Types of Rationality and the Semantic Relevance of Cultural Values: from Classical to Post-Nonclassical

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of semantic relevance of cultural values. The paper shows that under the conditions of the digital turn, a radical transformation of cultural reality is taking place, affecting its fundamental characteristics (such as cultural space/time, as well as the material and narrative dimensions of culture). Obviously, such radical transformations cannot but affect the axiological dimension of culture, resulting in the loss of values' semantic relevance, which is one of the aspects of the problematization of culture in the digital environment.

In the author's opinion, such problematization, which affects the semantic relevance of values, despite its radicalism, is not unique. Similar situations have arisen in historical retrospect, in the context of changing types of rationality. The paper shows that the transition from classical to non-classical rationality entailed an equally radical cultural turn, which resulted in axiological relativism and recognition of the contextual determinacy of cultural values, which became notable features of the spiritual situation of the 19th — 20th centuries. The paper concludes that the answer to the loss of semantic relevance of cultural values should be the emergence of a new type of rationality (post-nonclassical rationality), capable of providing procedural conditions for consensus on epistemological, moral and aesthetic values of modern culture.