Socio-cultural phenomenology of Peter Berger

Abstract

The object of study: how the market culture of a democratic society transforms the world of
life. The subject of the study is the theoretical framework of the phenomenology of Peter Ludwig Berger:
1) secularization has a heterogeneous porous structure, 2) under capitalism, transcendence is possible as a
personal spiritual practice; 3) pluralism of social orders and globalization are the basis for restrained
forecasts regarding the society of the future; 4) the clash of bureaucracy and the private is removed by the
daily routine of meaning generation. Pursuing issues of the privatization of religion, the theory of
modernization, the sociology of knowledge, Berger's sociocultural phenomenology turns everyday life
into a fascinating scientific quest. He easily moves from concrete to abstract and vice versa, but does not
throw the reader into the abyss of lifeless fresh ideas. At the same time, the sociologist makes it clear that
he is ready to change his mind, he does not close us in a rigid configuration of ideas, but leaves the reader
in the bootstrap reality. Berger remained in phenomenological positions, describing social structures in
terms of construction, typification, collective understanding, legitimization of social memory, horizons of
reality, habitualization of meanings, reification of meanings, objectification of the life world of utopias.
Main conclusions. The sociocultural phenomenology of P. Berger allows us to value-correlate the  sacrifices made by capitalism and communism to build a social order. His phenomenology is the
method of contextual correlation of different social worlds - science and religion, secular and
transcendental, personal and collective. Bergerian sociocultural subjectivity is opposed to the
dangerous path of deflation of philosophy, its reduction to the information support of a technogenic
society and the maintenance of science.