Things in culture: stuff that change the world

This article analyses the contemporary discourse of the philosophical comprehension of sense and preposition of material objects in social life, with special emphasis on necessity of conceptual clarification the basic notions and their terminological significances in science of things. From an anthropological perspective, this article will critically analyze he things as specific cultural reality. The social and symbolic nature of things are inscribed and interlinked in the historiographical comparison and on the base of semiotic explanations. Author considers the different aspects of existence of things in culture by the material patterns and in the limits of current theoretical knowledge. It is distinguished such concepts as thing, object, subject and artefact in cognitive analysis of material culture. It is necessary not only to distinguish thing as object, but also to show thing as sign and symbol of human relations. The sense of thing is wider than self-thing as one is not only matter, but also thing is that we are thinking about it, how using it and how understand it. An anthropological approach to interpretation of material objects enables to explain the thing as carrier and image of human qualities. The data show that things as important means of cultural changes must be carefully considered in context of urgent tasks of social management.