Philosophy of culture and culture science: differences in approaches

The article analyzes the formation of the philosophy of culture as a personal self-consciousness of a free subject. The author assigns a special role to I. Kant, comparing his understanding of the nature of man with the conception of “natural man” in J.-J. Rousseau. It is Kant that proceeds from the destiny of mankind as not only a physical, but also a moral kind, the goal of which is not personal happiness, but cultural self-improvement in the light of moral ideal. The article shows the features of the logical and methodological substantiation of scientific knowledge of an individual cultural fact by the neo-Kantian H. Rickert. In turn, the neo-Kantian E. Cassirer argued that culture has not a substantial (physical or mental), but a functional nature in connection with a person’s ability to create symbolic reality. The article reveals the difference between the concept of culture in culture science of the 20th century and the reflexive idea of culture in philosophy.