Austrian biologist Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) is one of those scientists whose works not only determine the further development of science, but also have a strong impact on human self-understanding. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the new paths he discovered in the study of human nature and human culture - such as an objective analysis of the ratio of instinctive and culturally programmed motives in human behavior, the approach to culture as a living system. In our time, when the existence of human culture has been threatened as a result of the processes of its own development, such paths are especially relevant.