The Dialectic of Artistic Form Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev the Dialectic of Artistic Form Translated, Annotated, Andintroducedby Oleg V
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148mm 26mm 148mm ATS . 96 Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev he early aesthetics of Alexei Losev is one of the best examples Tof pre-communist Russian thought and one of the last attempts The Dialectic of Artistic Form to build a grand philosophical system on the basis of pagan and Christian Neoplatonism, Russian personalism, phenomenology, and the dialectical trend in German Idealism. Losev’s brilliant Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev dialectical-phenomenological thinking anticipates many twentieth- century discoveries in phenomenological and dialectical aesthetics within a coherent and elegant account of artistic form. Losev’s insights into the nature of aesthetic perception and artistic form also anticipate many recent discoveries in neurobiological aesthetics, thus harmonizing the phenomenological approach in aesthetics with the scientific. The translation of Losev’s aesthetic treatise is prefaced by a thorough analysis of Losev’s sources and 210mm an outline of the continuing relevance of his aesthetic theory to present-day aesthetics. The Dialectic of Artistic Form Translated, annotated, and introduced by Oleg V. Bychkov ISBN 978-3-86688-308-6 Worldwide Distributor: ISBN (eBook): 978-3-86688-309-3 Edited by Daniel L. Tate ISBN (USA): 978-1-938380-01-3 KUBON & SAGNER Serving libraries since 1947 VERLAG OTTO SAGNER Verlag Otto Sagner Digital 9 7 8 3 8 6 6 8 8 3 0 8 6 VERLAG OTTO SAGNER The Dialectic of Artistic Form Arbeiten und Texte zur Slavistik Begründet von Wolfgang Kasack Herausgegeben von Frank Göbler und Rainer Goldt Band 96 Verlag Otto Sagner München – Berlin – Washington D. C. Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev The Dialectic of Artistic Form Translated, annotated, and introduced by Oleg V. Bychkov Edited by Daniel L. Tate Verlag Otto Sagner à München – Berlin – Washington D. C. 2013 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbi- bliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at <http://dnb.d-nb.de> First published in Moscow, 1927, in Russian as Dialektika khudozhestvennoy formy Russian text © Aza Alibekovna Taho-Godi, heiress of Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev Translation © 2013 Oleg Bychkov Photo for the cover courtesy Aza Alibekovna Taho-Godi © 2013 by Kubon & Sagner GmbH Heßstraße 39/41 80798 München (Germany) www.kubon-sagner.com «Verlag Otto Sagner» is an imprint of Kubon & Sagner GmbH. All rights reserved, including the rights of translation. No part of this book may be reproduced in any way without the permission of the publisher. Cover: Christopher Triplett Printed in Germany by: Difo Druck ISSN 0173-2307 ISBN: 978-3-86688-308-6 ISBN (eBook): 978-3-86688-309-3 ISBN (USA): 978-1-938380-01-3 Contents Introduction..................................................................................... 1 Abbreviations.................................................................................. 131 The Dialectic of Artistic Form Preface............................................................................................ 135 I. Main definitions 1. The primary dialectical tetractys................................................. 139 2. Some necessary dialectical details within the structure of the tetractys....................................................................................... 144 3. Tetractys as intelligence.............................................................. 151 4. The categorial structure of the energy of the essence (and in particular of its expression)........................................................ 163 5. A phenomenologo-dialectical map of the real name, or of energetic expressiveness............................................................. 169 6. The definition of the notion ‘artistic form’................................. 173 II. Antinomics 7. A phenomenological dialectic of the notion ‘artistic form.’ Antinomies of fact...................................................................... 177 8. Antinomies of understanding, or expression (ΐΉΘ΅ΒϾ)............. 180 9. Antinomies of meaning.............................................................. 187 10. Antinomies of myth.................................................................. 199 11. Antinomies of adequateness..................................................... 205 12. Antinomies of isolation, or of isolated autarky (self-suffici- ency)......................................................................................... 226 13. Summary of the phenomenologo-dialectical analysis of the notion ‘artistic form’................................................................. 233 vi Contents III. Transition to specific branches of aesthetics 14. Classification of the types of artistic form: a) eidetic types..... 241 15. Classification of the types of artistic form: b) mythical types and c) person-based types........................................................ 252 16. Classification of the types of artistic form: d) modificational person-based types.................................................................... 257 17. Classification of the types of artistic form: e) stylistic and f) compositional types.................................................................. 278 18. General overview of the dialectic of particular types of artistic form............................................................................... 284 Endnotes.......................................................................................... 291 Appendices Appendix 1 (Endnote 32). Classification of teachings about the ideas............................................................................ 345 Appendix 2 (Endnote 46). Identity of the subject and object in pure feeling................................................................. 351 Appendix 3 (Endnote 55). Genesis of dialectical aesthetics in modern philosophy (Kant, Schiller, Goethe, Fr. Schlegel, Fichte, Novalis, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Romanticism and Classicism).......... 355 Appendix 4 (Endnote 56). The dialectical place of music as the primary principle of artistry........................................ 380 Appendix 5 (Endnote 57). Classification of the arts in Kant, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Hegel, Weisse, Vischer..... 386 Appendix 6 (Endnote 61). Schelling on the schema, allegory, and symbol. Hegel on the symbolic, Classical and Romantic in art............................................................ 394 Bibliography................................................................................... 399 Introduction English-speaking readers already have been introduced by Vladimir Marchenkov to the life and academic achievements of Alexei Losev, the last survivor of the generation of great Russian philosophers born and educated before the 1917 communist revolution.1 Marchenkov has provided a brief biography of the thinker in English ([4]-[12]), has commented generally on the style and tone of Losev’s early philosophical works, and has introduced his philosophy of myth. The present Introduction therefore will not duplicate these tasks, instead referring the reader to Marchenkov’s essay, and limit itself to the following three. First, it will track the sources of Losev’s philosophy of artistic form. Second, it will situate Losev’s aesthetic thought within contemporaneous philosophical systems as profoundly Russian Orthodox, Neoplatonic, and at the same time profoundly German at its roots. Third, it will demonstrate the present-day importance and validity of his philosophical investigations in the realm of aesthetics and philosophy of art by drawing parallels between Losev’s aesthetics and several later twentieth- century aesthetic theories which he anticipates, and by examining Losev’s theory in light of present-day scientific approaches in aesthetics. The first 1 See V. Marchenkov, “Translator’s Introduction: Aleksei Losev and his Theory of Myth,” in A.F. Losev, The Dialectics of Myth, trans. V. Marchenkov (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), [3]-[65]. Scholars who read Russian can benefit from the following insightful introduction to the most recent 2010 edition of the Dialectic of Artistic Form: V.V. Bychkov, “Vyrazheniye nevyrazimogo, ili irratsional’noye v svete ratio” (The Expression of the Inexpressible, or the Irrational in the Light of ratio), in A.F. Losev, Dialektika khudozhestvennoy formy (Moscow: Akademicheskij proyekt, 2010), 5-30. Cf. idem, “Russian Aesthetics of the Early Twentieth Century on the Essence of Art,” in Celebrating Creativity: Essays in Honor of J. Bortnes, ed. K.A. Grimstad and I. Lunde (Bergen: University of Bergen, 1997), 325-36. Cf. my own earlier attempt at analyzing Losev’s aesthetics: O. Bychkov, “Alexej Losev: A Neoplatonic View of the Dialectic of Absence and Presence in the Nature of Artistic Form,” in Neoplatonism and Contemporary Thought, Part Two, ed. R. Baine Harris, Studies in Neoplatonism: Ancient and Modern 11 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 163-79. 2 O.V. Bychkov task is made much easier due to the presence of an immense apparatus at the end of the Dialectic of Artistic Form (DAF) where Losev documents meticulously the sources of his ideas, from ancient Greek to early twentieth- century. The second task is more difficult because there are still relatively few studies that investigate fundamentally the place of Losev’s early philo- sophical system, apart from studies of his relation to the phenomenological thought of E. Husserl. Finally, the third task remains