UDC

1(091)(4/9):101.2+008.2

Authors

Aleksandr I. Pigalev
Volgograd State University;
prosp. Universitetskiy 100, Volgograd, 400062, Russian Federation;
e-mail: pigalev@volsu.ru

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to analyse the interaction between modernity and the cultures that are currently considered to be inadequately modernized and its influence on metaphysics on both sides of the lane line. Modernity, as opposed to the immediacy of tradition and the so-called traditional societies in the capacity of its Other, is understood as a society that is based on comprehensive mediation. The interaction between modernity and tradition is examined by the instrumentality of the concept of transculturation that enables us to take into account the reciprocity of influences of cultural practices and the relevant modes of representation within the contact zone. The analysis proceeds from the assumption that in the contact zone the patterns of culture that are imposed on the society to be modernized are reproduced inexactly and, moreover, these changes affect metaphysics as well. Metaphysics is considered to be a specifically structured ideal realm in the form of a hierarchical system of interrelated abstract entities originating in a certain supreme entity. It is emphasized here that although metaphysics came into existence long before modernity, it was finalized only in the context of the latter. The final form of metaphysics, reproducing the pervasive game of symbolic substitutions, exposes the unification of heterogeneous objects at all levels of social exchange, which is, in effect, nothing but the process of mediation. It is pointed out that transculturation of metaphysics puts in the forefront the indeterminate and ambiguous existence of the Other, that no longer depends on the severe constraints of binary logic and all the more on the structures of metaphysical mediation. In the last analysis, this result, which is a characteristic feature of postmodernity, demonstrates that the completion of metaphysics as the loss of its ability to standardize the structure of mediation has not only inherent causes. It can also be conditioned, stimulated and even triggered by the aftereffects of modernization directed beyond the limits of the already established modernity.

Keywords

modernity, binarism, mediation, transculturation of metaphysics, Other, postmodernity

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