Kuznetsov A.M. The Concepts of 'Culture' and 'Civilization' as a Mean of Problematisation of Modern Socio-Humanitarian Disciplines

Abstract: In his article Kuznetsov studies Leslie White's concept of culture and the definitions of civilization and culture offered by a Russian philosopher Merab Mamardashvili. The analysis of these authors' opinions make modern specialists pay attentino to the difference in the analysis levels. Kuznetsov discovers the main contradiction of Leslie White's theory (universal and multilineal cultural evolution). This conclusion as well as the results of the analysis of 'culture' and 'civilization' definitions offered by different authors have created grounds for the author's approach to the analysis of culture and civilization as a multilevel form of the anthropological universum. The research is based on the principles of complementarity, classification strategy and the main provisions of the systems paradigm including the classical definition of the structure and a number of provisions of social constructivism. The author's special contribution to the research of the topic is the deconstruction of the practice of using the concepts of 'culture' and 'civilization', discovery of their contradictions and ways to overcome these contradictions.  The novelty of the article is caused by the fact that the author analyzes Leslie White's theory of culture from the point of view of the systems paradigm, compares Leslie White's theory to Merab Mamardashvili's concepts of civilization and culture and offers to return the initial integrative meaning to the concepts of culture and civilization but also to compare these concepts at the different levels of interdisciplinary research. 

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