The Nature of Civilization in Philosophy: Essential Elements of " Civilization" in the Theories of Some Contemporary Philosophers

The existential nature of civilization has not been much discussed in philosophy, but that part of philosophy which is concerned with civilization has posed important issues and opened new aspects. In this paper, I will be concerned with some, and not all, philosophical questions about civilization in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of civilization, its nature, and its existential elements beyond linguistic definitions. The most important philosophical issues discussed in this paper are as follows: the spiritual and ethical nature of civilization (softness or hardness of civilization), its objectivity or subjectivity, its compositional and systematic nature, the relationship between civilizational plurality and variety and civilizational unity and identity, its being a substance or an accident, and finally, its being a whole or a universal.