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Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University) Alexander Shishkin Department of Philosophy History of Russian Philosophy Lecture 10 Sophiology after Solovyov

Lecture 9 Sophiology after Solovyov • Sergey Bulgakov (1871 -1944) • Pavel Florensky (1882 -1937)

Sergey Bulgakov (1871 -1944) Principal Writings • From Marxism to Idealism: A Collection of Articles (1903) • The Two Cities: A Study on the Nature of Social Ideals (1911) • Philosophy of Economy (1912) • Unfading Light: Contemplations and Meditations (1917) • Tragedy of Philosophy (1920) • Philosophy of the Name (1920)

Sergey Bulgakov Religious Materialism q The Essence and Types of Philosophy • The Trinity Analogy and the Trinitarian Nature of Sentence • History of Philosophy as a History of Trinitarian Heresies q The Sophiology of Being • Religious Materialism • The Notion of Sophia • Sophia in Creation § § § § The Liturgical Criterion of Sophia Sophiology of Economy Sophiology of Art Sophiology of Sex Sophiology of Creativity Sophiology of Power Sophiology of Death Sophiology of History

The Essence and Types of Philosophy The Trinity Analogy This world, especially human nature and mentality are modeled on the Holy Trinity. Sentences (statements) are also modeled on the Trinity; they are not mere expressions of thought, they are universal expressive acts. Human existence as such can be viewed as a kind of statement, man’s detailed statement about himself. A statement (sentence) is based on a trinitarian prototype viz. , I am something. As a unity of three members, viz. the subject, the predicate and the copula, this Protostatement is a reflection of the Trinity.

The Essence and Types of Philosophy History of Philosophy as a History of Trinitarian Heresies The Protostatement is a universal ontological model, “the scheme of existence”; it is also “the scheme of the history of philosophy”. The reality coded in the form of the Protostatement is the unity, balance and equality of the three grammatical principles understood as ontological principles. But philosophy as such (and hence every philosophical system) is intrinsically monistic insofar as it asserts the uniqueness of its supreme principle. Philosophy is inherently incapable of expressing the unity of the trinitarian reality; it is doomed to reduce the Trinity to the One, choosing a part instead of the whole. It thus appears to be either the philosophy of the subject (Fichte), or the philosophy of the predicate (Hegel), or the philosophy of the copula (Spinoza).

The Sophiology of Being Religious Materialism The world has been created of “nothing”, but one must distinguish between absolute nothing (ukon) and relative nothing (meon). Ukon The act of creation consisted in the elevation of ukon to meon by God’s creative effort. (Gk. ουχόν) – absolute nothing as the opposite to being. Ontologically matter is meon. Meon (Gk. μηόν) – relative nothing, the non-being fraught with being. But, although subordinate to God and by the will of God, matter is also a creative principle, its key definitions being “Earth” and “Mother”. At the apex of its birth-giving creative effort Mother Earth is potentially the Divine Earth and Divine Lady.

The Sophiology of Being The Notion of Sophia (the Divine Wisdom) is the World’s ideal prototype in God. Sophia is not only the prototype of creation as a whole, but also a collection of prototypes of every thing and every creature. Insofar as it combines the multiplicity and is the unity of the many it is the Absolute Unity. But it is not just the Absolute Unity or the world of ideas, it is their personification, or Unity Personified.

The Sophiology of Being Sophia in Creation Sophiatic is the quality of all creation insofar as it is the manifestation of or related to Sophia as its ideal prototype. Sophia is the harmony of creation, the regularity and conformity, “the universal interconnection” of everything, as the opposite to the “non-sophiatic” tendencies of hatred, chaos and disintegration. The principle names or definitions of Sophia are Goodness, Truth and Beauty.

Sophia in Creation The Liturgical Criterion of Sophia Related to Sophia is everything that is prayed for, that is blessed and sanctified by Church liturgy. Since prayer is not about the ideal, but about the fallen and sinful world, Sophiology is about: (1) the critical events of life, such as birth, proliferation, and death; (2) life’s needs, such as work and economy; (3) and life’s bonds, such as family and power.

Sophia in Creation Sophiology of Economy In principle economy should not be understood as solely the consequence of Fall; one may speak of “Paradise economy” as a kind of unselfish enthusiastic work aimed at the understanding and improvement of nature, the unfolding of its sophiatic feature. However, in the fallen state of the world the meaning and motives of economic activities underwent radical change: they now imply exertion and are a heavy burden that serve our needs, not our vocations. But even in their present form, our economic activities retain their sophiatic features, albeit of a lesser kind: it is through them that we affirm our central role in the universe as befits our sophiatic prototype.

Sophia in Creation Sophiology of Art If “Paradise economy” and “Paradise art” are essentially identical (this synthetic activity is called theurgy), in the fallen state they each lack vital, though contrary features of theurgy, and have become complementary. Economic activity has retained the capacity to actively transform the world, but has lost the sophiatic capacity to sense beauty; art, on the other, hand, has retained the ability to sense the latter, but is incapable of implementing it. Art’s relation to Sophia is captured in the notion of Eros: it is the endeavor, the striving, that seeks but never achieves complete union with its object, which constitutes the tragedy of art.

Sophia in Creation Sophiology of Sex Bisexuality as such is the original feature of all creation, not the consequence of the Fall (the latter being the added element of lust). The male and the female are the two universal sophiatic principles, that form the basis of the sophiology of creativity and the sophiology of power.

Sophia in Creation Sophiology of Creativity arises out of the combination of genius, the “male” capacity of inception and discovery, and talent, the “female” capacity of bearing and nurturing the sown.

Sophia in Creation Sophiology of Power is the unity of two natural, but opposite urges, viz. the “male” urge to rule and the “female” urge to obey.

Sophia in Creation Sophiology of Death One should not confuse the dying, the ill and irreparable duration, the protracted moment of mortal suffering, and the death, the true consummation of our existence, “the fulfillment” and the end of dying.

Sophia in Creation Sophiology of History Sophia is not an unchanging attribute; it reveals itself and unfolds, i. e. has the character of a process; this dynamic aspect of Sophia is best understood through the differentiation of “image” and “likeness”. Sophia as man’s participation in God is both an image, i. e. possession of some similar intrinsic features, and a likeness, i. e the unfolding of the image towards identity with the Prototype. This unification of the world with its Divine Prototype is the Godmanhood process of Sophiation centered on Church and destined to involve the entire Universe.

Pavel Florensky (1882 -1937) Principal Writings • The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters (1914) • At the Watersheds of Thought (Outlines of Concrete Metaphysics) (1918) • The Iconostasis (the 1920 s) • Imaginary Numbers in Geometry (1922)

Pavel Florensky The Concrete Metaphysics q Concrete Metaphysics • • Philosophical Symbolism The Epistemology of Symbolism The Pan-Symbol The Discrete Nature of Reality and the Levels of Meaningfulness • The Notion of Space and the Spatial Concept of Being q The Esthetics • The Art and the Cult • The Direct and the Reverse Perspective

The Concrete Metaphysics Philosophical Symbolism A concrete object is not an object devoid of a mental content, but a meaningful object, something mental embodied in something sensual. There are no abstract spiritual entities and no abstract ideas because all mental objects are presented through plastic and visual manifestations. On the other hand, there is nothing purely empirical, because every phenomenon is but a manifestation of a mental essence, a sensual image of a specific noumenon. A phenomenon and a noumenon express each other and form an indivisible unity that is a symbol. All reality consists of symbols. A symbol is a unity of “natural” and “mental”. Reality is one: it is both sensual and mental in its every element.

The Concrete Metaphysics Philosophical Symbolism The definition of symbol is being greater than itself.

The Concrete Metaphysics The Epistemology of Symbolism In every sphere cognition means the exposure of the symbolic nature of an object, the discovery of a noumenon in a phenomenon; differences between kinds of knowledge are, thus, of little importance. Consequently, the goal of cognition is to be understood differently: cognition must be aimed not at the discovery of abstract laws presumed to “control” different spheres of reality, but at the discovery of the fundamental, primary symbols, that constitute this particular sphere of reality. The primary symbols are simple and elementary, that is why they are general and universal.

The Concrete Metaphysics The Pan-Symbol Reality as a whole is also a symbol. This Pan-Symbol is, on the one hand, not simply a sum total of all that exists, but а united whole with its own noumenal content, but, on the other hand, it is a collective whole, i. e. not one, but many, because it embraces and contains all symbols. Insofar as its internal structure presupposes the identity of the parts and the whole, it is Absolute Unity. The Absolute Unity is essentially the principle of the internal form of symbolic reality.

The Discrete Nature of Reality and the Levels of Meaningfulness Reality consists of elements that are each a separate and complete whole. In other words, reality consists of discrete elements. Since this world falls short of perfection, a phenomenon is not necessarily a perfect expression of a noumenon. This world is characterised by grades or levels of symbolism, that are also discrete (not continuous). Reality is thus multi-layered: the Universe is structured as a set of strata to be distinguished by levels of meaningfulness, i. e. the degree noumena manifest themselves in the phenomena.

The Concrete Metaphysics The Spatial Concept of Being Empty space devoid of matter is merely an abstraction that has no intrinsic reality. Phenomena and noumena are all spatial, spatial is, therefore, their relation. Hence there must exist a special space, different from the space of sensual things, the receptacle of the noumena. This noumenal space is not identical with the empirical space, nor is it entirely different: the noumenal world is a “reversed”, imaginary world. Both sides of the symbol, the sensual and the mental, are accessed by turning the respective space inside out.

The Concrete Metaphysics The Spatial Concept of Being We see the front side of a plane, we only know of its back side. But to have an abstract knowledge of something essentially visual, something of which the essence is its visibility, means to perceive it in a manner other than visual, but corrected with the help of an abstract notion or an image retained by memory. In this sense real is something abstract embodied in a visual material of the same kind the abstraction was obtained from; imaginary is the embodiment of the same abstraction in a visual material of a different kind. <…> It is in this sense that we may speak of the notions of perceptions as imaginary perceptions or perceptions of the imaginary… Pavel Florensky. The Imaginaries of Geometry.

The Esthetics The Art and the Cult The key feature of a symbolic reality is the relationship of the two worlds that is the domain of cult. All activities on the border of the worlds, e. g. death, dreams, mystical ecstasy, and the like, are intimately related to the cult. In a wider sense, all creative activities, insofar as they seek to reveal the symbolic meaning of phenomena, fall into the same category. Art is thus under the aegis of cult. The function of icon painting is identical with that of ontology: both are meant to reveal invisible mental contents, one by word, the other by image.

The Esthetics The Direct and the Reverse Perspective • Corresponding to the two types of world outlook, viz. § the Renaissance § and the Medieval, were the two types of artistic imagery, characterised respectively by § the direct Karl Bryullov. The Rider (1832, the Tretyakov Gallery).

The Esthetics The Direct and the Reverse Perspective • Corresponding to the two types of world outlook, viz. § the Renaissance § and the Medieval, were the two types of artistic imagery, characterised respectively by § the direct § and the reverse perspective. The Baptism (1430 s, the Tver School)

The Esthetics The Direct and the Reverse Perspective The Euclidean space is homogeneous, isotropic, continuous, connected, infinite and open; it is thus ill-fitted to symbolise the multi-layered, discrete, multiply connected, closed and hierarchical reality.

Questions?