Vladislav A. Lektorsky’s Problem Field of Philosophy (Book review: V.A. Lektorsky. Man and Culture. Selected Articles. Saint Petersburg: SPbUHSS, 2018)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the new book Man and Culture. Selected Articles of Vladislav A. Lektorsky, the outstanding contemporary philosopher, full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The book’s author reflects on the fate of philosophical knowledge and the problem field of philosophy in the modern world. He analyzes the new civilizational realities, in which the transformation of man and culture, globalization, virtualization of the world take place. Nowadays, the world joins in network communities, digitizes, opens up to new challenges. Fundamentally new technologies are being implemented that call into question the traditional cultural values and the future of man himself. There are such values, as the book’s author notes, without which a person is impossible. It is shown that without philosophy, the humanities in general, it is unthinkable to find and formulate answers to modern challenges and threats that now really threaten man and culture. But philosophy itself, due to unprecedented progress in human sciences and based on its progress interventions in the brain and psyche, should reconsider much in its understanding of knowledge, consciousness, rationality, values of life and culture.