Culturology “In a Draft, Whispered” (To the Anniversary of the “Literary-Centric” Culturology)

Abstract

The article reconstructs the framework of S.S. Averintsev’s culturology and outlines the contexts that make this theoretical model especially relevant today. The theory of the three stages of the word state, where, in addition to the poles in the traditional ‘sacred/reflexive (scientific, pluralistic)’ dichotomy is proclaimed an intermediate state, sacral-reflexive, and is interesting not only out of historical curiosity, it has significant heuristic potential. The current relevance of Averintsev’s culturology is ensured by the fact that his model is consistently and fundamentally realistic. A distinctive feature of this variant of culturology is the reliance on literary studies, on the typology of the word of M.M. Bakhtin. But this is culturology, the historical typology of culture, which leads to large-scale generalizations and universal models. In the late 1980s, Averintsev’s typology acquired the status of a historical model of types of rationality. This typology of culture turned out to be a ‘strong’ theory with many not only ontological implications, but also consequences important for epistemology and philosophy of science. Philosophers, art historians, historians and literary critics had reason thirty years ago to consider the challenges of such culturology provocative and nihilistic. It makes revolutionary demands on all humanities disciplines. But at the same time: the whole revolutionary nature of Averintsev’s theory remained precisely in the implications. The theory, which was ‘loud’ by the scale of universal claims, was pronounced in the published texts more than ‘quietly’, almost ‘in a whisper’. Perhaps, this antinomy is fundamental.