The complexity of culture in the perspective of object-oriented ontology

Opolev Pavel Valer'evich ORCID: 0000-0001-8313-0975 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor; Department of History, Philosophy and Social Communications; Omsk State Technical University 81 Prospekt Mira str., Omsk, 644080, Russia pvo-sinergetica@rambler.ru

The concept of "complexity" is commonly used and is actively used within the framework of philosophy and science. At the same time, interest in the conceptual content of the concept of "complexity" and the forms of its representation arose not so long ago. For a long time, the word "complex" played the role of an expressive means, an epiphenomenon for describing a variety of heterogeneous phenomena. The conceptualization of the concept of "complexity" was facilitated not only by the development of a systematic approach, cybernetics, computing and synergetic concepts, but also by socio-cultural transformations of the modern world. The researchers note that complexity is a significant factor determining the socio-cultural dynamics of the modern world. The metaphor of the "escaping" complex world (E. Giddens) becomes a marker of our present: a nonlinear, elusive, uncertain reality. In this context, complexity and the processes of complication can be considered as important categories for understanding modernity, requiring attention to the forms of their representation from both science and philosophy.

Within the framework of modern philosophy, there is a rethinking of classical cultural and modern philosophy attitudes and cultural and ideological orientations. The worldview reversal is based on criticism of anthropocentrism, interest in plurality and posthuman experience. An example is the philosophical position of "flat ontologies", which challenges a number of well–established oppositions: animate – inanimate, culture - nature, subject-object, etc. Within the framework of a flat ontology, on the one hand, there is a "flattening" of the existence of objects, the denial of differences between objects of nature and culture, and, on the other hand, the recognition of their permanent complexity. This kind of methodological perspective opens up new perspectives not only in the conceptual understanding of the phenomenon of diversity, but also in the study of the complexity of culture. Within the framework of this work, we propose to turn to the study of the phenomenon of complexity in culture, based on the key provisions of modern "flat ontology" presented within the framework of the object-oriented ontology project (hereinafter LLC). In the description of the initial installations of LLC, we will rely on the works of G. Harman, L. R. Bryant and T. Morton. The initial intention of the work is the statement that complexity is not only an abstract category for describing ontic diversity, but also a significant cultural phenomenon, a factor that allows us to deepen our understanding of the nature of cultural diversity, to fix the practices of its human experience. The logic of the work involves the reflection of the concept of "complexity", the reconstruction of the basic concepts of LLC and the identification of their heuristic potential in describing diversity and cultural complexity.

The concept of "complexity" (as well as the concept of "simplicity") includes many aspects and possible contexts within which it can be productively explored ^[16]. The concept of "complexity" is an umbrella term, a metaprinciple reflecting our attitude to ontic diversity (the diversity of the objective-sensory world), ontological (the variety of types of existence) and epistemological uncertainty (the variety of cognitive situations) and including a variety of discourses. Complexity can be considered as a principle that ensures diversity: the multidimensional structure of an object, a variety of internal and external connections. As D. R. Weinbaum notes, "it is not unity and uniformity that are interesting in complexity, but uniqueness, diversity and how individual phenomena arise" ^{[2, p. 319]}. An important role in understanding complexity is played by the identification of objective and subjective interpretations of it. Objective complexity is becoming a subject of study in the context of natural sciences, especially within the framework of modern concepts of synergetic type and complexity theories. Subjective complexity is associated with human activity (including cognitive and cultural). At the same time, we are talking not only about spiritual, but also material human activity. Currently, the dominant approaches to complexity are aggregative and system-synergetic approaches. In the context of the aggregative approach, complexity is seen as a set of coexisting elements, connections, and relationships. The systemic synergetic approach to complexity emphasizes emergence and holism in assessing certain phenomena as complex.

Models of conceptualization of complexity in modern science are presented much more often than studies in the field of philosophy of complexity. The term "complexity paradigm" belongs to E. Morin, who was one of the first to draw attention to the comprehensive "challenges of complexity" ^{[1, p. 181]}. The disciplinary organization of scientific knowledge has heuristic capabilities for the discriptive analysis of certain types of complexity, while the consistent reconstruction of the phenomenon of complexity requires the researcher to rely on philosophy and philosophical research methods. Interest in complexity, indeed, contributes to a "paradigm shift" in scientific thinking ^{[2, p. 320]}, but attempts to reduce complexity to natural science or systemic interpretations are considered counterproductive. Despite the fact that the active study of the phenomenon of complexity takes place within the framework of modern post-non-classical scientific rationality (for example, within the framework of "complexity theories", computing), the experience of experiencing complexity is immanent in culture. We believe that a person encounters diversity earlier than systems. At the same time, the "practices" of complexity, the experience of experiencing diversity in various specialized forms of culture, were not actually given attention. This is where the problem arises of finding relevant strategies and methods that allow us to constructively comprehend the idea of diversity and complexity in a broad historical and cultural perspective.

Despite the fact that we feel the world to be super-complex, the concept of "complexity" should not be used to describe the present exclusively. On the contrary, we believe that complexity is a cultural phenomenon that encompasses all stages of the historical and cultural development of mankind. At all times, a person experiences fear of natural, cultural and social diversity, tries to see in this diversity a hidden unity that ensures stability and harmony. In science, natural and socio-cultural diversity has been interpreted as ontologically different. The connection between nature and culture, if considered, was mainly seen as instrumental and utilitarian. Natural diversity was conceived as the action of universal, universal, impersonal forces that proceed without human participation. Sociocultural diversity, in turn, was interpreted as something alien, created during the active activity of a person, reflecting his needs and interests. Nature is deprived of subjectivity and is imputed to man for use. Natural objects are evaluated only to the extent that they are significant to humans. As a result, a dichotomy has developed: on the one hand, an impersonalistic, passive nature, and, on the other hand, an active, active, thinking subject, a carrier of value systems.

In fact, man has never experienced sociocultural diversity separately from natural diversity. A person deals with a variety of natural and cultural objects. Interest in such phenomena contributed to the development of actor-network theory in the 20th century, which seeks to describe reality as a relational network of actors (agent realism of B. Latour). The idea of the absence of a distinction between human and non-human actors contributes to the assertion of ideas about symmetry between natural and socio-cultural objects (for example, machines and social structures) and man.

The idea that not only people, but also all things have activity is not new in itself (for example, the ideas of "hylozoism", "panpsychism", etc.), but is undergoing its reinterpretation in the context of the development of a number of areas of "new ontologies". One of these areas of "new ontologies" is LLC. It seems to us that LLC allows us to draw significant conclusions for understanding diversity, complexity in general and complexity of culture in particular, to outline alternative models for describing sociocultural diversity. Within the framework of LLC, the diversity experienced by a person includes human and "non-human" selves, real and fictional objects that are not deducible from human existence. Nature demonstrates activity, and culture becomes a space for the action of spontaneous impersonalistic forces.

Object-oriented ontology is a modern trend in philosophy that challenges a number of attitudes that have developed in modern continental philosophy (correlationism, anthropocentrism, holism) and dichotomies (for example, the subject-object dichotomy). LLC returns philosophy to ontological problems, asserts the ideas of the fundamental incompleteness of reality, the permanent complexity of being, but at the same time denies any predetermined unity of the world, offering a model of radical democratization of existence ^{[3, p. 287]}.

Omitting the details of the historical prerequisites for the emergence of LLC, we note that the founders of this philosophy pay special attention to the philosophy of Aristotle, B. Spinoza, G. V. Leibniz, I. Kant, A. N. Whitehead, E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, J. Derrida, B. Latour. The rich theoretical background does not deprive it of novelty, but raises questions about borrowing key ideas. The emergence of LLC is associated with the works of G. Harman, in which "correlationism" is criticized and the philosophy of speculative realism is affirmed. G. Harman himself sees in LLC an all-encompassing method having an interdisciplinary nature ^{[4, p. 246]}. In the work of F. The Ferro-philosophical position of G. Harman is considered as a form of "objectocentrism", which returns modern philosophy to some insights of representatives of ancient cosmocentric philosophy ^{[5, p. 568]}. According to T. Lemke, LLC rediscovers "subjectivism", ^[6]. According to D. Clinchi, LLC is a non-anthropocentric attempt to build an ontology ^{[7, p. 285]}, to create a universal meta-narrative ^{[7, p. 289]}. In P. Wolfendale's work "Object-oriented philosophy. New Clothes of the Noumenon" LLC is understood as a direct successor to correlationism, is considered as a "noumenal cosmology", which in the future could form the "core of neo-animistic theology" ^{[8, p. 339]}.

Within the framework of LLC, we discover the desire to comprehend philosophy in the spirit of classical metaphysics, to make it universal and universal. One of G. Harman's key works is called "Object-oriented Ontology: a new theory of everything". In this work, a study of the key principles of LLC is proposed ^{[4, p. 11]}. The philosophy of LLC, according to G. Harman, offers a new intellectual landscape based on several key ideas: the idea of equality of all objects, be they human, natural and cultural; the idea of the fundamental non-identity of an object and its properties (the essence of a thing cannot be reduced to relations with other objects ^{[4, p. 91]}) the idea of the existence of two types of objects (real and sensory objects); the idea of the absence of a direct connection between real objects (an indirect connection, exclusively through a sensory object); the idea of real and sensory properties of objects.

The idea of the multiplicity of being is reinforced in the work of L. R. Bryant. In the work "Democracy of objects" L. R. Bryant suggests highlighting several key theses of LLC (he himself prefers to use the term "onticology") ^{[3, p. 32]}.

The first thesis is aimed at criticizing correlationism, the philosophy of direct access to things, which excludes the possibility of thinking about an object outside of its conjugacy with the subject. According to N. Yang, correlationism is a form of antirealism ^{[9, p. 43]}, which reduces philosophy to epistemology, questions about human access to being. According to L. R. Bryant, objects are operationally closed, "no object directly collides with any other object" ^{[3, p.137]}. All objects are characterized by "withdrawal", are not reducible to their relationships, qualities and are fundamentally inaccessible to cognition in the totality of their properties. According to G. Harman, there is a "gap" between "the real and the sensual and between objects and their qualities" ^{[10, p. 15]}. Even if the surfaces of two objects come into physical contact with each other, the objects themselves do not do this, because the objects are not identical to their surfaces. As a result, the classical understanding of cause-and-effect relationships becomes somewhat questionable. However, as S. D. Davis notes, the argument of the supporters of LLC does not look convincing, although it is obvious that not every property of a thing participates in each of its causal interactions ^{[11, p. 107]}. Ideas about the status and properties of objects ("hyperobjects") are deepened and expanded in the works of T. Morton, who identifies five of their essential characteristics: viscosity, nonlocality, temporal undulation, phasing, and interobjectivity.

For LLC representatives, the relationships between objects are selective: objects are sensitive to one relationship and insensitive to others. Any relationship between objects always occurs in "terms of its own special organization" ^{[3, p. 154]}. In the work of L. R. Bryant, networks of exo-relations between objects are mentioned, which are carried out through local manifestations of objects ^{[3, p. 173-174]}, which, in turn, "construct their environments" ^{[3, p. 205]}. In his works, L. R. Bryant called for thinking about existence in terms of collectives and intertwining actors, which are fundamentally not reducible to the relationship between people and objects.

The second thesis of LLC denies the existence of the "world" as a predestined reality of the "superobject". As L. R. Bryant notes, there is also no universal environment ("systems are boundaries" ^{[3, p. 171]}), which includes objects. We have a potentially infinite number of "withdrawn" environments, defined by the existence of individual objects. The complexity of the world in this context is also an abstraction and is determined not by the constituent elements, but by the networks of endowments of individual objects that control the organization and constitute the environment. Everything is both a part and a whole at the same time. According to L. R. Bryant: "the substantiality of objects is hidden not in their parts, but in their structure or organization" ^{[3, p. 250]}.

The third thesis denies the need to secure a privileged place in existence for man (and humanity). According to T. Morton, "non-human beings", hyperobjects have a much greater impact on human history than is commonly believed. At the same time, this thesis is not proposed to be interpreted nihilistically: it is not supposed to abandon man, but to rethink his role in being. The goal is not to neglect the value of a person, but to rethink his modernist interpretation, in which the object is always conjugated ("correlated") with the subject's thinking, language, and culture in general. Anthropocentrism is considered as a consequence of correlationism, which puts a person in the place of God ^{[3, p. 40]}, exhausts the properties and characteristics of an object with "human semiotics" ^{[12, p. 65]}. A similar position is voiced by representatives of the philosophy of "new materialism" (D. Bennett, D. Haraway, M. Delanda, etc.). According to G. Yovanovich, the philosophy of "new materialism" is characterized by "a departure from focusing on human subjects and articulation of conceptual interests on non-human beings, even on inanimate objects and inorganic processes" ^{[13, p. 246]}.

The fourth thesis proclaims the ontological equality of all objects ("all substances are not the same, but equal" ^{[3, p. 73]}), regardless of their scale and correlation with man. G. Harman interprets the object extremely broadly: "everything that cannot be completely reduced to its component parts or to its effects on other things" ^{[4, p. 44]}. According to G. Harman, "our universe is made of objects that are wrapped in objects and so on" ^{[14, p. 76]}. In addition, as T. Morton notes in an interview, there is no whole, "there is only one thing, a thing is indivisible, it is not a whole" ^{[15, p. 103]}. Objects are not only physical things, but also fictional phenomena, as well as events. No type of object has a privileged position in existence, all entities exist on equal ontological grounds.

Thus, the inherent diversity of the world in the context of LLC is considered through the constitution of the existence of a multitude of unrelated objects (G. Harman), collectives (L. R. Bryant), grids (T. Morton) of "gaps" between objects and their qualities. LLC proclaims ontological egalitarianism, points to the agency of objects, the identity of human and "non-human" beings. Such representations remove the dichotomy of subject and object, nature and culture, assert an extra-hierarchical, infinite variety of types of existence. Within the framework of LLC, we find not only a critique of correlationism, but also the assertion of the idea of the identity of human and "non-human" beings (an idea common to "flat ontologies") and the recognition of an infinite variety of types of existence (and its properties) that are not part of any predetermined hierarchy.

Supporters of LLC speak out against the substitution of ontology with epistemology, criticize holism (in favor of mereology) ^{[3, p. 71; 4, p. 11]} and the principle of universal connection ^{[3, p. 75]}. A red thread through the reasoning of the representatives of the LLC is the criticism of the focus of the philosophy of modernity on the subjective, human and cultural. This attitude of LLC, aimed at criticizing various kinds of "turns" (linguistic, cultural, discursive, etc.), approaches the views of representatives of the "new materialism" (D. Bennett, D. Haraway, M. Delanda, etc.).

The consistent reconstruction of the philosophy of the "new ontologies" in general and LLC in particular, as well as their criticism (quite extensive), is a separate problem that deserves independent work. Approaches to the representation of diversity, assessment of complexity and possible interpretations of the phenomenon of cultural complexity are important for us. The heuristic potential of LLC in understanding the complexity of culture and complexity in culture requires additional discussion.

Firstly, LLC implies the recognition that all objects are complex. According to G. Harman: "all the objects that we encounter are just inventions, simplifications, models of much more complex objects" ^{[4, p. 30]}. According to L. R. Bryant, "the surrounding world of any system is more complex than itself" ^{[3, p.145]}. The denial of the real existence of such an object as the "world" does not exclude its complexity for humans. In this context, it turns out that the concept of "culture" should be thought of either as an environment – a derivative of other objects, or as an immaterial or even fictional object. The conclusion is that every animal has its "own" nature and every human has its "own" culture. However, in reality this applies only to representations, local manifestations of nature and culture. Within the framework of LLC, we deal with the "translation" of nature and culture, but never directly with them. If we consider that the objects within the LLC create their own environment, then the diversity of nature is reflected in the complexity of animals (which is confirmed within the framework of evolutionary epistemology, strategies of enactivism), and the complexity of culture turns out to be associated with the complexity of the person himself and his experience of experiencing diversity.

At all times, man has dealt with a variety of specifically sensual things and phenomena, the properties of which go beyond the boundaries of sensory cognition. For the bearer of a mythological worldview, the experience of a "gap" between objects and their qualities accessible to sensory perception is especially characteristic. The pre-reflexive worldview carried out the assimilation of diversity, overcoming the "gap" through the introduction of mythical and anthropomorphic schemes. For primitive man, the forest was not thought of as a receptacle of natural deterministic laws, since man did not separate himself from nature. The formation of theistic religions, the development of logic and metaphysics make it possible to express conditional diversity on a qualitatively different level. On the one hand, this circumstance contributed to simplification: the logical and conceptual development of reality made it possible to describe the diversity and properties of an object in generally valid concepts and categories. On the other hand, concepts and categories immerse a person in the world of intelligible objects, binary oppositions that contribute to the complication of the spiritual world of man.

Secondly, cultural diversity includes many tangible and intangible objects that have been created with the active participation of humans. We are surrounded by a lot of real, but at the same time immaterial things, relationships, which, in turn, constitute culture. However, we strive to "impose" an instrumental function on these objects, to reduce them to the importance they have for man and humanity. Following the logic of LLC, we can say that culture is closely related to man, but its objects have a being that does not depend on the representation of our mind. In reality (including cultural) there is always something elusive. Thus, LLC offers us a variant of mapping cultural diversity, in which objects and events, as noted by Ya. Bogost, "live their own lives" ^{[15, p. 113]}.

The recognition that objects are not limited to their relationships and significance for a person also brings us back to the receptions of the mythological worldview. As G. Harman notes, "fiction is an integral part of human experience and the living world as a whole" ^{[4, p. 30]}. Abstract theoretical understanding of complexity takes place within the framework of ancient philosophy, however, understanding complexity requires reconstruction of its non-theoretical receptions, which go beyond the boundaries of the first theoretical models of reality (given, for example, in the philosophy of atomism).

A person's "experience" of complexity goes beyond the boundaries of science and can be described as an extra-theoretical response to the problems of diversity. A person has to reckon with complexity, considering it as an important factor determining the key aspects of his own being. As L. Levi-Bruhl notes, in the myth "mysterious forces are always felt as being present everywhere" ^{[17, p. 291]}. In this context, it is not a matter of principle: whether these forces are material or ideal (or even fictional), in the context of LLC they have an equivalent existence. Thus, K. G. Jung notes that myths are primarily mental phenomena that cannot be reduced to attempts at objective cognition of reality. According to C. G. Jung: "All mythologized natural processes, such as summer and winter, moon phases, rainy seasons, and so on, are not so much an allegory of objective phenomena as symbolic expressions of the inner unconscious drama accessible to human consciousness through projection, that is, reflection in natural phenomena" ^{[18, p. 11]}.

The external experience of a person turns out to be associated with internal, mental experiences, but the subject is considered as objective. In this experience, human and "non-human" selves coexist, each of which can be a carrier of characteristics that cannot be deduced from their specific sensory properties of objects. For example, primitive consciousness bifurcates and complicates reality, when faced with uncertainty, through experiencing the "other" in things (mana, pneuma, ether, life force, etc.). The "Other" is localized in the entire ontic diversity of the world, including animate and inanimate objects, nature and culture. The need to reckon with the "other" finds its expression in the forms of symbolic human activity (for example, in rituals), which, in turn, is reflected in specialized forms of culture. In other words, we believe that complexity, as an experience of experiencing diversity, is a collision of the human and the "non-human", objective and subjective world, going beyond the boundaries of psychological reaction to uncertainty, its abstract theoretical and empirical receptions.

Thirdly, LLC assumes the idea of ontological equality of all objects. Currently, we still proceed from the fact that nature is a space of objective deterministic laws, and culture is a space of value systems. Nature and culture are seen as incommensurable. At the same time, culture, society and nature have always created complex networks of relationships and interactions. It seems to us that for a person (as an object), in fact, it makes no difference what kind of diversity he experiences: natural or cultural. In this sense, the metaphor of the "stone jungle" illustrates this idea. You can get lost in the forest, in the city, in relationships between close people. Aesthetically similar feelings can be evoked by the natural landscape or the space of urban development. Nature and culture are not the same, but they are a receptacle of equivalent objects. At the same time, objects should not be considered solely as a kind of screens through which a person projects his own being. As G. Harman notes in this regard: "for people of the modern era (and this applies to us at the beginning of the XXI century), the danger lies in the fact that we have a model with people on one side and everyone else on the other" ^{[4, p. 57]}. This requires recognition of the need to pay attention not only to humans, but also to non-human beings, the "non-human" experience of experiencing diversity.

The rich anthropological and ethnographic material clearly shows that man was involved in communication not only with his own kind, but also with natural objects, animals, spirits of the dead, various kinds of deities. Communication in this case assumed a variety of ontological orders that existed according to their own laws. If in science nature was thought of as a simple, impersonal, "undergoing" object of knowledge, then in the mythological worldview the cosmos was revealed as a complex active subject, whose existence is not determined by human aspirations and intentions. At the same time, within the framework of the myth, the active subject is not only nature (an integral part of various cultural practices), but also gods, various kinds of spiritual entities.

Recognition of the permanent multiplicity and, as a result, the complexity of the world beyond the human world, finds its development within the framework of the models of "ontologies" of indigenous peoples presented in the works of F. Descola, E. Kona and E.V. de Castro ^[19-22]. The complexity of culture is revealed through the recognition of the subjectivity of a number of "non-human beings", each of whom has its own unique "perspective". In this case, it turns out that there is no separate human or "non–human" world, and complexity is not an objective category, but a subjective one, reflecting the variety of communicative situations in which a person is involved with "non-human" reality, without having exclusive rights to it. The complexity of culture and nature in this context turns out to be related to the variety of communicative acts that human and "non-human beings" build up among themselves. In these acts, the subjects actively communicate, carrying out mutual "translation".

The sociocultural complexity of modernity turns out to be set not so much by natural diversity, but by the diversity of technical and social systems that act as those very "non-human" beings with whom we are forced to communicate. Social structures and technical systems have a reality that is related to a person, but cannot be deduced from human needs and expectations. This kind of fetishization of things (and, as a result, the dehumanization of man) finds its development within the framework of the aforementioned "new materialism" (for example, in the works of D. Bennett, D. Haraway), which asserts the hidden agent potential of things and constitutes their ability to manifest themselves as independent and free. According to D. Haraway: "our machines are frighteningly alive, and we ourselves are frighteningly inert" ^{[23, p. 153]}.

In an earlier study, we have already identified many interrelated, but not identical perspectives on understanding the phenomenon of cultural complexity ^[24]. Avoiding details, we note that despite the diversity, such perspectives are associated with current achievements of science and philosophy, the use of various kinds of analogies, which, in turn, were interpreted as the basis for the corresponding models of culture. The vicissitudes in the development of science and philosophy were reflected in various concepts of culture and the assessment of its complexity.

The development of natural science stimulated the transfer of mechanistic and organistic metaphors to society, culture and man. Thus, against the background of interest in the ideas of mechanics and evolutionism, the logic of being and the complexity of culture was seen in the corresponding analogies of living and inanimate nature. The interest in sign-symbolic systems also contributes to the active use of appropriate analogies. Culture begins to be considered by analogy with sign-symbolic systems, turns into a semiosphere (Y. M. Lotman), a space of texts (R. Barth, J. Derrida). The development of a systematic approach and synergetics within the framework of post-non-classical science and modern philosophy contributed to the formation of ideas about culture as an open, complex self-developing system. In the context of systemic synergetic interpretations of culture (M. S. Kagan), the complexity of culture is considered through the dialectic of such concepts as "order" and "chaos", "organization" and "disorganization", etc. The complexity of a person (as well as human society as a whole), according to M. S. Kagan, is not purely quantitative: "the essence of man is heterogeneous, he belongs to nature, society, and culture, inconsistently combining his material being with the spiritual, natural with the extra-natural, super-natural, and in a certain sense, anti-natural" ^{[25, p. 359]}.

Within the framework of these models, complexity is a predominantly objective category that characterizes the structure of culture, using an appropriate analogy. Thus, an organism (unlike a mechanism) is characterized by complexity, self-regulation, self-organization, and temporality. The complexity of the organism turns out to be distributed over time, while the complexity of the mechanism is predominantly spatial. Symbolic constructions are often seen as a source of cultural unity: historically changeable, but preserving the connection between different time stages of cultural development.

It is noteworthy that in the assessment of culture, analogies are actively used that characterize significant achievements of philosophy and science, which are based on theoretically established ideas about diversity. Mechanistic, organistic and systemic-synergetic metaphors (with all known differences) contribute to the universalization of ideas about the diversity and complexity of culture: culture is an impersonal, complex, but, in general, an integral, hierarchical system. Cultural diversity in these contexts offers different variants of the structure and temporal characteristics of culture, but still assumes that culture is fully accessible for human cognition and development. Cultural diversity is seen as a reflection of the creative potentials of the person himself. Human existence sets the complexity of nature and culture on an unconditional scale. This position differs from the installation of an LLC. In his interview, J. Bogost notes that "sciences are becoming more and more correlationist, oriented outward rather than inward, concerned with human application of innovations more than nature ^{[15, p. 115]}. As L. R. Bryant notes, criticizing the anthropocentric attitude: "the world becomes a mirror in which we do not recognize our reflection" ^{[3, p. 34]}. At the same time, when getting acquainted with the works of representatives of LLC, you pay attention to the fact that they, postulating attention to posthuman experience, come to the active use of anthropomorphic terms to describe the hidden "life" of objects.

In the 20th century, it is planned to consider culture as a multiple text (within the framework of postmodernism), which contributes to the assertion of reality as decentered, fragmented and disordered, conditioned by linguistic structures. As a result, the attitude of modernity, which considers the subject as the center of the universe, is rethought ("decentralization"), the equivalence of all life forms is asserted, and man finds himself at the mercy of the structures that condition him. The world becomes a reflection of linguistic structures, epistemes (M. Foucault), which determine the features of the discursive space.

Ideas about nature and culture are revealed in a variety of epistemological perspectives and programs of modern philosophy. At the same time, a person is removed from this picture of the world, rises above the world, imposing his will on existence, receiving the status of "master of existence" (M. Heidegger). In the context of Modern philosophy, ideas have taken shape, according to which there is a person and the rest of the world is not identical to him. Even the popular idea of the coevolution of man, nature and culture, which is actively used at the present time (for example, in the framework of global evolutionism, synergetics), emphasizes special concern for the long-term interests of mankind. Indeed, there is an objective relationship between the complexity of man and the complexity of culture, which is dialectically revealed in the historical and cultural tradition. Specialized forms of culture, in turn, can be considered as a marker of cultural and cognitive complexity of a person. At the same time, this approach, as LLC shows, has a pronounced anthropocentric character, not taking into account the special role of "non-human beings" in revealing the complexity of man and culture.

The anthropocentric setting has an extensive historiography. Without going into details, we note that anthropocentrism has two distinct sides: the first implies recognition of the special position of man in the universe, and the second side emphasizes that the non-human world has value only to the extent that it affects human interests. The existing historical and philosophical analogies of culture (organism, mechanism, text, discourse, system, complex system, etc.) summarize the ideas of objective, structural complexity that has developed in Western European anthropocentric culture. E. Morin suggests talking about an "organizational homology" between the organization of nature, society and human consciousness. According to E. Morin, "not only humanity is a by-product of cosmic formation, but also space is a by-product of anthroposocial formation" ^{[1, p. 121]}. Nature within the framework of anthropocentrism is devoid of subjectivity. It never occurs to anyone to ask: does nature need co-evolution with culture and man?

Currently, within the framework of a number of modern areas of philosophy, there is a tendency to criticize anthropocentrism. I recall the thought of M. Heidegger, who argued that "A person will never come to himself (to his essence) in such a way that he imagines himself (to himself) – in the representation he "puts" himself exactly where he already stands" ^{[26, p. 398]}. In modern philosophy, there are concepts in which a person is inscribed into the world as one of the actors (B. Latour), an object (G. Harman, L. Bryant, T. Morton), or even a "compost" (D. Haraway). This kind of attitude finds its meaning within the framework of the ontological turn in modern anthropology (F. Descola, E. Kona and E.V. de Castro). In the context of "new ontologies", a person is considered as an object that, along with other objects, also turns out to be "withdrawn" and extremely free. However, LLC does not explain to us why, with an equal position in being, a person demonstrates much more success in transforming reality.

Recognizing the permanent complexity of reality, LLC mentions, but does not explain, the mechanism of complication processes, and also actively uses anthropomorphisms in describing the "life" of objects. In one of the works, G. Harman introduces a limit on the number of stages of development of any object. These stages are presented as follows: birth, overgrowth of bonds, withering and death ^{[27, p. 133]}. This kind of thought brings us back to the ideas of evolutionism. In the context of LLC, the issues of the dialectic of the one and many, simple and complex, remain unresolved, since all objects are considered complex and ontologically equivalent. In the logic of LLC, each object has its own unique history. It turns out that according to G. Harman, human history does not have a single logic, meaning and special value ^{[28, p. 22]}. At the same time, human history (not to mention nature) shows us the increasing complexity, the differences between simple and complex. From primitive society to the ancient polis, from the tribal system to the early feudal one, from the traditional society to the post—industrial one - all these are examples of sociocultural complication. The processes of development and progress are accompanied by processes of simplification and complication, the appearance of some objects and the disappearance of others. In addition, the "withdrawal" and isolation of objects calls into question the need to talk about culture in general. Culture in this case is considered as something secondary to the objects that stand behind it.

In the context of the LLC's achievements, there are a number of unresolved issues that need to be clarified. Thus, P. Wolfendale's work outlines the gloomy future of philosophy in a world in which the dominance of the object-oriented approach is achieved. According to P. Wolfendale, LLC plunges philosophy into the "dark age of conceptual abundance" (by analogy with the age of conceptual rigor of the Middle Ages), generates "speculative noise" ("speculative noise"), drowning out any coherent philosophical signal ^{[8, p. 339]}. According to D. Clinchy, the main problems of LLC are related to the attempt to create a "theory of everything", a "universal meta-narrative" ^{[7, p. 289]}. As T. Lemke notes, despite the odiousness of the LLC's provisions, empirical research and conceptual accuracy are lacking ^{[6, p. 18]}. Indeed, one expects precision and clarity from thinking about the nature of reality. Representatives of LLC actively use "fuzzy metaphors", speak out against "literalism" (as a simplification option), describing reality exclusively with the help of propositional statements ^{[4, p. 38]}. As G. Harman notes in his interview: "reality itself is not a thing that can be analyzed using a set of clear discursive statements" ^{[10, p. 93]}. Hence, there is an interest in art, aesthetics ("aesthetic experience" ^{[29, p. 59]}), and artistic forms of reflecting ideas. Thus, G. Harman devotes a separate work to the work of H. W. Lovecraft and the criticism of literalism. According to G. Harman, H. W. Lovecraft's fiction sometimes has more expressiveness in describing "gaps" in reality than the arguments of E. Husserl or M. Heidegger.

Summing up, we note that it is premature to draw final conclusions about the contribution of LLC to the development of philosophy. This is due to the fact that the provisions of the LLC are still actively developing, balancing between the desire for conceptual accuracy and metaphorization. At the same time, already at this stage, based on the key work of the representatives of the LLC, a number of intermediate conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, LLC is based on the recognition of the permanent complexity of being, given by an infinite variety of ontologically equal objects. The ontological egalitarianism of LLC destroys the hierarchical order of reality, claims to "liberate" things, approaching the attitudes of the new materialism. Secondly, within the LLC, there are no ontological differences between objects of nature and culture. The philosophy of LLC can be considered as an attempt to build a non-anthropocentric model of diversity (including cultural diversity), returning us to a number of classical philosophical problems (for example, to the problem of the one and the many, the medieval polemic between realists and nominalists). Thirdly, the criticism of correlationism within the framework of LLC requires recognition that culture as such is hidden from man, but can be considered as a consequence of local manifestations of many human and non-human, material, immaterial and even fictional objects. Within the logic of LLC, cultural objects exist by themselves, being autonomous from their relationships, which is a significant factor in determining the complexity of culture. The networks of relationships in which cultural objects are entangled do not exhaust their existence. Nature and culture (as "environments" or intangible objects), on the one hand, are always more than the sum of our ideas about them. On the other hand, the logic of LLC calls into question the existence of culture as a predetermined "superobject". Within the framework of LLC, we deal with numerous "translations" of cultural objects, but not with it itself. In general, the LLC approach opens up wide opportunities for mapping cultural diversity, gives the opportunity to "speak out" to "non-human" objects: not only individual things, but also entire socio-cultural systems. In turn, the practice of mastering diversity, which a person builds by "translating" reality (as an object), contributes to the affirmation of the anthropocultural aspect of complexity and the processes of complication.