Djafarova, D. T. Phenomenon of Aging in Spiritual Experience of the Mankind

Abstract: The article is devoted to the analysis of the process of aging in terms of social, cultural and historical transformations. Social development and people’s lives occur in a socio-cultural environment that have direct and indirect influence on human. Specific feature of traditional cultures is their attitude to aging and old age. At different stages of development of human society public attitude to aging was conditioned by socio-cultural peculiarities of this or that epoch. The research is based on the concepts of the “old man”, “problems of an old man” and “old age”. Based on the system analysis, the author offers an integrated definition of these terms. The author also used the method of historical and genetic analysis which allowed to define the general tendency in changing attitudes towards an old man during the period when traditional culture was being replaced by modern industrial, innovation-based and postmodern culture. Determination of the problems in philosophical analysis of a man at the last stage of his life path as well as description of attitudes to aging in different social, cultural and historical epochs create the novelty of research.

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