Assimilating moral views and principles, the individual turns them into moral qualities and beliefs.

In addition, such an understanding of culture is still too general and allows for different interpretations depending on how the value itself is understood. Thus, the "neo-Kantians", who widely used the concept of value, interpreted it as something superhistorical and which will not be subject to scientific analysis and explanation. Dialectical-materialist understanding of values, on the contrary, does not oppose scientific and value approaches to society and culture, linking the latter with all human activity, with work as a source of culture and its results.

Thus, determining the essence of culture, we must proceed from the fact that every external expression of culture is a manifestation of the degree of development of the person. Taken separately from man, the materialized "body of culture" is deprived of dynamics, movement, vitality. And real, living culture is inseparable from the social person – the subject of culture, correlated with the object world created by him. Man himself forms himself in the process of his activity as a cultural and historical being. Her human qualities are the result of her learning the language, joining the existing values ​​in society, traditions, mastering the inherent in this culture techniques and skills, etc. biologically, a person is given only an organism that has a certain structure, inclinations, functions.

Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that culture is a measure of the human in man, a characteristic of human development as a social being. Thus, culture exists in the constant interaction of its external materialized expression with man himself. This interaction consists in the fact that a person assimilates a previously created culture, distinguishes it, thus making it a prerequisite for his activities, and creates a culture, creating a new one, distinguishes his knowledge and values, skills and abilities, his ancestral human essence.

Man, of course, perceives culture selectively under the influence of preferences due to many circumstances. And only on the basis of this culture she has mastered it is able to develop further. As a subject of culture, man brings something new into it. There are a lot of problems and contradictions in the ratio of the development and creativity of culture. To understand them, it is necessary at least in the most general form to analyze the problem of cultural development.

Philosophy studies culture not as a special object to be studied along with nature, society, man, but as a general characteristic of the world as a whole. Philosophical understanding of culture is the understanding of the expressed in it the desire for infinity and universality of human development. For the philosopher, the ability of the world to "radiate" from itself the human meaning characterizes it as a cultural phenomenon. From the point of view of philosophy, culture is the whole world in which man finds himself.

Here we will be based on an activity approach in understanding culture. In this approach, it is seen as a way of organizing and developing human activity. Culture is a kind of "genotype" of a social organism that determines its structure and development. It is represented in the products of material and spiritual labor, in social norms and spiritual values, in man’s relationship to nature and between people.

The human world is huge, colorful and diverse – politics, economics, religion, science, art, etc. All these areas of human activity are intertwined and affect each other. Each sphere is a reflection of the others. One can, of course, consider a person in parts within a political or other sphere. For example, political culture will include the best ways of political choice and action, values ​​and ideals of political restructuring of society, optimal forms of social relations of people in the course of mutual coordination of their interests, etc.

In moral culture the level of representation of a good, evil, honor, justice, duties, etc. reached by a society is fixed. These ideas, norms regulate the behavior of people, characterize social phenomena. Assimilating moral views and principles, the individual turns them into moral qualities and beliefs.

Aesthetic culture of society includes aesthetic values ​​(beautiful, sublime, tragic, etc.), ways of their creation and consumption. The specificity of aesthetic perception is that people, their actions, products of activity, natural phenomena, are perceived primarily sensually, in their external expression.

Now the most important is ecological culture. The dramatic situation experienced by modern society is largely due to the catastrophic changes taking place in the natural world as a result of human activity. Ecological culture contains new values ​​and ways of production, political and other activities aimed at preserving the Earth as a unique ecosystem.

The unity of the world of culture is determined by the integrity of the latter, acting as a whole being. Culture does not exist outside its living carrier – man.

The individual learns it through language, upbringing, live communication. The picture of the world, evaluations, values, ways of perceiving nature, time, ideals are laid down in the consciousness of the person by tradition and, imperceptibly for the individual, change in the course of social practice. Biologically, a person is given only an organism that has only certain inclinations, potential.

A special place in the world of culture is occupied by its moral, ethical and aesthetic aspects. Morality regulates people’s lives in various spheres – in everyday life, in the family, at work, in science, in politics, etc. In moral principles and norms are deposited all that has a common meaning that makes up the culture between human relations. There are universal, universal notions of good and evil, such as "thou shalt not steal," "thou shalt not kill," "thou shalt not commit adultery," and others recorded in the Bible. There are group, historically limited notions of "what is good" and "what is bad." In any case, the practice of human relations is understood as goodness, nobility, justice.

The sphere of aesthetic relations to reality is comprehensive. Beauty, beautiful, harmonious, elegant – all these values ​​a person finds in nature and in society. Aesthetic perception, aesthetic experience, aesthetic taste is inherent in every person. Of course, the degree of development, perfection of aesthetic culture in different people is different. Historically, the ideals of beauty are also changing. However, in society there are certain norms of aesthetic, moral, political, religious, cognitive, spiritual culture. These norms – the invisible framework that binds the social – the organism into a single whole.

Cultural norms are certain patterns, rules of conduct or actions. They are formed, affirmed already in the everyday consciousness of society. At this level, traditional and then subconscious moments play an important role in the emergence of cultural norms. Customs and ways of perception have developed over millennia and have been passed down from generation to generation. In a reworked form, cultural norms are embodied in ideology, ethical teachings, religious concepts.

Thus, culture contains both stable and changing moments. Stability, "inertia" in culture is a tradition: elements of cultural heritage – ideas, values, customs, rituals, ways of worldview, etc. – are stored and transmitted from generation to generation. Traditions exist in all forms of spiritual culture.

Culture is involved in the movement of history in various ways and forms. They express the subjective and personal side of the social person, methods and norms of social organization and regulation of life processes, perform the most important social function of translation of experience, knowledge, tangible results of human activity. Finally, artistic, scientific, technical, social creativity to the extent that it appears as an invention, discovery, creation of a new, unique, will give results that are then included in the historical process, bring new elements. This refers to new ideas that are just waiting to be embodied in social reality, and the materialized results of human activity, and the activity itself as a middle link between them.

People make history, but the social consequences of their actions are formed under the influence of many different circumstances, objective conditions and patterns. Creativity of culture therefore does not coincide with creativity of history.

Historical materialism is faced in this connection with the problem of correlating the active creative principle embodied in culture, which poses new problems to society and opens up new possibilities, with objective conditions and laws of social development.

Culture is an integral part of human life. Culture organizes human life. In human life, culture performs much of the same function as genetically programmed behavior in animal life.

Modern philosophy has put the question of man and culture very close. Since the problems of man and culture are very closely linked in everyday life, in all spheres of human activity. Therefore, modern philosophy "came out of the shores" of philosophy in the broad field of modern culture. And above all in such an important and necessary sphere of human activity as the sphere of values. That is why modern philosophers pay great attention to the study of ethics, aesthetics, law and the state, religion and science, anthropology, ethnography, psychology, pedagogy, literature and art.

Culture is not only all that is created by human hands and mind, but also the way of social behavior developed over the centuries, which is expressed in folk customs, beliefs, traditions, attitude to each other, to work, to language.

Belonging to a certain society, the individual with his birth is an integral part of the culture produced by his compatriots, becomes its user and carrier.

The stronger a person’s ties with culture, the more one can expect from him as a citizen, a conscious creator of material and spiritual goods.

Thus, spiritual culture is strongly connected with material culture. That is why our society, waking up from a long intellectual sleep and embarking on moral self-purification, saw the problems that for many years were covered by cheerful slogans and appeals.

18.12.2010

The great Ukrainian philosopher, humanist, poet Skovoroda Hryhoriy Savych. Abstract

The creative heritage of the great philosopher has become an inexhaustible literacy narrative ideas source of wisdom and life-giving inspiration for the Ukrainian people for many, many centuries.