Transient Times: Social and Anthropological Contemporary Trends Reflected in Philosophy and Arts (Experience of Setting Problems)

As the twentieth century drew to a close, and indeed throughout the first years of the twenty-first century, humanity experienced a series of crises that served to underscore the necessity of transitioning to a state of unprecedented quality. The preceding developmental pattern, which reached its zenith in the contemporary ‘technogenic civilization’, has already reached its limits in terms of available capacity and is approaching the boundaries of its opportunities. The relevance of this study results from the finiteness of the existing structures of modern civilization, and lies in an attempt to define upcoming development prospects. For these reasons, a new theoretical approach combined with descriptive and phenomenological methods is required. The objective of the study: to work out a variant of such renewal based on combination of resources from social philosophy, science philosophy and arts. Historic and genetic approach is a fundament for the main methodology of the research. As a result of this research, two alternative social and anthropologic tendencies that have been forming in modern culture during last 100 years are defined. The first one is dominant and it expresses instrumental reduction of a human to means. The second one emphasizes the unification of a human as a target of social development, and currently it remains a bit weaker. Within this context the prospect of radical transformation of human essence with scientific means is rather possible. The followers of transhumanism stand exactly for this prospect. Arts, vice versa, demonstrates absolute antihumanism of their position. The academic novelty of this work is in working out a theoretic model of further development characterized with accord between retaining naturally formed image of a human and achievements of modern civilization. The practical significance impact comes out in finding major premises of putting in practice the idea of ‘unified human science’.