Historical Dynamics of the Non-marxist Cultural Knowledge. Methodological Problems

Abstract

The study represents an attempt to construct a reconstructive model of the historical dynamics of non-Marxist culturological thought. It examines the paradox of culturology’s self-substantiation as the core of its intellectual stylistics: every reflection on culture necessarily presupposes a prior conception of culture. Far from being destructive, this paradox serves as a driving force in the development of culturological knowledge.

The reconstruction of the historical dynamics of this field is based on an analysis of the historical manifestations of the self-substantiation paradox. It is argued that contemporary non-Marxist culturological knowledge has evolved along four principal lines of development—cultural anthropology, philosophy of culture, sociology of culture, and the specialised theories of culture—alongside several secondary directions.