To explication of the issue of contemporaneity: general philosophical and cultural historical approaches

The term “contemporaneity” has a complicated diverse structure and axiological aspect of content, due to that, attempts to define it face difficulty. Mostly, the issue of contemporaneity is determined by the modernity of the instruments used to construct and reflect the coordinates of the modern world. The difficulty is also associated with the necessity to combine some concept of actual physical time, which is not simply individual, with its axiological content, significant for the majority. It causes the problem of the language of definition, and art, from our point of view, is solution. The object of the article is the explication of the issue of contemporaneity including the aspect of its construction, based on the comparative analysis of classic and modern philosophical concepts. The authors admit the possibility to find a synthetic definition of the term “contemporaneity” and the explication of the issue of contemporaneity in philosophy by means of two approaches, defined as general philosophical (contemporaneity is considered a historical situation, the issue is identified through its axiological content) and historical cultural (the idea of contemporaneity is also defined through art practice). The authors propose that art with its autonomy makes it possible to use the unique complete language of description/ construction of contemporaneity as time and existential subjectivity defined in its actual uncertainty. This proposition is criticized by the authors as well. To reach the goal, the authors consider basic content of the concepts within general philosophical approach (Hegel, Nietsche, Heidegger, Spengler and others), and historical cultural approach (Baudelaire, Habermas, Groys and others), by means of approving the use of art practice, firstly, by forming the idea of contemporaneity in art sphere, and, secondly, by the functional aspect of art sphere considered through the concept of autonomy of art. The authors' analysis is based on the philosophy of Boris Groys. One of the main issues is implied in the way he develops the logic of contemporaneity as link between art creating it and cultural historical process. The division between approaches was caused not only by the idea of distinguishing concepts considering contemporaneity from general ontological perspective and through art practice, but also by the necessity to identify the main aspects forming the idea of contemporaneity.

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