Human Culture and Nature in the Context of Evald Ilyenkov’s Philosophy

Abstract

This article explores the problem of understanding the nature of man: whether it is human physiology, on the basis of which culture evolves as a secondary element, or culture, which, as it develops, subordinates human physiology to itself. These viewpoints are considered by means of a gradual shift from the position of evolutionism, placing physiology at the core of the interpretation of human nature, to the position of culturally oriented understanding of man. It should be noted that among the representatives of the culturally oriented concept, one can distinguish both the position of dualism, trying to combine physiology and culture as separate elements of the whole but with the emphasis on culture, and the position of monism, which dialectically subordinates physiology to culture. An important point of the monistic position is the understanding of the relationship between two qualities, one of which is a prerequisite for the other. The paper demonstrates that the prerequisites for this quality differ from the quality itself, but are included in it in a transformed and subordinate form. This leads some researchers to misunderstand the essence of this quality and reduce this essence to the essential aspects of the preceding quality, in spite of the fact that some evolutionists recognized the existence of irreducibility between the two qualities under consideration. Representatives of dialectical monism find a leap in this transition, a turning point, resulting in a change in the quality and its essence, which is revealed precisely in this quality and not in its prerequisites. In this article, the relationship between the two qualities is presented as a relationship between physiology and culture. Physiology is one of the prerequisites for human nature, but the main prerequisite is social labour that creates culture.