Sense and Values. On the Criticism of the Theory of Values in Modern Philosophy
The article criticizes, from the perspective of ontological guideposts of major fields of modern philosophy, «axiological reasoning» as an attempt to present values as the universal foundation of human life and culture. The main implication of modern philosophy is that language is an intermediary of sense. From this perspective, values can neither have an ontological status nor give a direct reflection of existence. They express limitations of a subject's symbolic positioning in relation to the sense of existence and result from disintegration of meaning. Meaning (sense) fundamentally precedes importance (value). Universal axiology has its own socio- cultural background: it expresses the mentality of the capitalist era, which gave the individual the right to evaluate and appropriate benefits. In terms of history and philosophy, universal axiology does not distinguish between the two diametrically opposed attitudes to welfare: as a gift or grace of life (Antiquity and the Middle Ages) or a value (the bourgeois epoch). The relation of sense and value can be considered as an existential antinomy where value is revealed as a sense subjectivized by culture. Devaluation of sense and its transformation into values is inevitable. In the modern world of «late capitalism» this process is going on increasingly fast. Philosophy, according to its critical mission, exposes the mythology of values and thus preserves the sense of human existence in culture.