O kulturze jako toposie socjologicznej kategorii świadomości

Abstract

The article presents alternative methods of expressing the category of consciousness in the context of its more general placement and relation to other sociological categories. The three categories that serve to describe the topos of consciousness form a kind of continuum. It appears in the following form: society–culture–network. The notion of culture is treated here as one of referents determining the consciousness phenomena in the social world. Generally speaking, this continuum illustrates the transition from nature to culture, for the latter has become a significant category, which enables describing man through what he creates, not only as an element of the naturalistically perceived society. On the other hand, in the most recent concepts of the shape of all-society relations, it is worth noticing that the relations do not only develop within a given society or a given culture, but take on the form of hyper-social relations, that is relations that, to a large extent, escape the natural and cultural affiliation. Consciousness phenomena are thus situated in purely social relations and interpersonal relations networks.