Success as a main idea of modernity

The article is dedicated to the problem of external (informative, superficial) and internal (objective, consequential, relevant) success. In order to conceptualize success as a philosophical category the author applies a culturological approach. Along with success , article touches upon such accompanying categories as labor as a condition for achieving success and recognition as a factor that determines the images of reality. The author considers success as the main idea of human action. At the same time, success is considered of current interest due to certain disappointment of human beings with both socioeconomic and moral aspects of modernity. The author assumes that the main reason of social dissatisfaction consists in the conflict of (a) human spirit which strives to achieve internal transformative success, (b) human nature which seeks to satisfy material needs, (c) culture of thinking that recognizes informative success as materially actual, and (d) human action which seeks “consolation” in achieving external success.