. This extremely broad approach equates culture and history of the entire society. The specificity of the anthropological approach lies in the focus of the study on the holistic knowledge of man in the context of a specific culture.

Within the framework of the anthropological approach, most definitions of culture have been proposed. We can propose a classification of these definitions, which is based on the analysis of the definitions of culture given by A. Kroeber and K. Kluckhohn. They divided all definitions of culture into six main types, and some of them, in turn, were divided into subgroups.

The first group is descriptive definitions that focus on the substantive content of culture. The founder of this type of definition is E. Tylor, who argued that culture is a set of knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, laws, customs and some other abilities and habits acquired by a person as a member of society.

Second group - historical definitions, highlighting the processes of social inheritance and traditions. They emphasize that culture is a product of the history of society and develops through the transfer of acquired experience from generation to generation. These definitions are based on ideas about the stability and immutability of social experience, losing sight of the constant emergence of innovations. An example is the definition given by the linguist E. Sapir, for whom culture is a socially inherited set of modes of activity and beliefs that make up the fabric of our lives.

The third group is normative definitions, which assert that the content of culture consists of norms and rules that regulate the life of society. These definitions can be divided into two subgroups:

• definition of culture as a way of life social group, for example, for the anthropologist K. Wissler, culture is a way of life followed by a community or tribe;
• value definitions that pay attention to the ideals and values ​​of society, for example, for the sociologist W. Thomas, culture is the material and social values ​​of any group of people (institutions, customs, attitudes, behavioral reactions).

Fourth group - psychological definitions who focus on the connection between culture and the psychology of human behavior and see in it the socially determined features of the human psyche. These definitions can be divided into four subgroups:

• adaptive definitions emphasizing the process of human adaptation to the environment, to his living conditions, for example, for sociologists W. Sumner and A. Keller, culture is a set of human adaptations to his living conditions, which is ensured through a combination of techniques such as variation, selection and transmission by inheritance;
• didactic definitions that pay attention to the learning process of a person, culture is what he has learned and not inherited genetically, for example, for the anthropologist R. Benedict, culture is a sociological designation for learned behavior, i.e. something that is not given to a person from birth, is not predetermined by the germ cells, as in wasps or social ants, but must be acquired anew by each new generation through learning from adults;
• defining culture as forms of habitual behavior common to a group. This is the definition of sociologist K. Yang;
• actually psychological, more precisely, psychoanalytic definitions. for example, for the psychoanalyst G. Rohaim, culture is the totality of all sublimations, all substitutions or resulting reactions, in short, everything in society that suppresses impulses or creates the possibility of their perverted implementation.

The fifth group is structural definitions of culture, focusing on the structural organization of culture, for example, for the anthropologist R. Linton, culture is the organized repeated reactions of members of society; a combination of learned behavior and behavioral outcomes, the components of which are shared and inherited by members of a given society.

The sixth group is genetic definitions that consider culture from the point of view of its origin. These definitions are divided into four subgroups:

• anthropological definitions based on the fact that culture is the products of human activity, the world of artificial things and phenomena, opposed to the natural world of nature, for example, for P. Sorokin, culture is the totality of everything that is created or modified by the conscious or unconscious activity of two or more individuals, interacting with each other or influencing each other's behavior;
• ideological definitions that reduce culture to the totality and production of ideas, other products of the spiritual life of society that accumulate in social memory, for example, for the sociologist G. Becker, culture is a relatively constant intangible content transmitted in society through socialization processes;
• definitions emphasizing symbolic human activity, when culture is considered either a system of signs used by society (semiotic definitions), or a set of symbols (symbolic definitions), or a set of texts that are interpreted and made sense of by people (hermeneutic definitions), for example, for the cultural scientist L. White culture - is a name for a special class of phenomena, namely: those things and phenomena that depend on the implementation of a mental faculty specific to the human race, which we call symbolization;
• negative definitions representing culture as something that comes from non-culture, for example, for the philosopher and scientist W. Ostwald, culture is what distinguishes humans from animals.

In general, the anthropological approach is distinguished by its specificity, orientation towards the study of “intermediate” layers and levels of culture, when the researcher tries to identify specific forms or units of culture, with the help of which human life decomposes into rationally constructed elements. As a result, the concept of cultural traits- indivisible units of culture (material products, works of art or patterns of behavior). Among them, there are both universal features inherent in all cultures (cultural universals) and specific ones, characteristic of one or several peoples.

Cultural universals express generic principles in a culture. This - common features, characteristics or components of culture inherent in all countries and peoples, regardless of their geographical and socio-economic situation. Thus, in 1965, J. Murdoch identified over 60 universals of culture, including the manufacture of tools, the institution of marriage, property rights, religious rites, sports, body decoration, joint labor, dancing, education, funeral rituals, hospitality, games, prohibitions of incest, rules of hygiene, language, etc. It can be assumed that cultural universals are based on corresponding biological needs, for example, the helplessness of infants and the need for their care and education are recognized in cultures of all types.

Sociological approach understands culture as a factor in the education and organization of social life. The organizing principle is considered to be the value system of each society. Cultural values ​​are created by society itself, but they then determine the development of this society. What begins to dominate a person is what he himself created.

In, as in social or cultural anthropology, three interrelated approaches to the study of culture exist and compete with each other:

• substantive, studying the content of culture as a system of values, norms and values ​​or meanings, i.e. ways to regulate life in society;
• functional, identifying ways to satisfy human needs or ways to develop the essential powers of a person in the process of his conscious activity;
• institutional, exploring typical units or stable forms of organization joint activities of people.

Within the framework of the sociological approach, the structure and functions of culture are studied, but when analyzing the external organizing factors of culture, sociologists pay little attention to the internal content of cultural phenomena.

Therefore, sociological and anthropological approaches complement each other, as follows from Table. 5.2.

Table 5.2. Comparison of sociological and anthropological approaches

Integralist approach to the study of culture is formed in this way and is complemented by the possibilities of a philosophical approach.

In all the considered definitions there is a rational grain, each indicates some more or less significant

features of culture, but at the same time, each definition has shortcomings and fundamental incompleteness. Nevertheless, a number of the most important characteristics of culture can be identified.

Culture- this is an essential characteristic of a person, something that distinguishes him from animals that adapt to the environment, and do not purposefully change it, like humans. As a result of this transformation, an artificial world of artifacts is formed, an essential part of which, in addition to material objects, are ideas, values ​​and symbols. This artificial world is opposed to the natural world, is not inherited biologically, but is acquired only as a result of upbringing and education taking place in society, among other people.

Meanings and definition « culture »

To summarize existing points view of culture, one might say. What the word "culture" It has three main meanings:

• cultivation, creativity and production, processing, including cultivation of land;
• education, upbringing, development;
• worship, veneration, meaning the worship of a religious cult.

IN himself in a broad sense Culture is often understood as all the achievements of mankind, everything created by man. This view, in particular, is shared by culturologist E. Markaryan. Culture then appears as a “second nature”, created by man himself, forming the human world itself, in contrast to wild nature. In this case, culture is usually divided into material and spiritual. This division goes back to Cicero, who first noted that along with culture, which means the cultivation of the earth, there is also culture, which means the “cultivation of the soul.”

Material culture primarily covers the sphere of material production and its products - equipment, technology, means of communication and communication, industrial buildings and structures, roads and transport, housing, household items, clothing, etc. includes the sphere of spiritual production and its results - religion, philosophy, morality, art, science, etc. Within spiritual culture, they often specifically distinguish artistic culture, including works of art and literature. Science, in turn, is considered as the basis of intellectual, scientific and technical culture.

There is a deep unity between material and spiritual culture, since both of them are the result of human activity, the origins of which ultimately lie in the spiritual principle - the ideas, projects and plans of man, which he embodies in material form. Therefore, N. Berdyaev believed that every culture is spiritual. Material form is required not only for a technical structure, but also for a work of art - sculptural, pictorial, literary, etc. Examples of the organic unity of material and spiritual culture can be architectural buildings, when they are both works of art and serve practical purposes: a theater building, a temple, a hotel, and sometimes a residential building.

At the same time, there are significant differences between the products of material and spiritual production: in work of art the main thing is not the material shell, but the spiritual content, while in some technical creations it is often very difficult to detect any signs of spirituality. These differences in specific socio-historical conditions can enter not only into contradictions, but also into conflict, taking on significant proportions. Just something similar happened to culture in the 19th and especially in the 20th centuries, when material culture began to increasingly dominate spiritual culture.

As an opposition to the concept " nature" (nature). " Cultural" meant - processed, cultivated, artificial as opposed to natural, pristine, wild.

Initially the concept culture used to distinguish plants grown by humans from wild plants. Gradually it began to acquire a broader and more generalized meaning. Cultural began to name objects, phenomena, actions that were above natural, against natural, i.e. everything that was not of divine (natural) origin, but was created by man. It is natural that man himself fell into the sphere of culture, since he created himself and turned out to be the result of the transformation of natural (God-given) material.

However, before the appearance of the Latin word culture there was a concept close to it in meaning. This is an ancient Greek word techne , literally translated as craft, art, craftsmanship(from here - technique). Techne did not have such a broad general meaning as the Latin culture, but in meaning it was close to him: this word in Ancient Greece meant human activity that changes the shape of natural objects and transforms the material world.

Examples of this type of activity many, starting from ancient times (handprints on the walls of caves, engravings on rocks, various signs on objects and bodies, etc.). The main meaning of these drawings is to indicate the presence of man, his invasion of the natural world, this stamp of human, This signs of the separation of man from nature into culture.

On philosophical level understanding of culture began in the 17th and 18th centuries.(J. Vico, C. Helvetius, B. Franklin, I. Herder, I. Kant).

Man begins to be understood as a being endowed with reason, will, and the ability to create, as an “animal that makes tools,” and the history of mankind is understood as the self-development of man.

Existence, world, reality are understood as two-part: including nature And culture. Nevertheless, for a long time culture was considered not in its integrity, not as a complexly organized system, but in one or another of its specific manifestations (religion, ethics, aesthetics, language, etc.). Hence the almost limitless plurality of approaches, interpretations, and definitions of culture that still persists (there are about 900, but even this figure does not reflect reality).

2. Modern interpretations of the concept of “culture”

- “a concept that reveals the essence of human existence as the realization of creativity and freedom” (N. A. Berdyaev);

- “culture (from Lat. сultura - cultivation, processing) - a historically certain level of development of society, creative forces and human abilities, expressed in the types and forms of organization of people’s lives and activities, as well as in the material and spiritual values ​​they create. The concept of “culture” is used to characterize historical eras, specific nationalities and nations, areas of activity (physical education, political culture, etc.). In a narrow sense, the sphere of people’s spiritual life” (Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary);

- “a universal way of creative self-realization of a person through positing the meaning of his life and correlating it with the meaning of Existence, this is a semantic world that is passed on from generation to generation and determines the way of being and worldview of people, uniting them into certain communities - a nation, a religious or professional group” ( Radugin V.P.),

- “a complex that includes knowledge, beliefs, art, laws, morals, customs and other abilities and habits acquired by a person as a member of society” (E. Tylor),

- "unity" artistic style in all manifestations of the life of the people" (F. Nietzsche),

- “the unity of all forms of traditional behavior” (M. Mead),

- “the cultural aspect of the superorganic universe, covering ideas, values, norms, their interaction and relationships” (P. Sorokin),

- “the social direction that we give to the cultivation of our biological potentialities” (H. Ortega y Gasset),

- “forms of behavior habitual for a group, community of people, society, having material and intangible features” (K. G. Jung),

- “the organization of various phenomena - material objects, bodily acts, ideas and feelings, which consist of symbols or depend on their use” (L. White),

- “that which distinguishes a person from an animal” (W. Oswald),

- “system of signs” (C. Morris),

- “the process of self-progressive self-liberation of a person; language, art, religion, science are different forms of this process” (E. Cassirer),

- “the general context of the sciences and arts, correlated categorically with language, is a structure that pushes a person above himself and gives his nation value” (R. Tshumi),

- “characteristic of the entire set of achievements and institutions that separated our life from the life of our bestial ancestors and served two purposes: protecting man from nature and regulating people’s relationships with each other” (S. Freud),

- “this is the goal of the transformation of Eros, the sublimation of the sexual instinct” (J. Roheim),

- “a set of intellectual elements available to a given person or a group of people and possessing some stability associated with the “memory of the world” and society - memory materialized in libraries, monuments and languages” (A. Mol),

- “realization of supreme values ​​through the cultivation of the highest human virtues” (M. Heidegger),

- “in a broad ethnographic sense, this is knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, laws, customs and some other abilities and habits acquired by a person as a member of society” (E. Tylor),

- “a socially inherited set of modes of activity and beliefs that make up the fabric of our lives” (E. Sapir),

- “forms of habitual behavior common to a group, community or society; these forms consist of material and intangible elements” (K. Young),

- “a certain degree of education; another, broader use of words gives culture the meaning of everyday life in general (in the case of primitive culture or the culture of such eras and peoples that, when using the word in the first meaning, should be called uncultured..." ( encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron).

Analyzing the entire range of definitions presented, we can conclude that there are some essential features of the phenomenon of interest to us that combine the above options.

So, commonplace are the following provisions:

Culture is what distinguishes man from the natural environment (culture is called “second nature”), it is a characteristic of human society;

Culture is not inherited biologically, but involves training, education, cultivation;

Culture is a historically emergent phenomenon; it appears along with human society and develops with it in time and space.

Let's focus on one of the possible options for determining the essence of culture: culture - specific method organization and development of human life, represented in the products of material and spiritual labor, in the system of social norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people’s relationships to themselves, to society and nature.

In Russia the term “culture” used in accordance with the German tradition, the French and English prefer the term "civilization". There are a lot of different judgments in modern cultural studies regarding the distinction between these concepts. As an illustration, here is a quote from an interview with A. I. Solzhenitsyn: “Culture is the cultivation inside a person’s life, his soul, while civilization is the cultivation of the external, material side of his life.”

There is an assertion that “culture” is a word that is both too broad and too narrow to be of any use. Margaret Archer notes that “of all the key concepts” in socio-humanities, the concept of culture has demonstrated “the weakest analytical development and played the most ambiguous role in theory.”

In the 1970s, the semiotic direction in the humanities was very popular. In the light of this theory, culture began to be viewed as practices signification. Clifford Geertz spoke of “the web of signification in which humanity is suspended.” Raymond Williams wrote about "a system of signification through which...social order is communicated, transmitted, reproduced, experienced, and studied."

All social systems involve signification. Housing is a matter of need, but it is included in the system of signification as soon as social differences begin to appear within this need. Lunch in a luxury restaurant cannot be reduced to satisfying the basic need for food, this is already a realm of signification, etc.

Terry Eagleton proposes to describe culture "as the complex of values, customs, beliefs and practices that make up the way of life of a specific group." The famous formulation of E.B. Tylor, proposed to anthropologists in his "Primitive Culture", states that "culture is composed as a whole of knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, laws, customs and some other abilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."

Stuart Hall: culture is everything that is not transmitted genetically; they are “lived practices” or “practical ideologies that enable a society, group or class to experience, define, interpret and make sense of the conditions of existence.”

The definition given to culture by Raymond Williams (an outstanding theorist of the second half of the twentieth century) reveals its dual nature - material reality associated with lived experience: “culture is a structure of feeling.” In his different jobs The following definitions are found: standard of perfection; mental habit; art; general intellectual development; holistic lifestyle; signification system; the relationship of elements in a lifestyle.

T. Eagleton notes that the conflict between the broad and narrow meaning of the term “culture” today has led to the fact that the expansion of this concept has no boundaries. We hear about “culture of service”, “culture of pain”, “culture of football”, “culture of drinking beer”... Exactly the same is true with the term “philosophy”: “philosophy of photography”, “philosophy of fishing”, “philosophy of war”...

Broad understanding of the term relies on recognition universal character culture as a form of subjectivity (the subject is understood broadly - from the individual to the nation). In this sense, culture means the field of values ​​in which people exist and which they share by virtue of their human nature. Culture-as-art is a concentrated form of this field. "U high culture the position is like that of the Almighty - she looks from everywhere and from nowhere.”

Eagleton suggests separating Culture And culture . The essence of Culture is that it is devoid of culture: its values ​​relate not to any specific form of life, but to human life in general. Because the values ​​of Culture universal, but not abstract(!), it requires a local refuge for it to flourish. There cannot be a special Korean version of Kant's categorical imperative. Culture is ironic about its historical environment: if it needs precisely this scene for its own fulfillment, it is Culture precisely because it overcomes this environment in the movement towards the universal. Just as form binds the elements of a work into a coherent whole, culture denotes the connection between a particular civilization/culture and universal humanity.

Culture as a universal form of human existence gravitates toward the individual, and culture as identity gravitates toward a particular collectivity, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. It is in uniqueness that the universal potential is revealed, and it also interferes with conventional agreements within a particular community. Eagleton: “Culture is the spirit of humanity, which has found concrete expression in specific works, its discourse connects the individual “I” and the truth of the Human without the mediation of the historically particular. Particulars - pure chance, combinatorics, contingency.

So, the main term of the 18th century was NATURE, of the 19th - SOCIETY, HISTORY. In the 20-21 centuries - CULTURE.

Pushkin had no words“culture” (hereinafter - K.), there was only civilization (hereinafter - C.). Towards the cultural sciences as special type Society only came into contact with knowledge in the twentieth century. Cultural studies, philosophy of culture, cultural anthropology, and the culture of everyday life have emerged. All these are separate disciplines.

The main discovery of all these disciplines- there is no one culture for everyone. There are universals, but they work differently in every context. For example, in Europe there was not one Renaissance, but at least two (Italian and northern).

Claude Lévi-Strauss has a job“Three Humanisms”, where he highlights: 1st Renaissance - the legalization of pagan antiquity in Europe; 2nd - metaphysical discovery of the East by Europeans (18th century); 1871 - publication of Taylor's book " Primitive culture"(primitiveness was legalized as a full-fledged part of the K. system). Now this is obvious, but then it was an important revolution in consciousness.

And if there are many “cultures”, then knowledge about K. and existence/being in K. do not coincide. Just because I KNOW about Taoism does not mean I belong to it. Therefore, in the process of studying the discipline “Theory and History of Culture”, it is important not only to gain KNOWLEDGE about culture/cultures, but to form CULTURAL SELF-AWARENESS (the process takes a lifetime).

Culturology gives knowledge about culture and different cultures, and philosophy/theory of culture answers the questions - where am I in this diversity? What do you consider yours? The task of a cultural theorist is to see today’s day from the perspective of the WHOLE HISTORY OF CULTURE and “count” the meanings.

The sciences of culture took shape in contrast to the “natural sciences”. The problems of cultural theory are addressed to one degree or another by: history, philosophy, anthropology (social, cultural), psychology, sociology, ethnography, archeology, linguistics, art history. Thus, the APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF CULTURE is interdisciplinary.

AN OBJECT- culture in all its diversity, in the unity and uniqueness of the processes occurring in it.

SUBJECT FIELD OF DISCIPLINE- forms and types of culture; ways of its existence; historical dynamics of culture.