Boundaries Between Private and Public as a Condition of Personal Autonomy

The subject of this article is the phenomenon of the boundary between the private and public spheres. The research is based on a systematic approach that allows analyzing and combining individual aspects of the phenomenon under study, as well as methods of logical and historical analysis, hermeneutical and logical methods. The ratio of public and private spheres has now become the subject of consideration of a number of social sciences and humanities. If the public sphere is fundamentally transparent and open to everyone, then privacy, on the contrary, is connoted with darkness, opacity, mystery. A person as a social being is characterized by the need for both public and private space. The boundaries between public and private space can be both material (doors, walls) and immaterial (laws, traditions, social norms). It is noted that these boundaries are not static, they change in space and time, depend on culture, generation and social stratum. Socially constructed boundaries of privacy are formed on the basis of existing ideas in this society about the degree of personal inviolability. What a person is allowed to demonstrate and see is subject to public expectations. Different ideas about personal boundaries can lead to cross-cultural confl ict. It is argued that borders protect the right to privacy associated with tact, voluntary refusal to interfere in the personal affairs of another person. The observance of social distance constitutes personal freedom in both public and private space. Deprivation of privacy humiliates human dignity. Therefore, the right to private space, the ability to defend and protect personal boundaries is a necessary prerequisite for personal freedom and autonomy.