The Place of the Idea of Culture in the Development of Russian Philosophy in the Late 20th – Early 21st Centuries

In the 20th century, philosophy saw a number of rediscoveries of the idea of culture and, accordingly, the formation of approaches to its study. Given the extremely “confused and ambiguous social history” (T. Eagleton) of this idea, the article reveals its presence in the thoughts of different generations of Russian philosophers. The article is based on the materials of the book “Philosophical Generations” (Moscow, 2022), which contains a collection of autobiographical narratives of Russian philosophers of the mid-20th – early 21st centuries. Based on the memoirs and thoughts of philosophers about their time, the development of the concept of “culture”, its semantic emphases and fluctuations in the second half of the 20th century are studied. The rich material presented in this “chronicle of the Moscow philosophical community” allows us to trace the specifics of philosophical solutions to the “problem of culture” and the reverse impact of structural transformations of culture, art, and aesthetics on philosophy. The search for a relevant philosophical language to describe cultural dynamics in an era of constant and multiple crises deserves special attention. The author of the article suggests looking for ways to place the problem of culture in a philosophical context associated with tradition, modernity and new methodologies in the humanities. In search of the specifics of the domestic approach to the phenomenon of culture, the author turns to the analysis of discussions around the ‘philosophy of culture’, ‘cultural studies’, ‘cultural research’, ‘dialogue of cultures’. Particular attention is paid to the humanitarian discussions of the 1980–1990s, in particular, the discussion around the relevance of the Silver Age, the ‘cult’ of which fell precisely on these years, is reconstructed. The conducted research made it possible to identify, on the one hand, the generational specificity of the theoretical positions and formulations of the issue of culture presented in the book (fixing points of misunderstanding and breaks), and on the other, to catch traces of their interactions.