Культурно-символічна картина світу Латинського християнського середньовіччя: власне культурний вимір. Частина ІІ «Культура господарювання. Вступ»

The present paper is the third of the four ‘picture’ publications envisaged by the author for this journal to reproduce the cultural and symbolic picture of the world of the Latin Christian Middle Ages in its modern interpretation. The first such ‘picture’ was devoted to the ontological dimension of the age; the second one — to the actual cultural dimension, but with an emphasis on the culture of governance; in the third one, attention is drawn to the culture of management in ‘problematic economic zones’ of subsistence economy. The last of these ‘zones’, namely the attitude of medieval man to the land, together with the spiritual culture of the time, shall be the topic of the final, fourth publication.The Preamble outlines the emotional background, the author’s motives that called this text to life, as well as the philosophical and methodological research tools.At the beginning of the main text of the paper, the very subject of economics and the economic specifics of feudalism and feudal economic management are elaborated; it is proposed to examine thematically the two latter phenomena under a special dimension — as components of the symbolic and personal culture of feudal, specifically onto-economic, relations.In § 1, the ‘problematic economic zone No. 1’ is considered — that of relations between people regarding the production/extraction of things for their consumption/use, and a conclusion is drawn about the impossibility of slavery as an economic ideal for the age, as well as about the special, intimate and personal nature of human relations, which provide extra-economic coercion as an economic management tool.In § 2, the ‘problematic economic zone No. 2’ is presented – that of the things and a person’s attitude towards them. The specifics of the medieval understanding of the authenticity of a thing in its connection to the Creator and the economic significance of the ‘double utilitarianism’ of things — as ‘horizontal’ companions of needs and ‘vertical’ signs on the ‘scale of salvation’ are determined.In § 3, the ‘problematic economic zone No. 3’ is exposed — that of a person’s attitude to work and the consumer ideal of the age, where the former is defined as directly personal, and the latter comes to life in the onto-economic idea of subsistence, turned to the Christian virtue of temperance/moderation.In § 4, the ‘problematic economic zone No. 4’ is analyzed — that of the attitude of a person to money in the aspect of disdain for monetary transactions and the problem of usury.The Epilogue summarizes the progress and outlines the thematic plan for the final part of this series of the author’s original publications.