The problem of the local in philosophical tradition and in modern philosophy of culture

Abstract

The present article is concerned with the problem of the local in the history of philosophy and in contemporary philosophy of culture. It emphasizes the relevance and interdisciplinary essence of this problem. The evolution of the concepts “local” and “locality” in classical and contemporary philosophy (by the example of the concepts of individual thinkers) is traced, and the meaning of these concepts for understanding the contemporary cultural context is determined. So, in particular, the development of ideas about the localization of an object in space in ancient philosophy (in Plato) is traced. The problem of the local in non-classical and post-non-classical philosophy is considered in connection with the problem of the crisis of cultural values. An attempt is made to define the concept of “locality” as a cultural phenomenon based on the analysis of the works of P. Sloterdijk, I. Hassan, J. Baudrillard and others, as well as the latest scientific publications. Emphasis is placed on analyzing the problem of the local as a philosophical concept, and at the same time, the phenomenon of culture, in the framework of postmodern ideas, the theory of cultural globalization, in the microspherology of P. Sloterdijk. The principle of “indetermanence” by I. Hassan, which most fully reveals the postmodern rejection of hierarchical structuring of culture and the process of transition from centering to scattering, to peripheral dislocation of cultural objects and phenomena, is considered as a kind of “methodological basis” of the analysis of locality as a cultural phenomenon. Locality is defined by the author of the article as “a certain holistic microworld (microsphere) formed by a person or a group of people as part of his (their) lifeworld and accumulating key values, ideas, symbols, etc., that are particularly significant for these people”. The main features of locality as a cultural phenomenon are considered: a) attachment to a particular place (locus); b) locality is at the same time a fragment of the world, the cosmos and a holistic microworld that lives by its own laws; c) spatiality and temporality, chronotopicity; d) dynamic and historic; e) anthropological, centered around a person or a group of people; f) symbolism.