Creative and Research Segments of European Humanism: Development of a Single Cultural Space

1 Introduction

The guidelines of modern European humanism regarding the development of a single cultural space dictate the need to systematize the cultural experience of the past. On the other hand, modern humanism leads to emphasising those assets that had transcultural significance, stimulating a creative and searching attitude to reality. Such a reaction to “reality” required significant efforts from the entire community of intellectuals, who – in one way or another – determined the essence of European humanism. The problem stated in this study requires, firstly, the definition of the “segment”, which can be considered as “the beginning – the organizing basis”, starting from which the dialogue of European cultures gradually intensified, and secondly, the outline of the most promising theoretical provisions that elicited appropriate support from representatives of the literary and artistic community. Thirdly, since each “segment” is associated with a personality, the non-intermediateness of which has clearly manifested itself in scientific or artistic fields, the material of research is consistently personalized, which makes it possible, so to speak, to humanize the developed theoretical construction (Kuksa et al., 2022).

The senso-life inquiry of the contemporary, intensified in postmodernity, is central to three soul-helping discourses – ethics, religion, and psychology. It is possible to consider the meaning of a contemporary᾽s life strategy from the standpoint of the competition of these discourses for a person, to ask questions about the specific features and limits of each of them, to be a “border guard” and to catch violators who go beyond their field and colonize the neighboring ones. The approach from the standpoint of dedifferentiation is different and is related to what is happening with the blurring of the boundaries of the three discourses (Shalagina, 2021). Today, a worldview mix of ethical, psycho technical and religious content has developed, with the leading role of ethics; after the crisis of the “great narratives” of modernism, a new sense-life narrative is being formed. The point of assembly here is a practical philosophy (ethics), which centers on physical, medical, spiritual, newly religious, spontaneous educational, and artistic practices (Seok et al., 2021).

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, two psychological currents emerged simultaneously in Europe, which was initiated by V. Wundt and F. Brentano (Hoop et al., 2022). Psychology of V. Wundt, free from metaphysical and aprioristic layers or philosophical disputes, which did not touch subjective intention. On the topic of intentional “realization” of psychology by V. Wundt, E. Husserl expressed the opinion that such an approach makes it impossible for psychology to exist in the full sense of the word: “Since in essence, if we are talking about the soul, then subjectivity is perceived as individual subjectivity, as impersonal subjectivity and impersonal life, or more broadly – as subjectivity that was inscribed in history and the social environment, and it will always be absurd to attribute to it an objectivity similar to the objectivity of modern natural sciences” (Goncharenko, 2014). From the standpoint of the development of a single cultural center of European humanism, this was of significant importance, because the very perception of the soul as an integral part of the human essence is an objective reflection of the development of social awareness of issues of human individuality in the context of the general cultural space (Romaniuk et al., 2022).

Contemporaries have the opportunity to observe a very diverse palette of concepts, institutions, and ideological content. The consistent use of the principles of skepticism allows for identifying peculiar “traps of consciousness” in the newly formed theory of modern humanism. At the same time, their development becomes possible only when the researcher enters the space of mental forms and limits himself to them (Konoplyov & Reshetnikov, 2012; Mozghovyi et al., 2021). There is nothing special in the secondary interpretation of what has already been said by authoritative people if the researcher periodically checks his conclusions with the phenomena of objective reality. The relevance of the mentioned topic of research consists in the definition of the phenomenon “metamodernism”, which in modern humanitarian knowledge and in literary and artistic practice determines the need to distinguish and analyze “segments” of European humanism as means of in-depth reproduction, nuance, and personalization of historical and cultural stages, in the context of the specified the systematization of the “movement” of segments from the middle of the 19th to the first two decades of the 21st century has theoretical weight. The purpose of the study is to identify the main advantages and disadvantages of the processes that had a significant impact on the development of a single cultural space.

2 Materials and Methods

The basis of the methodological approach in this study is the principles of historicism with the assignment of analytical, comparative, and chronological approaches to the determination of a wide range of issues that are of significant importance in the context of the stated topic. The main research is preceded by the creation of a theoretical base, which is formed from the results of the analysis of the scientific developments of some authors who have carried out their own research on a wide range of issues related to the definition of creative and searching segments of European humanism, which are important in the development of a single cultural center. The theoretical basis of the research is necessary for better coverage of the declared topic and for obtaining objective conclusions and results.

The analytical approach to highlighting the issues of the creative and searching segments of European humanism in the context of the development of a single cultural space consists in highlighting the problems of a separate segment as the “organizing basis” of humanism, with the determination of key development trends in the context of time. In addition, an important aspect in the context of the specified analytical approach is the assessment of the prospects for elaboration and activation of the introduction to the broad theoretical use of the term “segment” itself, as consonant with the formal-logical structure of certain historical and cultural stages of development.

The practical application of the comparative approach consists of the use of a comparative analysis of the real state and development in the context of the time of the creative and research segments of European humanities and the dynamics of their development in different European countries. The comparison takes place both in the context of the actual state of the issue being highlighted and in the perspective of historical development, starting from the middle and second half of the 19th century and up to the present time. At this stage, the possibilities of chronological analysis are added to the comparative analysis, because there is a comparison of the development trends of the English and French humanistic models of the past and past centuries, with the identification of common features and differences that are important from the point of view of highlighting the historical perspectives of the development of a single cultural space. The organic combination of the specified methods of scientific research allows qualitatively tracking the sequence of development of the key trends of European humanism in the combination of individual segments of this development, which generally determines the prospects for the formation of a single cultural center, in relation to the European countries considered in the study.

The qualitative expansion and clarification of the results obtained in this study are facilitated by their analytical comparison with the results and conclusions of other researchers who highlighted the issue of the development of a single cultural space, based on the study of the key trends in the development of humanities in developed European countries over time. The results obtained in this research, and the conclusions formulated on their basis, can be used in the future as a methodological basis for research in the field of development of the general cultural space of European humanities, and trends in the development of cultural consciousness, considering the general European experience.

3 Results

The problem presented in the subject of this study requires elaboration and activation of the introduction into wide theoretical use of the concept of “segment” – from the Latin Segmentum – a segment that corresponds to the formal and logical structure of the “historical and cultural stage”. In general, by and large, it is talking about a ratio, since a “stage” consists of a certain number of “segments”. The creative and exploratory nature of the “segments” identifies an appeal, in particular, to the experience of Franco-English humanism. Such a position has its reasons, among which, first of all, it can be emphasized their pronounced specificity: the cornerstone of French humanism is its dynamism, and constant attraction to change. In the French cultural space, both scientists and artists from other European countries adapted quite easily, and this, on the one hand, contributed to the establishment of a dialogue of cultures, and on the other hand, it did not bypass the factor of national identity. Unlike the French, the English model of humanism is “built” on traditionalism, where the principle of succession operates consistently. The research space of England is not characterized by either earth-shattering shifts or jumps nor “zones of silence”, when there is a pause in theoretical studies. If assume the possibility of such a pause, it would quickly and almost imperceptibly to an outsider’s eye be filled with the reflections of those who moved, so to speak, in the wake of a particular outstanding thinker. The thesis about the “segment” as “the beginning – the organizing basis” is demonstrably representative of the period between the middle of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries.

For French humanism, the second half of the 19th century, turned out to be a rather important, creative, and productive period thanks, first of all, to the philosophical and aesthetic, and artistic innovations of “O. Comte – I. Ten”. Since the influence of the philosophy of positivism on the scientific and artistic pursuits of Europeans has been comprehensively investigated and evaluated as having an impact on the orientation and reorientation of the contemporary European intellectual community, authors will focus on another tandem – “T. Gauthier – Ch. Baudelaire”, whose position acted as a “plastic bridge” in the process of implementing the Franco-English dialogue. Despite the lack of both personal and theoretical integrity, the lifestyle and theoretical ideas of Gauthier (1989) proved to be consonant with the creative atmosphere that was formed on French soil during the 40s and 50s of the 19th century. This feature is clearly confirmed by the theory of “art for art᾽s sake”, which is still interpreted according to the “either – or” principle, seeking in its provisions either a refutation of the social essence of art or a denial of its “mimesis” nature. In the projection of time, especially considering the attitude to the theory of “art for art᾽s sake” on the part of Baudelaire (1986), it becomes obvious that it was supposed to “protect” the aesthetic essence of art, allowing it to “liberate” human sensuality, which, in their opinion, was branded, so to speak, by the numerous functions that the artistic body had to “perform” composition. This is exactly what Gauthier (1989) tried to convey to his contemporaries: “We believe in the independence of art; art for us is not a means, but an end and an artist who strives for anything other than beauty is not an artist” (Gilbert & Kuhn, 2000).

“Liberation of sensuality” as a task for a “segment” of a specific historical and cultural stage also captivates Baudelaire (1986) – an outstanding poet and art theorist, who in “Salon-46” publishes material devoted to the paintings of Ara Schaeffer, used for their analysis and evaluation of the concept of “falsification of feelings”. Almost a hundred years after the publication of Baudelaire (1986), an outstanding English historian of science, philosopher, esthetician, and art theorist Collingwood (1999) in the monograph “Principles of Art” operates with the concept of “corruption of consciousness”, which he uses for the analysis of cultural ideas that have aesthetic, artistic and psychological “coloring”. The specificity of the “segment” that authors consider in connection with the concept of “corruption of consciousness” is that its content has not deviated from the “beginning – organising basis” to date, requiring consideration at an interdisciplinary level. Incidentally, it can be noted: when explaining his thesis, Collingwood (1999) uses the expression “corruption or untruth (lie) of consciousness”. “Corruption of consciousness” is a concept that is undoubtedly the author’s, although the first outlines of the idea of “behavioral bifurcation” of consciousness, as Collingwood (1999) notes, are found in Plato, Spinoza, and Freud. Collingwood᾽s “corruption of consciousness” – it became obvious not immediately – agrees with Baudelaire’s idea about “falsifiers of feeling”, and therefore – gives grounds to talk about a Franco-English “dialogue of ideas”, which, unfortunately, did not receive due attention understanding.

It should be emphasized that Collingwood (1999) in his monograph “Principles of Art” does not refer either to Baudelaire᾽s surname or to the construct “falsifiers of feeling”, so it can be assumed that he was not aware of Baudelaire’s article. However, the English theoretician operates with the concept of “falsification”, but he does not connect it with the problem of “sensation – feeling”, but touches only connection with the issue of “falsification in photography”. Baudelaire’s – sharply negative – attitude towards artists, who should be considered “falsifiers of feelings”, was made public in “Salon-46” and focused on the paintings of Ari Schaeffer (1795–1858), which in general, according to the poet, are liked by the public. Why then does the question arise about the falsification of feelings? First of all, it should be emphasized the relevance of the use of the concept of “falsification – from the Latin falcificare – forgery, deliberate distortion of facts” by S. Baudelaire. This concept is quite widely used in history and political science. In modern art studies, it is used – mostly – in a criminal context, when it comes to the forgery of works of fine art.

Among the examples of “falsification” outlined by Baudelaire (1986), it can be singled out those that are consistent with the concept of “corruption of consciousness”: the fallacy of the thesis about the possibility of planning the idea of creating a “poetic picture”; “painting and poetry are close to each other to the extent that poetry itself is able to evoke picturesque images in the soul of the reader”; “… great artists, relying on an unerring instinct, take only very picturesque visual images from poets”. It should be emphasized that Baudelaire (1986), focusing on a specific painter, whose work can serve as an example of “falsification”, is concerned not so much with the artist, but with the problem of “feelings” in general, which makes his position close to the reflections that Collingwood (1999) invests in the concept of “corrupted consciousness”, using a rather unexpected comparison: “… bringing a wild animal into the house, we hope to tame it, but when it turns out that it bites, we lose patience and let it go free. Our guest turned out not to be a friend, but an enemy”. Thus, there is every reason to consciously emphasize that between the theses “falsifiers of feelings” and “corruption of consciousness” there was a distance of almost a hundred years, which was needed for the “segment” to finally manifest itself.

4 Discussion

Continuing the search for arguments for introducing the concept of “corrupted consciousness” into theoretical use, Collingwood (1999) believes that one should first pay attention to “a certain feeling” and then “be aware of it.” This “awareness” can “frighten us, but not because the feeling as an impression turns out to be frightening, but because the idea into which we transform it is a frightening idea”. It is about the fact that feelings, according to Collingwood’s logic, should be set free just like a wild animal, switching attention to a new “sensation-feeling”: “I call it the “corruption” of consciousness because in such cases consciousness allows itself to bribe, distorts its function, switching from a difficult and dangerous task to something simpler”. Thus, the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce (1902) (1866–1952) publishes a thorough study “Aesthetics as a science of expression and as a general linguistics”, directly participating in the “linguistic” cultural “turn”. During the 1920s, R.J. Collingwood translated “Aesthetics …” into English, which helped popularize the aesthetic concept of B. Croce on English grounds (d’Ovidio & Cossu, 2017).

European cultural space of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is marked by fluctuations between the sensual and the rational, the conscious and the unconscious, and the development of fundamentally new directions in the development of art, where the “sensual” was equipped with the symbolism of Stephane Mallarmé (1842–1898), and the “rational” was mainly established thanks to the tandem “Comte-Zola”. The “naturalistic” novels of Emile Zola (1840–1902), which interpreted the French model of positivism, consistently actualized interest in natural knowledge, questions related to the problem of heredity, which in his works was articulated as “stupid heredity”, and demonstrated a clear focus on mental and physiological pathology. Positivism turned out to be a rather resonant system of philosophical views in the 70s and 90s of the 19th and early 20th centuries, declaring a new “segment” of European humanism, where the connection of positivism with its literary and artistic modification, acted as “the beginning – the organizing basis” in an independent “segment”, which to this day reproduces the traditions of “mimesis” art (Bennet, 2020; Podoliak, 2018).

In the first decades of the 20th century, the theoretical weight in this “segment” was transferred to “neo-positivism”, which most clearly declared itself on the English territory, and this proved that the Franco-English cultural dialogue gained new momentum, focusing attention on the development of “language” arts, the context of which included all literary genres. Avant-garde, which began to take shape in 1905, when an exhibition of “Fauvists” was held, led by Henri Matisse (1869–1954) – an outstanding French painter and art theorist, witnessed the emergence of a new “segment” that stimulated an active cultural dialogue in the field of “non-realistic” art (Koefoed, 2018). Construction of the concept of “non-realism” should emphasize not only the fact that avant-garde artists rejected realism, such as the novels of Honoré de Balzac, but also outline the trend of changing the paradigm of the aesthetic and artistic development of art. At the same time, avant-garde, having clearly declared itself, quickly began to demonstrate the process of internal instability and self-destruction: cubism and cubofuturism exhausted themselves, suprematism turned out to be tangential to abstractionism, and Dadaism “accepted” the role of an appendix to surrealism (Schrag, 2022; Zaporozhchenko et al., 2022).

However, avant-gardism moved almost in parallel with “modernism”, which demonstrated not only a noticeable stratification among European intellectuals but also brought to life a number of fundamentally important theoretical and artistic phenomena. So, for example, in trying to “protect” realism, the French philosopher Garaudy (1955, 1962 – the author of the investigations “Grammar of freedom”, “Answer to Jean-Paul Sartre” – in the pages of the work “On realism without shores” (1966) suggests a new model of realism, based on the work of P. Picasso, St. John Perce, and F. Kafka. Garaudy᾽s theoretical searches took place in parallel with the philosophical and artistic substantiation of the “absurd” – an important idea of French existentialism, advocated by Albert Camus (1913–1960). The searches of this generation of French intellectuals were quickly refuted by the next one, which was not interested in realism, which never left the shores, and treated “absurdist constructions” somewhat differently (Cooke, 2015). Thus, its representatives significantly expanded the boundaries of the “absurdity of life”, and also openly mocked the existential quests of J.-P. Sartre, who Boris Vian (1920–1959) made in a bright sarcastic form is an outstanding forerunner of “postmodern” literature, who brilliantly demonstrated the potential of the “cynical mind” in his work. Therefore, from the beginning of the 70s of the 20th century, the second stage of modernism confidently declared itself – postmodernism (Martinkovic, 2005; Mulero & Rius-Ulldermolins, 2017).

The observation that “the beginning – organising basis” in the “segment” of “postmodern” culture actualized the interest of scientists in “surrealism” as a constituent structural element of “avant-garde”. It is about the probability of personalization of the specified “segment”, based on the painting and cinematographic contribution to the modern culture of creation by Salvador Dali (1904–1989), and about the transcultural nature of the “segment”, the content of which has retained its meaning from the birth of “surrealism” to its “purpose – modernist” modification. Such actualization is determined by several reasons: first, it is the consistent use of surrealist means of aesthetic and artistic expressiveness in the literary and cinematographic experiments of artists of the “postmodern” genre (Bekh et al., 2020; Kolokytha, 2022).

Onishchenko (2021), working out the concept of “metamodernism”, reconstructs the process of transformation “modernism – postmodernism – post + postmodernism – metamodernism”, where the specificity of each of the stages, on the one hand, is reflected by a new conceptual and categorical apparatus that “ensures” research as in “postmodern, including “metamodernist” areas, and on the other hand – in various types of art – demonstrates active experimentation with “polygenre” and “polystylism””. It should be emphasized that the active use of these artistic techniques can be traced to the border of the 20–21st centuries. In the work of both European and American artists: E. Dox, T. Morrison, D.-F. Wallace, M. Danilevsky (literature); K. Tarantino, M. Gondry (cinematography). From the standpoint of the quality of cultural assessment, special attention is drawn to the experiments of the Anglo-Italian sculptor and painter Davide Quaiola, who, working in different regions of the planet Earth, tries to combine the past with the present, traditions with innovations, realism with abstractionism and surrealism (Wandersman et al., 2016).

In this context, the position of van Sierd (2020) is indicative, who, based on the work of D. Quaiola and other modern experimenters, proposes to operate with the concept of “craft turn”, “which is not just a symptom of postmodern nostalgia, i.e. “alternatives” or “cases” that took place in the past, which are allowed to assert themselves again. It is rather our very experience of knowing the time that has changed”. This statement by van Sierd (2020) gives grounds to predict that the number of “turns” in further humanitarian progress will only increase. Therefore, there is every reason to talk about the procedural nature of “metamodernism”, which, although it is at the initial stage of its development, at the same time, already gives grounds to talk about its specificity (Onishchenko, 2021).

It should be emphasized that for a certain period it will hardly be possible to talk about “metamodernism” as an independent “segment” of European humanism since there are still not enough studies that would argue its fundamental difference from “postmodernism – post + postmodernism”. However, time will probably be able to “work” on metamodernism, and therefore the probability of the development of a new “segment” of cultural creation will become obvious (Banks, 2009). The specified processes, in particular, will be stimulated by the extremely negative attitude of the “metamodernists” both to mimesis and to other structural elements of the classical work, including the artistic image. Such a tendency can already be seen quite clearly today, which, in turn, leads to the leveling of the moral and ethical foundations of art, since – following, in particular, the surrealists – “metamodernists” profess the principle of “creative permissiveness”. This can probably lead to radical changes, actualizing the search for a new artistic paradigm (Pipere & Mārtinsone, 2022). There is a real need to rethink existing approaches to a certain set of issues that determine both the definition of key concepts and the assessment of general definitions that outline the range of issues related to humanist law and the specific features of its development in the context of time (Kirchberg & Kagan, 2013).

The biggest problem is precise that the term “humanism” has a close connection with the culture of certain people living in a separate territory. In general, this question refers to a certain cultural space in which the humanistic tendencies characteristic of one particular culture had developed.

5 Conclusions

The material considered in this research allows arguing the need to introduce the concept of “segment” into theoretical use, which is interpreted as “beginning – organising basis”, and records and personalizes the historical and cultural process of the development of European humanism. “Segment”, covering the nuances of the theoretical positions of certain personalities, preserves both individual and collective experiences that could have been overlooked by scientists. The importance of interdisciplinarity in the development of a single theoretical space in the process of solving a number of important problems is emphasized.

In this work, the phenomenon of European humanism was studied not only in stages, but was also divided into smaller components for their detailed study and comparison – into segments. It has been pointed out that the dynamism of French humanism is its most striking feature. English humanism was characterized by traditional approaches to humanitarian teaching, bordering on the conservatism of views. French humanism emerged from the tendencies of positivism in the culture of that time. It was determined that the concept of “art for art’s sake” was intended to protect the aesthetic essence of art as such. Through humanism, independence of creativity was achieved. The study analyzed such concepts as “liberation of sensuality”, “corruption of consciousness”, “falsification of feelings”.

The materials of this study can be useful to teachers when giving lectures on aesthetics, philosophy, cultural studies, history, and theory of art to students of higher education at humanities and artistic creative universities, and masters, postgraduate students, and scientists whose interests relate to European humanities.