Abstract

This paper attempts to answer the question: "In what way could classical philosophy be useful to overcome shortcomings of the contemporary culture?" A response to this question is preceded by considerations about the meaning of the world "culture" as well as delineating such features of the contemporary culture and their origins which, in common opinion, are evidence of its crisis. If it is proposed to return to classical philosophy in order to remedy the contemporary culture and humanity, it is because this philosophy, due to its specific character, through the acceptance of real truth and real goodness as reasons for justifying both the order of cognition and the moral order, establishes that which is called culture on the bases of realism and secures its bases against subjectivism, relativism and pragmatism. Within classical philosophy, humankind learns an essential truth about itself, namely that human beings are not exclusively happening events because of human nature and essence, but that humans are persons which constitute a certain ontic fundament for historic processes and guarantee identity of being.