The article presents the principles of selection and arrangement of information on the topic "Primitive Culture" when teaching students of technical universities. This topic occupies the most important place in the cycle of lectures on philosophy and history of culture. Primitive culture is the first topic considered in the historical part of the course, so it is within the lecture on primitive culture that the teacher can and should show students how the realities of a particular culture can be considered on the basis of previously postulated theoretical principles. We believe it is appropriate that the lecture be based on the theory of anthropologist P. Radin. Radin noted that primitive culture is characterized by a pragmatic and realistic perception of life, and that magic and religious thinking are of a secondary nature. Taking into account this idea, we arrange the topics of the lecture on primitive culture along the axis "practice-mentality": from the description of the function of survival culture to the description of the function of comprehension.
The article analyzes the prerequisites for the flourishing of rhetorical knowledge in the classical antiquity. As the main factor the pragmatic and democratic nature of the ancient Greek civilization is pointed out, within the framework of which a special type of identification of the subject of culture was formed, based on the formation of self-consciousness of a free citizen. This type of identification was embodied in the ancient system of education, which included three aspects: culture of body, culture of speech and culture of mind. Thus, the ancient rhetorical art appears as an element of a holistic cultural system. Accordingly, subsequent attempts to transfer rhetoric to a different cultural soil should be considered from the point of view of transformation of its functions and structure.
