The universe of signs. Culture and civilization opposition

The opposition of the categories of culture and civilization lies deep in Russian historiosophy. A particular discourse established serves as a regular environment for such a contradiction. The philosophical and cultural consensus in this regard is based on works of F. Tönnies, O. Spengler, and N. Berdyaev. Such discourse was available due to the domination of organicism and essentialism presumptions. These strategies are obsolete nowadays. An attempt is made to consider the phenomenon of civilization from the perspective of current presumptions of textualism and constructivism which allow one to upgrade the opposition between culture and civilization. A new discourse is grounded on the ideas of E. Cassirer focusing on culture as a metatext and the universe of symbols. Civilization is defined as the universe of signs.