Dialectics of Continuality and Discreteness in the Being of Man

Identity, difference, mutual mediation and mutual transition of the opposites of continuity and discreteness in human existence constitute a dialectical logical basis for the interpretation of a number of important problems of sociocultural existence. These are problems of self-realization and alienation of the individual in society, horizontal continuity and discreteness of an individual’s existence in value-based activities (work, cognition, play), problems of explaining the moments of vertical dynamics of continuity and discreteness in the layers of social existence. As a result of such an interpretation, it becomes possible to present the sociocultural existence of a person, on the one hand, holistic, on the other hand, multifaceted, productively diverse. Continuity appears as an undivided whole of culture as a single means of man’s relationship to the world. Its basic internal heterogeneities serve as the basis for discreteness, division into layers of sociocultural existence depending on the specific cultural means on each of them. The internal continuity of each layer is ensured by the preservation of the qualitative characteristics of the corresponding cultural medium. Each of the layers has vertical continuity within itself, has a “volume”, but retains its characteristics within the boundaries of the measure. The transition from layer to layer presupposes a break in gradualism, discreteness.