Philosophicalanalysis of U. Eko ideas on culture of postmodernity

The article is devoted to the work of the Italian philosopher, thinker, writer and publicist Umberto Eco. The subject of the study are the features of the culture of postmodernity, the means of mass communication and their influence on culture, revealed in the philosophical writings of U. Eco. As a general context of the article consideration is paid to the dynamics of the functioning and interaction of the two intellectual currents of the past decade of the twentieth century: modernism, corresponding to the new time, and postmodernism - formed within a new, remote from the academic style of thinking, literary scholarship. The philosophy of the Italian medievalist Umberto Eco is considered in connection with the literary analysis of his works of art, in the texts of which a combination of the ideas of modernism and postmodernism can be traced. It is shown that the influence of postmodernism, in turn, led to a rethinking of past ideas, in each of which Eco develops and uses aspects of the textual interpretation of the problem of the relationship between the text and its reader. Elements of the semiologic theory of U. Eco, which allow interpreting the processes taking place in the culture of the postmodern era as an ensemble of all known interpretations, are revealed. The author’s model in the novels of Eco gives rise to the reader’s model, which, being involved in the story becomes a “hostage” of the text, as a key moment of the joint process. Based on the study of later works, U. Eco shows that his concept of culture can serve as an effective methodological tool in analyzing the spiritual life of the information network society, and also helps to treat a huge spectrum of objects and events as certain signs and symbols. The article reveals the content of general trends in Eco’s creativity, such as archaization, temporal transitions, the game of consciousness, freedom of choice, interpretation, real apperception, eclecticism, alarmism, anomie, virtualization of social reality that not only characterize the postmodern era, philosophy of Umberto Eco.