Balagushkin, Yu. E. Edward Tiryakian’s Religious Metacultures

Abstract: In his introductory article to the translation of the work written by an American sociologist and cultural philosopher Edward Tiryakian ‘Three metacultures of modernity: Cristian, Gnostic, Chthonic’, Balagushkin provides a general description of Tiryakian’s creative work (his woks are not that popular in our country) and describes the basic terms and concepts in Tiryakian’s ‘Three metacultures of modernity’ - ‘society of modernity’ and ‘metaculture’. Balagushkin also analyzes the role and the meaning of the phenomenon of culture in Edward Tiryakian’s researches, definition of ‘metaculture’ and functional features of the religious metacultures – Christianity, Gnosticism and Paganism. Based on Tiryakian, the dynamics and variety of cultures are viewed from the point of view of the cultural-historical, functional and structural-analytical approaches and the search for philosophical and anthropological aspects of works by the American philosopher. At the end of the article Balagushkin concludes that Edward Tiryakian’s concept presents an original religion-oriented version of philosophical anthropology where human is the target and actor of changes in culture and society. Human nature is the immanent ground of the socio-cultural dynamics in the historical perspective.

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