“What is culture? There were hundreds of attempts (sociological, anthropological, culturological, and philosophical) at providing an adequate answer to this question. The number of definitions of culture is as impressive as it is telling. It looks as if we are confronted with a reality which effectively escapes all definite conceptualizations. All such conceptualizations, intentionally or not, objectify reality they intend to comprehend and/or are based on a reduction of a certain kind. In my talk I will point out different forms of reductionism in thinking on culture. I will defend the thesis that culture is fundamentally non-objectifiable – thus, one can speak about it only in radically anti-essentialist and indirect terms. A genuinely philosophical approach to culture should take into consideration its fundamentally pluralistic, polyphonic, dynamic and, most importantly, tensive character. Culture is constituted (and maintained) by and through a series of primordial and insurmountable tensions between: arche and telos, essence and semblance, transcendence and immanence, presence and absence, and so forth. These tensions provide a kind of ontological framework out of which particular historically and locally determined forms of culture appear. And all these forms confirm fundamentally indefinite character of culture. This in-definiteness is not to be seen as a shortcoming or weakness but rather as an origin of plurality and richness of cultural meanings. The task of philosophy (of culture) is to wisely reflect on it and to defend it.”
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