Philosophical Foundations Of Culture Medicalization[Философские Основания Медикализации Культуры]

Introduction. The increasing mediation of human life by medicine necessarily raises the question of philosophical understanding the phenomenon of culture medicalization, since today the vector of growing powerful influence of medicine on forming sociocultural processes has clearly emerged. Along with the positive phenomena of the medicalization of life, the volume of “excessive” phenomena of its medicalization is growing. The purpose of the article is to clarify the philosophical foundations of the progressive medicalization of modern culture. Methods. The methodological basis of the study is presented by dialectical, epistemological, axiological, philosophical-anthropological, and socio-philosophical approaches. The study is based on E. Cassirer’s transcendental philosophy, the phenomenological transcendentalism of E. Husserl; V.S. Stepin’s concept about the system of informational social codes; and P.D. Tishchenko’s concept on the transformation of bio-power in modern culture. Scientific novelty of the research. The author outlines fundamental foundations of modern culture medicalization as a result of mutually similar processes of transforming bio-power and the progress of biomedical sciences. Results. Unfolding, culture compensated for the bodily weakness of a person with the power of his technical inventions, but today they have surpassed the intellectual capabilities of their creator - the individual has to permanently adapt to the growing volume of mass technogenic innovations. The historically formed human need to master the world through its “humanization” is suppressed, and, as a result, the problem of a modern individual’s request for self-realization through the creative transformation of the social environment is actualized. In this regard, one of the philosophical and anthropological foundations of modern culture can be recognized as a technogenically determined desire of a person to transform his own corporeality, aimed at expanding the capabilities of a natural person. Biomedical sciences, as a result of biotechnological progress, turned out to be exactly the social and scientific sphere, which, building up practical activities within the framework of healthcare, considers the person to be both the subject and the object of the biosocial transformation demanded by cultural evolution. Conclusions. The process of medicalization of culture occurs on the basis of two reciprocal fundamental processes: first, the strengthening of the principles of bio-power as “care for all forms of life”; secondly, the progress and technologization of scientific medicine, which in practice provides a socio-cultural demand for a modern prosperous individual.