The Dialectic of Artistic Form Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev the Dialectic of Artistic Form Translated, Annotated, Andintroducedby Oleg V

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ISBN (USA):978-1-938380-01-3 ISBN (eBook):978-3-86688-309-3 ISBN 978-3-86688-308-6 9 7 8 3 8 6 6 8 8 3 0 8 6 8 0 3 8 8 6 6 8 3 8 7 9 present-day aesthetics. to theory aesthetic his of relevance continuing the of outline an Losev’sand sourcesof analysis thorough a by prefaced is treatise aesthetic Losev’s of translation scientific. The the with aesthetics in approach phenomenological the harmonizing thus aesthetics, neurobiological in discoveries recent many anticipate also form Losev’sartistic perceptionand aesthetic of nature the into insights within acoherentandelegantaccountofartisticform. century discoveries in phenomenological and dialectical aesthetics brilliant Losev’sdialectical-phenomenological thinking Idealism. anticipates German many twentieth- in trend dialectical the and phenomenology, personalism, Russian Neoplatonism, Christian and pagan of basis the on system philosophical grand a build to T of pre-communist Russian thought and one of the last attempts he early aesthetics of Alexei Losev is one of the best examples 148mm Verlag Otto Sagner KUBON Se Worldwide Distributor: r ving ving libraries libraries & SAGNER since since Digita 19 47 l ATS 26mm 96 VERLAG OTTO SAGNER The Dialectic of Artistic Form Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev The Dialectic of Artistic Form Translated, annotated, andintroducedby Oleg V. Bychkov Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev VERLAG OTTO SAGNER SAGNER OTTO VERLAG Edited by DanielL. Tate 148mm .

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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 Ã 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

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

«Verlag Otto Sagner» is an imprint of Kubon & Sagner GmbH.

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 philosophical system, apart from studies of his relation to the phenomenological thought of E. Husserl. Finally, the third task remains completely unexplored since both the twentieth-century phenomenological and the post-structuralist thought have generated so much scepticism about the great systems of Ger- man Idealism—and Losev attempts to resurrect a version of such a system— that there is general reluctance presently on the part of the philosophers to reinvestigate why the most brilliant minds of the time thought it was worth their while to invest all their intellectual energies in such systems. While tracing Losev’s sources and locating his system among contemporary philosophical schools, one must be mindful of the range of texts and figures he was familiar with. Unlike many of his philosophical contemporaries, Losev was a formidable classicist, fluent in both ancient Greek and Latin, who knew in detail most Greek philosophical texts in the original, but especially Plato and the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions, up to Proclus and his disciples such as Damascius. In the 1920’s, Losev in his writings does not exhibit any textual knowledge of the Christian medieval tradition, neither Greek nor Latin, and neither Patristic nor later medieval. He is very knowledgeable about some Renaissance figures such as Nicholas of Cusa and generally shows a pattern of preference in his study of the history of philosophy: namely, tracing the development of the pagan Neoplatonic tradition and its revival in the West, up to German Idealism and subsequently to the Neo-Kantian and phenomenological traditions. Despite the habitual association of Losev with the Eastern Orthodox tradition, in his early works he exhibits no textual knowledge of Eastern Patristic or Byzantine texts: his knowledge of the Orthodox tradition at that time seems to have been rooted solely in Russian religious philosophy, such as that of Vl. Solovyov or of Losev’s contemporary P. Florensky. The period and area of philosophy that Losev does know profoundly is the German philosophical tradition starting with Kant, culminating in the Idealism of Schelling and Hegel, and up to philosophical schools contemporary with Losev: Neo-Kantianism represented by H. Cohen or the early E. Cassirer, and the phenomenology of the early Husserl (Ideas 1) and Heidegger, with whose Sein und Zeit Losev was Introduction 3 familiar. The scholar has an intimate knowledge of most nineteenth and early twentieth-century German writings in aesthetics. Losev, of course, had a detailed knowledge of the situation in the Russian philosophical circles of the time, being an active member of several important philosophical societies. At the same time, even after the 1917 Communist Revolution Losev seems to have had access to Western sources, especially to German thought, which he could easily read in the original. A special mention must be made of the German personalist philosopher G. Teichmüller who had taught within the boundaries of the Russian Empire, as well as of his Russian followers. Another trait that one must keep in mind is Losev’s idiosyncratic philosophical terminology: a feature that he shares with many a German philosopher, including his contemporaries Husserl and Heidegger. Losev himself mentions that the way he uses philosophical terms is uniquely his, and this is how they should be understood.2 It is clear that he both borrows some terms from the tradition—spanning the period from the ancient Greek to modern and contemporary, both Eastern and Western—and creates some of his own. The meaning of these terms as used by Losev should become clear from this Introduction as well as from translator’s notes to the text of DAF.

1. Losev’s philosophical position

1.1 Losev’s notion of ‘being’

One cannot start without analyzing Losev’s general philosophical position, or his views on ontology and epistemology.3 First, one must address the way he

2 Cf. Losev, DAF, I.6.2 (175). b): “Let us continuously keep in mind that while using such common speech terms as ‘understanding,’ ‘myth,’ ‘meaning,’ the ‘other,’ etc., I understand them not vaguely and commonly, as in day-to-day conversations, but precisely in the strictly thought-out sense that I have formulated above. ...despite using common speech terms ... my use of terms has nothing to do with the common entagled and unreflected notions.” Page references to DAF are given according to my translation printed in this volume. All other translations in this Introduction are mine, unless otherwise stated. Cf. E. Husserl, General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. First Book of Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. F. Kersten (The Hague etc.: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983), §33, 66 (further cited as Ideas 1): “these terms [such as ‘transcendental reduction’ etc.—O.B.] and all our others must be understood exclusively in the senses that our expositions prescribe for them and not in any others....” 3 The latter term must be understood within the context of European and specifically Russian thought where it appears as ‘gnoseology’: there is no sharp separation between 4 O.V. Bychkov understands ‘being’: both ‘being’ itself and ‘being’ as a technical term and its cognates. As Russian personalists and disciples of G. Teichmüller A. Kozlov and Ye. Bobrov complained—all three had exercised considerable influence on Losev—most philosophers neglect the notion of being, even though most of them speak of ‘being’ as if this term were absolutely clear. One must agree and add that the problem continues well into the twentieth century, being compounded by Heidegger’s writings, the existentialist movement, and the reemergence of Thomism. The indiscriminate usage of the several meanings of ‘being’ stems both from the lack of awareness of the original Greek contexts and from later layers of meaning where the common “existential” understanding of being as referring to the state of “existence,” being “real” and immediately available or at hand seems to have been confused with some more technical philosophical meanings. Therefore in most philosophical texts relevant to Losev, excepting those of Teichmüller and his followers, the notion of being is not well developed and must be retrieved from their contexts. Losev himself is no exception to the rule. The complexity of this terminological analysis is also compounded by the linguistic correlation (or rather lack thereof) between various languages where English terminology is the most confusing. Very generally, the modern term that can be traced back to the Greek infinitive ΘϲȱΉϨΑ΅΍ (‘to be’; German das Sein; Russian bytiye) denotes either the totality of ‘being’ or some sort of a property of something (‘to be’); this usage already presupposes a model of some sort of a substrate (substance) plus its property or status (existence). The term that can be traced to the Greek substantivized participle Θϲȱ ϷΑ (German das Seiende; Russian sushcheye; ‘that which is,’ ‘a being’) or the plural form ΘΤȱϷΑΘ΅ (‘reality,’ ‘beings’) signifies either everything that is or particular existents (‘entities’); this usage does not seem to presuppose the aforesaid model of ‘substrate plus existence’ but takes ‘beings’ or ‘a being’ as a whole.4

some technical Anglo-American meanings of ‘epistemology’ and what could be called ‘cognitive science’ or ‘theory of knowledge’ etc. 4 Cf. A. Losev, Antichnyj kosmos i sovremennaya nauka (Ancient Cosmos and Contemporary Science), in idem, Bytiye, imya, kosmos (Being, Name, Cosmos) (Moscow: Mysl’, 1993), 61-612 (further cited as ACCS), at 418, note 81, which contains Losev’s Russian translation of a long passage from Plotinus, in particular of Enn. III.7.3. It becomes clear from the translation that Losev’s sushcheye (‘a being,’ ‘existent,’ das Seiende) translates the Greek Θϲȱ ϷΑ and Losev’s bytiye (‘being,’ das Sein) translates ΉϨΑ΅΍. Introduction 5

Losev’s understanding of ‘being’ is rooted, first of all, in the Greek, predominantly Neoplatonic, sources, and second, in nineteenth- and twentieth-century German philosophy (he does not seem to use Teichmüller’s understanding of ‘being’ despite subscribing to some elements of his personalism). The most peculiar trait of the Greek understanding of ‘being,’ in all major philosophical texts and in all forms derived from ΉϨΑ΅΍, is that in it—unlike in present-day popular “existential” mentality where ‘to be’ in the sense of ‘to exist’ is distinguished from the conceptual structure of something—‘ontology’ seems to be identified with epistemology: ‘to be’ means to be understood or cognized, i.e., ‘articulated’ or distinguished from everything else and within itself, or at least to be able to be cognized, or ‘articulable.’ Without articulation or cognizability, there is no being. The best text that demonstrates Losev’s engagement with ancient, and predominantly (Neo)Platonic, thought is his Ancient Cosmos and Contempo- rary Science (ACCS). Losev sees the pinnacle of ancient philosophical achievement in the thought of Neoplatonists such as Plotinus, Proclus, and Proclus’ disciple Damascius who elaborates Proclean doctrines. If one understands being (ΉϨΑ΅΍) the way the Neoplatonic tradition does, i.e., as articulability and understandability, then several things become clear about both the Neoplatonic system and subsequent Idealist systems in modern thought. Obviously, anything not articulable in this case is “beyond being”: such as, e.g., the Neoplatonic ‘One’ (ρΑ), the principle subsequently also adopted by Losev. If a present-day person thinks of this position as absurd, one must bear in mind that such a thing is not necessarily beyond existence (the Greek ЀΔΣΕΛΉ΍Α,ȱЂΔ΅ΕΒ΍Ζ) in its common-sense understanding. Therefore “ontology” is not really in conflict with “henology,” as these two are sometimes portrayed.5 As long as one speaks of existence in its common existential meaning, what is ‘beyond being’ can still exist or have existence. Thus the much discussed Neoplatonic Θϲȱ ΐχȱ ϷΑ (‘non-being,’ meon)— another notion adopted by Losev—e.g., as it appears in pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Divine Names 4.7) and as it is understood by his medieval Latin commentators such as Thomas Aquinas and Ulrich of Strassburg, is not

5 Cf. J.A. Aertsen, “Ontology and Henology in Medieval Philosophy (Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and Berthold of Moosburg),” in On Proclus and his Influence in Medieval Philosophy, ed. E.P. Bos and P.A. Meijer, 120-40 (Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill, 1992). 6 O.V. Bychkov something that does not exist at all, but simply something that appears in opposition to ΘϲȱϷΑ as its inarticulable or not-yet-articulated aspect. For example, here is how Damascius, who is copiously used and quoted by Losev in ACCS, presents the relationship between ‘being’ (ΉϨΑ΅΍,ȱ ΓЁΗϟ΅), ‘existence’ (ЀΔΣΕΛΉ΍Α,ȱЂΔ΅ΕΒ΍Ζ), ‘a being/existent’ (Θϲȱ ϷΑ), and the ‘One.’6 The ‘One’ (Θϲȱ ρΑȱ or οΑΣΖ, in the sense of individual oneness, something that is beyond articulation) is definitely opposed to ‘being’ (ΓЁΗϟ΅) as articulateness, but not to existence, since the One is itself ЂΔ΅ΕΒ΍Ζ. ‘A being’ (Θϲȱ ϷΑ, das Seiende) is the unity or identity of both oneness and being. Thus ΘϲȱϷΑ as opposed to ЂΔ΅ΕΒ΍Ζ or ΘϲȱρΑ (simplicity) is ΓЁΗϟ΅ (i.e., intelligible articulateness). However, ΘϲȱϷΑ qua simplicity and oneness (Ύ΅ΘΤȱΘχΑȱΥΔΏϱΘ΋Θ΅) is ЂΔ΅ΕΒ΍Ζ (or vice versa, qua ЂΔ΅ΕΒ΍Ζ it is ρΑ). In any case, individual oneness is ultimately beyond the horizon of the intellect and therefore of ‘being,’ which means that ΓЁΗϟ΅ and ΉϨΑ΅΍ are clearly understood as articulateness.7 Here is the sort of understanding of ‘being’ that transpires from Losev’s analysis of ancient sources in ACCS. Dialectic is a “construction of the categorial structure of the eidos as being” which comprises “all thought and imaginable types of being” (ACCS 73). In the context of discussing the One, which Losev equates with the “existent” (sushcheye), he states that we cannot exclude from the thing that it is “something, and moreover something definite, and that it is something asserted and posited by us, i.e., existent” (106). Discussing Plato’s understanding of the One in the Parmenides, Losev describes the category of ‘being’ as “every knowledge, naming, explication, perception and idea” (in the sense of Vorstellung) of something (110). Losev interprets the verb ‘is’ or the noun ‘existent’ in terms of ‘positing’ or ‘being posited’: something “truly starts to ‘be’ only when it is clearly distinguished from its ‘other.’ Absent this, it is blurry in its boundaries, indeterminate and ungraspable”; the ‘other’ is the ‘non-existent’ (115). In an endnote to this page (361, note 37) Losev refers to passages from Plotinus (Enn. VI.2.8) and

6 Damascius, Traité des premiers principes, vol. 3: De la procession, ed. L.G. Westerink (Paris: Les belles letteres, 1991), 154. 7 Re. the term ΓЁΗϟ΅ there does not seem to be complete clarity even in ancient Greek thought, for it could be taken either generally as ‘being’ or as an ‘individual existent’ or even as ‘substance.’ E.g. according to Losev, Parmenides’ ΓЁΗϟ΅ (as opposed to ρΑ) means ‘existent/entity’ (sushcheye) in the sense ‘one existent’ (odno sushcheye), not as ‘being’ (bytiye). Damascius’ ΓЁΗϟ΅, however, clearly means ‘being’ generally. Introduction 7

Proclus, Inst. theol.,8 that equate “thinking” and “being” (to be means to be thought). Proclus’ passage on thinking and producing, in Losev’s translation sounds as follows: “for being and thinking are one and the same thing, by virtue of the fact that both the intellect and all existent are identical to that which is in it [i.e., with thinking]. Therefore if [the intellect] creates by means of being, and being is thinking (ΑΓΉϧΑ), then it creates by means of thinking.” Losev’s position in DAF on the meaning of ‘being’ in ancient thought is essentially the same. Thus, from the way he translates the Greek participle ϷΑ (‘being’), for Losev it amounts to ‘given’ or ‘posited’ (dannyj).9 German Idealist philosophy, as well as the later German phenomenological tradition, do not depart significantly from this ancient understanding of being. Thus Schelling in The Philosophy of Art, the work that was crucial to Losev’s DAF, understands ‘being’ as something defined.10 For Husserl, another crucial influence on Losev, ‘being’ is also equated with something that is manifested in consciousness, that is given, posited, or can be posited.11 The early Heidegger in Being and Time (Sein und Zeit)—the work with

8 P. 174 of the Greek edition used by Losev. 9 Cf.: “It is Plotinus who remains at this stage; he dubs the first set ‘potency and energy,’ and the second, ‘potentially given and energetically given’ (ΈΙΑΣΐΉ΍ȱϷΑ and πΑΉΕ·Ήϟθȱ ϷΑ, as opposed to merely ΈϾΑ΅ΐ΍Ζ and merely πΑνΕ·Ή΍΅)” (DAF, Endnote 25, 312). 10 Cf.: “Wherever this absolute cognitive act becomes objective only by the one side as a particular unity becoming form, there it appears necessarily transformed into an other, namely, into a being. The absolute informing of the infinite into the finite, which is the real side of this act, is in itself not a being” but the entire idea. “Only when taken in its relativity, and thus only as a particular unity, does it no longer appear as idea or as self- affirmation, but rather as something itself affirmed, as matter. The real side as a particular unity becomes the symbol of the absolute idea here, which only through this husk or covering first becomes recognized as such.” “As purely ideal, however, it does not become objective, but rather returns to the subjective and is itself the subjective. Thus it necessarily strives yet again toward a covering, a body, through which it may become objective...” (The Philosophy of Art, §73, 100; my italics; author’s italics omitted). The following English translation of this work will be used: F.W.J. Schelling, The Philosophy of Art, ed. and trans. D.W. Stott (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989). 11 Cf. Husserl, Ideas 1, §76, 171: the phenomenological reduction provides us with “the realm of transcendental consciousness as the realm of what is, in a determined sense, ‘absolute’ being...”; it examines “being as consciousness and being as something which becomes ‘manifested’ in consciousness.” Cf. Ideas 1, §144, 343: “...The Eidos, True- Being, is correlatively equivalent to the Eidos, Adequately-Given and To-Be- Evidentially Positable....” 8 O.V. Bychkov which Losev was familiar12—is not essentially different. Although Heidegger parts ways with Husserl, dogmatically proclaiming that “entities” do really exist, “being” for him remains articulateness or understandability.13 Finally, the personalist tradition of Teichmüller and his followers, which has influenced Losev considerably, also understands ‘being’ as referring to awareness and articulateness, despite also admitting the “hidden” existence of individual substances that serve as the substrate of this awareness and articulateness.14 It is true that Teichmüller also entertains the notion of ‘substantial being,’ the ‘monad’ that is at the center of all acts and their contents—the position that makes him different from other idealist philosophers such as Hegel, for whom there is no “substrate,” and the “shell” of being as articulateness is all there is.15 However, despite his “substantialist”

12 See evidence in I.M. Tchubarov, ed., Slovar’ khudozhestvennyh terminov. G.A.H.N. 1923-1929 (Dictionary of Art Terms) (Moscow: Logos-Alt’era, Ecce Homo, 2005), Appendix, 464. 13 Cf. Being and Time (BT), 228. (The following English translation of Sein und Zeit will be used: M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson [New York etc.: Harper Perennial, 2008].) Heidegger’s task here is to produce a more precise characterization of the concept of Reality in an epistemological context: “Entities are, quite independently of the experience by which they are disclosed, the acquaintance in which they are discovered, and the grasping in which their nature is ascertained. But Being ‘is’ only in the understanding of those entities to whose Being something like an understanding of Being belongs. Hence Being can be something unconceptualized, but it never completely fails to be understood. In ontological problematics Being and truth have, from time immemorial, been brought together if not entirely identified. This is evidence that there is a necessary connection between Being and understanding, even if it may perhaps be hidden in its primordial grounds. If we are to give an adequate preparation for the question of Being, the phenomenon or truth must be ontologically clarified.” 14 E.g., Teichmüller, according to an account of his student Kozlov (A. Kozlov, “Gustav Teichmüller,” Voprosy filosofii i psihologii 24 [1894]: 523-36; 25 [1894]: 661-81, at 666-7; further cited as ‘Kozlov’), rejects the common notion of being, i.e., the common recognition of “reality” of outward things, as “projectivism,” people projecting outward the products of their own psychic activity. The source of the idea of being is in “intellectual intuition,” or the “act that correlates with each other various elements of immediate consciousness ... and connects them into one uninterrupted whole.” While some higher animals simply enjoy this unity and nexus of experiences, in humans it becomes the notion of being. The notion of being in Teichmüller is defined “by means of pointing to the unity of ‘I’ as substance in relation to its activities and contents.” “Being consists in the substance’s immediate consciousness of itself, its activities and their contents in their mutual relations and unity” (668). 15 Cf. Ye. Bobrov, O ponyatiji bytija. Uchenije G. Teichmüllera i A.A. Kozlova (On the Notion of Being. The Teaching of G. Teichmüller and A.A. Kozlov) (Kazan’: Introduction 9 position, Teichmüller’s own numerous statements show that he still thinks of ‘being’ predominantly in terms of thinkability and articulability. The “emanationist” view of being that Losev inherits from the Neoplatonic and the German Idealist tradition (such as Hegel), then, can be summed up in this way. ‘Reality’ amounts to ‘becoming more knowable,’ i.e., being/reality and knowability are equivalent. The intelligibility and manifestedness of an object seem to be equated with its realization, embodi- ment, or incarnation. The “energies of the essence” are realized/become intelligible to various degrees, yet remain identical with the essence itself. The process of coming into being is equivalent to the process of cognition or self-cognition.16 Here is how Losev’s strongest statement on ontology sounds in his fundamental outline of his own philosophy Philosophy of the Name (PN 791-92): Because the eidos of the thing is that which we know about the thing, or that as which the thing appears to us—one cannot speak or think about the thing apart from its eidos, apart from that face and meaning that it has. The eidos is precisely that which we see in the thing. Hence follows a very important conclusion. What is ontology, or the science about being, which is the persistent subject of all philosophical systems and textbooks? Ontology is the science about being. But there is no being outside of the eidos whatsoever. That which we speak and think about being precisely is its eidos. Therefore all the above sciences (such as phenomenology, mythology, dialectic etc.) are subdivisions of ontology: there are no sciences about non- being. “I do not understand how one can speak and think about being apart from the word, name and thought. That which is necessarily constructed in the thought-word as an unavoidable result of its self-development precisely is being itself” (791-2).17 Just how exactly this identity of being and thinking/articulability can be conceptualized, as it was in Losev’s philosophy, should become clear at

Imperatorskij universitet, 1898), 8 (further abbreviated as Being), on the three types of being in Techmüller: the logical (Was); the existential or ‘being at hand’ (Dass); and subjective, or as entity (Ich). Thus for Teichmüller being is the contents, the processes, and the center of all processes and contents, which is consciousness, or the self. 16 Cf. A.F. Losev, Filosofiya imeni (Philosophy of the Name), in idem, Bytiye, imya, kosmos (Being, Name, Cosmos) (Moscow: Mysl’, 1993), 614-801 (further abbreviated as PN), at 739. 17 Cf. A. Haardt, Husserl in Russland: Phänomenologie der Sprache und Kunst bei Gustav Špet und Aleksej Losev (München: Fink, 1993), 240: for Losev, “die Erkenntnis wird ontologisch als ‘Vorgang’ am Seienden selbst begriffen”; “begreift Losev in seiner dialektischen Theorie die Sphäre des Bewusstseins vom Begriff des Seienden her.” 10 O.V. Bychkov the end of this section after the discussion of the identity systems and Teichmüller’s personalism. The status of this position will also be evaluated from the point of view of the present-day state of scientific research in physics and neurobiology. Suffice it to say, at this point, that such an understanding of ‘being’ clarifies many issues in a philosophical system such as Losev’s.

1.2 Losev, Scientific Ontologies, Idealism, and Phenomenology18

At this point we are approaching the issue that is most central to Losev’s philosophy, just as it is to any philosophical position: the issue of the relationship between our mental perception of things (which can be roughly called phenomenology) and the status of these things vis-à-vis our mind (let us roughly call this ontology). There can be, of course, several positions as regards this relationship. The scientific-materialist position accepts the “common” unreflected view that the things that appear to our perception really exist, that they are to be treated as if they were real things, and that everything mental or ideal is simply an epiphenomenon of material entities and processes and is thus secondary. One can be sure that Losev genuinely rejects the materialist and the scientific-positivist positions, since he not only vociferously condemns them in his writings but also suffered imprisonment and labor camps for his anti-materialist views. Yet, as will become clear, Losev is not opposed to scientific findings and scientific models (the trait he shares with Husserl and later phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty; see below) as long as they do not bring in unreflected ontologies that usually accompany scientific theories. Losev’s position as regards various types of “idealism” is much more complicated and nuanced, and a definitive discussion of this issue may be beyond the scope of this study: yet some discussion is unavoidable. First of all, there are various types of idealism, various systems of thought that may include idealist elements, whether acknowledged or not, and also the issue of what counts as ‘idealism.’ For example, from a Marxist-materialist point of view all systems favored by Losev, such as Teichmüller’s (see below), as

18 I am extremely grateful to Daniel Tate for his careful reading of this Introduction and particularly for his invaluable suggestions regarding the material on Husserl’s phenomenology. The discussion of Husserl’s phenomenology in this Introduction has benefited greatly from his advice and expertise. Introduction 11 well as Losev’s own system and most phenomenological approaches are ‘idealist.’ At the same time, both Losev and Teichmüller attempt to distance their systems from idealism, and so do most phenomenologists; thus Losev calls himself an ‘ontological realist’; Teichmüller’s system is known under various names such as ‘critical individualism’; and Merleau-Ponty classifies Husserl’s phenomenology either as ‘existentialism’ or as ‘phenomenological positivism.’ Therefore one will be best suited by outlining positions and attitudes rather than by using specific labels. Losev’s attitude to what can be called ‘objective idealism’ such as that of Hegel (some features of which are shared by Schelling) is generally positive (he would simply call it ‘dialectic’ as the genuine movement of thought), even though he disagrees with some of its positions; this will become clear later from the discussion of his engagement with these two thinkers. The idealist position that is in direct opposition to the materialist- scientific and that can be roughly called ‘subjective idealism,’ is that what we call things are only appearances and they are to be treated and analyzed as such. The “real” world is merely an illusion (maya or fata morgana); the task of the philosopher is to realize this by training one’s thinking; “things” beyond phenomena either do not exist (an extreme position) or their real existence cannot be assertained and is therefore irrelevant (a mitigated position). Now Losev clearly rejects the extreme subjective-idealist position. The complication arises due to the fact that Losev seems to attribute the mitigated subjective-idealist position, as well as certain metaphysical claims associated with it, to Husserl and his brand of phenomenology,19 despite Husserl’s and his followers’ efforts to avoid such claims and affiliation. Since Losev’s involvement with Husserl’s phenomenology has received much attention, it makes sense to discuss this issue and outline both Husserl’s position and Losev’s perception of it in more detail. In our case, it is not particularly important what Husserl and his followers themselves claimed about their position but whether there is any hermeneutical and textual basis for Losev’s reading of Husserl. According to M. Merleau-Ponty’s insightful account of Husserl’s method, far from being a type of subjective idealism that presents our experience of the world as an illusion, phenomenology appears to be closer to

19 As will be mentioned later, Russian philosophers interested in phenomenology in the early 1900’s generally tend to read Husserl as a type of Platonist. 12 O.V. Bychkov

Losev’s own claimed “realist” approach in that it “re-achieves a direct and primitive contact with the world” and “offers an account of space, time and the world as we ‘live’ them”; i.e., it is a movement back to things themselves and to life itself.20 Husserl is far from claiming that the “real” world is a mere illusion or that things beyond phenomena do not exist. The problem is with how this movement back to things and this contact with the world is accomplished, i.e., with Husserl’s method of phenomenological reduction or epoche. As will be discussed later in more detail, Losev does not accept Husserl’s reduction: achieving contact with real things does not present for Losev a practical or methodological problem. According to Husserl and his followers, of course, the epoche is merely a method, not a metaphysical stance. Its essence is to suspend “the assertions arising out of the natural attitude” (Merleau-Ponty, PP vii), to bracket and “put out of play” (PP xiii) the world positing of the natural attitude in order to focus on the eidetic structures of intentional consciousness—all in order to enable our “contact with the world.” However, the epoche is not a method in the sense of a scientific method: it is more of a practical method of mental training, alike to concentration or meditation, as appears from Husserl’s sporadic statements in Ideas 1 as to how hard it was mentally and emotionally to achieve certain phenomenological stages. (Merleau-Ponty keeps pointing out that a complete elimination of the natural perception of things is not possible.) As a result, what is achieved is an altered way of perceiving the world where one not only not thinks of the world in natural terms but perceives it in a totally different way. Within the “reduced” picture, the things of the “real” world are certainly different from purely mental things, but only as far as their “intentional structures” are concerned: they possess certain peculiar properties such as infinite verifiability etc. It is not inconceivable to compare the training technique of Husserl’s reduction to the Hindu yogic techniques of reducing the maya effect and starting to perceive the world in terms of contemplative structures and entities (in the latter case, the claim is also not necessarily that the world does not exist but that the reality is not what we perceive it to be). Can the results of the method of reduction, no matter what the original claims are, be read as a form of subjective idealism?

20 M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. C. Smith (London /New York: Routledge/The Humanities Press, 1967), vii, further abbreviated as PP. Introduction 13

If they could not be, Merleau-Ponty would not have mounted such a substantial defense against a possible idealist reading of phenomenology. According to him, “noematic reflection which remains within the object and, instead of begetting it, brings to light its fundamental unity” is opposed to the idealist stance that the world is based on the synthesizing activity of the subject; “the world is there before any possible analysis of mine” (PP x). Yet Merleau-Ponty clearly does engage the possibility that phenomenology can be interpreted as idealism (PP xi-xii), the view that in his opinion is incorrect: “The true Cogito does not define the subject’s existence in terms of the thought he has of existing, ... does not convert the indubitability of the world into the indubitability of thought about the world, nor finally does it replace the world itself by the world as meaning. On the contrary it recognizes my thought itself as an inalienable fact, and does away with any kind of idealism in revealing me as ‘being-in-the-world’” (PP xiii, emphasis added). Proceeding “by way of the essences” in phenomenology is not the goal but a means to understand and conceptualize “our effective involvement in the world”: “...our existence is too tightly held in the world to be able to know itself as such at the moment of its involvement, and ... it requires the field of ideality in order to become acquainted with and to prevail over its facticity” (PP xiv-xv, emphasis added).21 Merleau-Ponty specifically addresses the issue of illusion: phenomenology does not ask whether the world is real but asserts that “the world is what we perceive.” What is self-evident for us cannot be illusory in some other way; perception is an “access to truth” the experience of which is “self evident” (PP xvi). According to Merleau-Ponty, “the eidetic method is the method of a phenomenological positivism which bases the possible on the real” (PP xvii, emphasis added). As is clear from some of Husserl’s own statements presented in this study, he himself opens up his method to an idealist interpretation: for example, cf. his claim about the absolute nature of the eidetic sphere that cannot be limited by anything “outside” of it. Husserl’s insistence that the “real world” of the natural attitude should be disregarded to the point of “annihilation,” even though according to Husserl himself, it is part of the reduction method and not a metaphysical stance, also could raise questions in thinkers such as Losev who did not see the need for the reduction in order to

21 Cf. PP xv: “Husserl’s essences are destined to bring back all the living relationships of experience....” 14 O.V. Bychkov think reality phenomenologically and dialectically. Ultimately, however, one must keep in mind that what is presented in this study is Losev’s reconstruct- ed view of Husserl, which is, we claim, in some respects hermeneutically viable. Specifically, Losev objects to Husserl’s denial of the relevance of the outside world, which he probably interprets as a metaphysical position instead of a part of a phenomenological method. Husserl establishes “transcendental idealism” as the only possible epistemology, perhaps by appealing to the self-evidence of this position: because it “makes no sense” to consider that something is beyond what can be “made sense of,” i.e., phenomenologically constituted. Any postulate of unknowable ‘things-in-themselves’ is thus rejected: all that is available to our conscious experience, i.e., all being, can be known, i.e., phenomenologically constituted. Everything else is relegated to “non-sense.”22 While some nineteenth-century German idealists such as Hegel hold that there is no “hidden” source of being behind its manifestations, some phenomenologists contemporary to both Husserl and Losev, share the more cautious position of Husserl that such a “hidden” source is simply not to be sought. For example, for the early Heidegger the “meaning of being” does not amount to some “deep reason behind being” but simply to the eidetic entering of entities or of Dasein into the “undisclosedness” structure of meaning.23 Heidegger spends considerable effort on describing the philosophical conundrum of trying to prove whether there are things or reality “outside of us” (BT 246-7). Indeed, while “the Real is essentially accessible only as entities within-the-world,” “all acess to such entities is founded ontologically upon the basic state of Dasein, Being-in-the-world” (BT 246). Thus for the Heidegger of BT, just as for Husserl, “the question of whether there is a world at all and whether its Being can be proved, makes no sense if it is raised by Dasein as Being-in-the-world; and who else would raise it?” (BT 246-7). The only thing that does make sense, once again, is to study what can be phenomenologically constituted.

22 Cf. E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology, trans. D. Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), 84-6; further abbreviated as CM. 23 “And if we are inquiring about the meaning of Being, our investigation does not then become a ‘deep’ one [tiefsinnig], nor does it puzzle out what stands behind Being. It asks about Being itself in so far as Being enters into the intelligibility of Dasein. The meaning of Being can never be contrasted with entities, or with Being as the ‘ground’ which gives entities support; for a ‘ground’ becomes accessible only as meaning, even if it is itself the abyss of meaninglessness” (BT 193-94). Introduction 15

However, the position (albeit methodological) that nothing beyond one’s phenomenological experience is relevant, and that one must limit one’s task to analyzing intentional structures is so extreme that even Husserl sometimes “slips” and reveals the elements of the common view of reality even when he is not describing the “natural attitude.” (Merleau-Ponty warns of such inevitable falls back into the natural attitude, which the epoche is supposed to bracket [see PP xiv]). For example, in Ideas 1 (§38, 80), when, after the performance of the epoche and not in a context of describing the “natural” attitude, Husserl describes the difference between “immanent” and “transcendent” objects in consciousness, we read the following: “Not only does the perception of the physical thing not contain the physical thing itself as part of its really inherent composition; the perception of the physical thing is also without any essential unity with it, its existence, naturally, being presupposed here.” The only unity is the “unity of the stream of mental processes” themselves. The first slip into the “natural” attitude, or at least into the common way of speaking of things, is the mere mentioning of the “physical thing” instead of something like “intentional complex ‘physical thing.’” The second slip is to speak of its apparently extramental “existence” in a common existential sense. Further concerns about the intergrity of Husserl’s phenomenological method are caused by his position that consciousness in its “purity” is a “self- contained complex of being,” “into which nothing [spatio-temporally external] can penetrate and out of which nothing can slip”; it “cannot be affected by any physical thing and cannot exercise causation on any physical thing” (Ideas 1, §49, 112). Once again, it appears that Husserl speaks of extramental reality outside of the context of its phenomenological constitu- tion, from a position “above” phenomenology. In addition to the loss of coherence in his approach by going beyond the sphere of intentional structures, Husserl here seems to perpetuate a (phenomenologically unfounded) Cartesian stance that assumes the existence of the phenomenal world of intentional structures as opposed to the physical spatio-temporal world which cannot have any direct influence on the former. If one objects that these statements are meant methodologically (in terms of the reduction) and not metaphysically, first, this is not at all clear; and, second, they could certainly have been read by someone like Losev metaphysically, as describing a subjective-idealist position, which would immediately clash with Losev’s ontological realism. 16 O.V. Bychkov

Now in older semi-theological Cartesian-type systems the perceived correspondence between the mental and the exramental realities, which could not be accounted for philosophically from within these systems, is explained through some divine agency. Husserl wishes to distance himself from theological explanations but hardly helps his case by postulating a seemingly unproved position that therefore there is no such correspondence: “[But it is] not as though there were a blind regularity such that the ordo et connexio rerum necessarily conformed to the ordo et connexio idearum” (ibid., §50, 112-13). In fact, the position that there is no isomorphism between the “real” and “phenomenal” worlds is shared by Losev, who further in his career supplements it by another unproven position: that there is no isomorphism between eidetic and linguistic structures.24 Such a stance in both Husserl and Losev smacks of pure dogmatism because neither empirical nor logical proofs can be furnished that this is indeed the case. In fact, scientific data, as well as logic and common sense tell us, on the contrary, that everything is part of the same continuous reality. While denying such continuity between the phenomenological reality and the “outside” world for Losev hardly makes sense given his realist stance described below, for Husserl it seems essential. Husserl sees that if one admits such continuity, the domain of mental processes will be limited: “anything which could limit it [domain of mental processes] would have to share a community of essence with it” (Ideas 1, §51, 116). Husserl seems to fight vigorously against any imposition of limitations by something like “nature” (ibid.) on the domain of mental processes, which as a result becomes “absolute” (Ideas 1, §76, 171), because he would rather admit that no such continuity exists, an unproven position. Such a categorical denial of any limitations to the phenomenological sphere is not supported not only by logic or scientific data but even by other idealists: e.g., Schelling in his System of Transcendental Idealism, as well as many philosophers of the “transcendental” orientation do admit such limits to the individual consciousness, which would mean that that limiting reality does have a “community of essence” with our mental processes. It is easy to see how someone like Losev

24 Losev’s phenomenology of language, including the aforesaid position, is discussed in detail in L.A. Gogotishvili, Nepryamoje govorenije (Figurative Speech) (Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskih kul’tur, 2006), 220ff. Introduction 17 would see an idealist metaphysical stance in these texts of Husserl,25 which he is all too eager to engage, despite Husserl’s best attempts to avoid such an interpretation. To his credit, Husserl’s position regarding the natural sciences is qualified. He rightly holds that scientific ontologies cannot be co-opted indiscriminately since they are usually unreflected. However, nor are all scientific findings, as well as the “common sense” view of things as “real,” to be rejected out of hand. One can work with the natural sciences if one keeps in view the correct phenomenological approach.26 The Heidegger of BT seems to agree with Husserl on this particular point as he does defend ontologies, but calls for their clarification.27 As the natural sciences already operate with some understanding of Being, on the basis of some ontology, all that is needed is a clarification of this ontology. The same goes for the method of logical deduction often employed by the natural sciences. According to Husserl, logic also ultimately comes from eidetic observations, so it is appropriately based, as long as one does not construct a false ontology for it.28 Ultimately subsequent deductions that are not intuitively clear can be traced back to deductions that are. Thus logical deductions can be employed successfully even in Husserl’s method of transcendental phenomenology, in order to corroborate eidetic observations.29

25 As was shown above, Merleau-Ponty tries as hard as he can to distance Husserl and himself from idealist interpretations of their method by claiming that pheonemology is ultimately after a direct contact with real things, which means that he did see the danger of an interpretation in terms of idealism. 26 Cf. E. Husserl, Phenomenology and the Foundations of the Sciences. Third Book of Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. T.E. Klein and W.E. Pohl (The Hague etc.: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980), 79 (further cited as Ideas 3), “...the methodological regression to ontological laws is not, as a rule, a reliable method. It is not for that reason to be completely rejected. The appeal to ontological truisms gives a definite direction to the paths of Intuitive research....” Merleau-Ponty shares this cautious but positive view of the natural sciences: see his essay, “The Primacy of Perception and Its Philosophical Consequences,” cited in full and quoted below. 27 Cf.: “All ontology ... remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task” (BT 28). 28 Cf. CM 59, where Husserl speaks of the “phenomenological origin of the principles and fundamental concepts of logic.” 29 Cf. CM 56-7 and passim in Ideas 3. 18 O.V. Bychkov

To get back to the relationship between Losev’s system and various types of idealism, Losev’s understanding of ‘being’ as identical with articulability or knowability at first seems to fit well with the position that things amount to their eidetic appearances. We already know that Losev explicitly rejects this position. What about the mitigated subjective-idealist position that the “outside” world is not relevant to our study of being, i.e., articulable reality, where Losev also seems to place Husserl? There are many indications against such an association. First of all, Losev frequently attacks Husserl’s position, despite claiming to have borrowed many features of his phenomenological method. As will become clear later, Losev’s aproach is missing the crucial component of Husserl’s method, the epoche that would allow him to create a purely eidetic sphere to begin with. This trait is essential to Losev since his system does not seem to need bracketing “real” things in order to get back to them. Further, in what at first seem like occasional “slips,” Losev demonstrates the “common” or even materialistic position that distinguishes between “really existing” things and the way they appear in one’s mind. Also, as will become clear later, he does seem to allow for a “hidden source” of eidetic reality that cannot in principle become part of one’s phenomenological experience. Finally, neither Losev nor his contemporary P. Florensky, who has exercised immense influence on Losev’s philosophical system, shy away from analogies and comparisons with scientific models and operate freely with notions and data which come from the natural sciences. Florensky was himself an accomplished scientist, and the title of Losev’s first fundamental philosophical work (ACCS) speaks for itself. Since most phenomenologists are dismissive or at least suspicious of the sort of ontologies used by scientists (openly or unbeknownst to them), and Losev himself rejects materialist and positivist views held by most scientists, this stance must be investigated. To be sure, Husserl’s allowance for a cautious use of scientific findings, provided that the ontologies that stand behind them are clarified, does to a certain extent parallel Losev’s and Florensky’s engagement with the sciences. Yet the latter’s positions seem to be integrated with the scientific to a much greater extent than Husserl’s would allow. Thus while Losev’s philosophical position is clearly not materialistic- positivistic, it is also not subjective-idealist in the sense of equating things only with their appearances. It is also not that of Husserl’s phenomenology interpreted (with Losev) as mitigated subjective idealism that simply sees the Introduction 19

“outside” world as irrelevant. The key to Losev’s puzzling position lies in the following analysis of the German Idealist identity systems, the Leibnizian- personalist systems of the likes of Teichmüller, and the Eastern Orthodox “ontological realism” of thinkers like Florensky.

1.3 Losev and Identity Systems

Schelling’s position in the Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie,30 a sketch of his identity system, is that one identical reality finds expression under different forms of nature and consciousness. He does not distinguish between idealism and realism: transcendental philosophy (and, one could add, Husserl-style phenomenology) approaches this identity “from within”; the philosophy of nature (and modern science) approaches it “from without”; and Schelling’s identity system attempts to be all-encompassing.31 The system that comes “nearest” to his own “System of Identity,” in Schelling’s estimation, is that of Spinoza, which he takes as his model (Darstellung, 348). The “Spinozistic attributes of absolute substance, thought and exten- sion” are completely together and identical in reality (364, §44, Remark I); “absolute identity is the immediate ground of all reality” (371, §52).32 “The power that bursts forth in the stuff of nature is the same in essence as that which displays itself in the world of mind...” (Darstellung, 358, §30), except that the equilibrium in the case of various individual things is tipped in the direction of either the “subjective” or the “objective,” while absolute identity as a whole remains in the state of “indifference” or equilibrium. The reason why our experience of reality is, best of all, matched by transcendental (and, one could add, phenomenological) models is that “by all other laws ... nothing is determined as it is in reason or in itself, but only as it is for reflection or in appearance” (Darstellung, 351, §4, Corollary 1): i.e., our experience, and therefore laws detected by this experience, only capture and describe relations and interactions as reality appears to and is perceived by us, not the “in itself” state of reality. Curiously, Schelling’s understanding of

30 Further cited as Darstellung and quoted according to the English translation: M.G. Vater, tr., “F.W.J. Schelling: Presentation of My System of Philosophy,” The Philosophical Forum 32, no. 4 (2001): 339-71, at 343-71. 31 Cf. Schelling’s Preface to Darstellung, 345. 32 Cf. Darstellung, 352, §10, “absolute identity is simply infinite”; §12, “everything that is, is absolute identity itself.” 20 O.V. Bychkov

‘being’ does not differ singificantly from the ‘articulateness’ model described above, which is also assumed by Losev. Absolute identity can only be thought through the proposition A=A, “yet it is posited through this proposition as standing in being. Therefore it is by virtue of being thought. And it belongs to the essence of absolute identity to be” (351, §8, Corollary 1). Thus ‘being’ is equated to ‘being thought’ or to ‘articulateness.’ Obviously Schelling does not see this understanding of being as conflicting with the identity model. Consequently, one can see the possibility of something lying “beyond” being if it does not appear or is not thought. The identity position of Schelling is shared by Hegel, with some modifications. First of all, everything must constitute a unity and a whole, or, in present-day parlance, “share the same platform”: in order to be unlike you must first be like; all belongs to the same reality simply qua ‘things’ and qua ‘ones.’33 Hegel’s “realism” can be seen in opposition to either transcen- dentalist or Husserl-style phenomenological trends. Hegel himself (SL §825) speaks out against the “idealism” of his time (such as that of Leibniz, Kant, or Fichte) because it does not “permit itself to regard knowledge as knowing of the thing-in-itself,” and has not “advanced beyond being as determinateness ... beyond this immediacy”; i.e., it has stopped at the stage of being as articulateness and has not professed the very core or essence, i.e., the absolute Notion. One of the features that distinguishes Hegel’s position from that of Schelling is that according to Hegel, “appearance is that which the thing is in itself, or its truth” (SL §1038, cf. §1083).34 Now Losev’s position certainly is reminiscent of an identity system to a great extent: his approach is certainly not Cartesian dualist, nor transcendental, nor purely phenomenological. He treats both mental and “real” reality as parts of the same unity and freely approaches reality both “from

33 Cf. Hegel, Science of Logic, §906; further abbreviated as SL; quoted according to the online English translation at http://www.hegel.net/ (accessed 28 Oct. 2012) and verified against Hegel’s Werke, vols. 3-5 (G.W.F. Hegel, Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1- 18, ed. P. Marheineke et al. [Berlin: Verlag von Duncker und Humblot, 1832-45]). 34 Cf. P.V. Rezvykh, lecture “Schelling i Losev” delivered at the Losev House (Dom Loseva) in Moscow on April 13, 2010, further cited as ‘Rezvykh.’ The audio of the entire lecture can be found at: http://www.losev-library.ru/sounds/100413_ DomLoseva.wma (accessed 28 Oct. 2012). A text version of this lecture entitled “F.W.J. Schelling i A.F. Losev: tezisy k postanovke problemy” (Theses towards Positing the Problem) can be found at http://www.losev-library.ru/index.php?pid=6500 (accessed 28 Oct. 2012). Cf. Heidegger’s position in BT: what appears is not phenomena or appearances but the very essences of things. Introduction 21 within” (phenomenological observation) and “from without” (the findings of science) without hinting at any split between the two. However, it is difficult to tell whether Losev is more in accord with Schelling or with Hegel. Thus Rezvykh, attempting to articulate the relationship between Losev and Schelling, makes a distinction between Schelling, who admits the existence of the “hidden” center of reality, and Hegel who holds that what appears is the things themselves in their essence. As will be demonstrated below, Losev does acknowledge the existence of the “hidden center” of appearing forms. Yet he also holds in DAF (the first “Antinomy of Adequateness,” 207ff) that, e.g., in the case of artistic form what appears—the expression and manifestation—is the prototype itself; there is nothing apart from this manifestation. Perhaps, this perceived contradiction in Losev’s philosophy is due to the fact that his own position is not actually aligned with any of the known identity systems but instead with the Eastern Orthodox view of ‘energy’ and ‘name’ expounded below.

1.4 Losev and the Leibnizian-Teichmüllerian system (Individualism/Persona- lism)

Losev’s engagement with Teichmüller’s personalism will be covered in more detail below, so a few brief remarks will suffice. Although Teichmüller did most of his work while living within the borders of the Russian empire, he did not know Russian and thus must be considered a purely German philosopher.35 However, although Losev was fluent in German, most probably he was familiar with Teichmüller’s philosophy through Ya. Krasnikov’s Russian translation of Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt, his most important metaphysical work that Losev cites, as well as through the work of Teichmüller’s Russian followers A. Kozlov and Ye. Bobrov. According to Kozlov, Teichmüller’s main philosophical premise is the unity of metaphysics and epistemology (Kozlov 665), which is a consequence of the way he views the principles of reality, specifically, the three types of being: the “ideal” being (the patterns and structural contents of consciousness), the “real” being (the acts of consciousness), and the “substantial” or individual being, similar to Leibniz’s monads (which is the substrate of all consciousness, experience, reality and other types of being). Teichmüller

35 Cf. Bobrov, Being 10. 22 O.V. Bychkov divides all existing philosophies into four main types of systems: materialism, idealism, positivism, and his own (Kozlov 531). By “idealism” he actually means not everything that is usually called by that term but only “extreme” types of idealism that merely admit dealing with appearances, i.e., reality as articulated. According to Teichmüller, the first three types of systems are significantly flawed: materialism is simple faith in the reality of the phenomenal world where the ‘I’ (Ich) is lost; in idealism, the ‘I’ is lost among ideal structures; positivism loses any substance or essence (Kozlov 676). In order to distance his system from “idealism,” Teichmüller addresses the flaws of idealism in more detail: there is always something left which cannot be explained by ideas or notions, yet which is undoubtedly real, as it is witnessed in one’s immediate consciousness (Kozlov 529). He agrees with Kant only on the main premise that “the main sources of philosophical knowledge is in the data of one’s immediate consciousness and that the so- called sensory things are merely phenomena” (Kozlov 533). Teichmüller characterizes his own system as “Leibnizian” (another philosopher who comes close to it but still falls into “idealism” is Lotze), and his Russian followers characterize it variously as “personalism,” “monadology,” or “critical individualism.” The essence of his system is that “the opposition between the psychic (spiritual) and material being is false, and that both these principles are reduced to one [type of] being.” This stance is reminscent of an identity system. However, the difference between Teichmüller’s monadology and identity systems is that the former traditionally features scores of independent monads that are not conflated with each other but are able to communicate and link up with each other. The spiritual substance is given in immediate consciousness; the so-called “extended” substances are “homogenous with our soul and therefore we can get a sense about them analogously to it [the soul]” (Kozlov 532). All those substances are specific differences of the soul before it reaches the stage of being given in immediate consciousness. An immediate consequence of this position is that “Teichmüller’s alternative to present-day positivist scepticism and agnosticism is his belief in complete contact with entities (sushcheye) within the sphere of individual being, and subsequently, unshakeable trust in the intellect and thinking,” as well as his “trust in the inner experience of immediate consciousness” (Kozlov 527). Losev’s own position is definitely in agreement with this latter principle; he also completely agrees with Teichmüller in his critique of Introduction 23 materialism and positivism, as well as of certain types of idealism; Losev explicitly co-opts Teichmüller’s understanding of “personal” being. However, Losev just as explicitly disagrees with many technical details of Teichmüller’s monadology, so the exact nature of his position must be investigated further.

1.5 Losev and the Eastern Orthodox system (Florensky)

This brings us to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, specifically to some Russian religious thinkers such as P. Florensky, who have articulated a philosophical position based on their understanding of the Orthodox tradition, and specifically of the Palamitic direction in it dubbed imeslavie (onomatodoxy). Since this position will be covered more fully below, in the section on the ‘name,’ a few brief remarks will suffice at this point. According to Florensky, his position—which is the imeslavie interpretation of the Orthodox Palamitic position—is also the common sense position, which stands in stark contrast to the Western philosophical “perversions” of this common position in the forms of Cartesian dualism, transcendentalism, or any other stance that draws a sharp division between different types of reality (such as “mental and physical,” “immanent and transcendent,” or “in itself and in appearance”). Indeed, some duality is present in both the subject and the object. Being has an inner side, which it faces while turned to itself, in its non-confluence with all that is not it—and its outer side, which faces other being. These two sides are not [merely] attached to each other but are united from the start; they are one and the same being, although according to different axes. One side serves the self-affirmation of being, and the other its disclosure, revelation, uncovering, or whatever other name one could use to call that life that connects one being with another.36 In ancient terminology, these two sides are called ‘essence’ (ΓЁΗϟ΅, which in Florensky is very close to Aristotle’s ‘potency,’ or ΈϾΑ΅ΐ΍Ζ) and ‘energy’ (πΑνΕ·Ή΍΅, act, activity, actualization). Speaking about the relationship between epistemology and ontology, Florensky states that it is false to assume that relations of cognition (the transcendental and a priori forms and elements of the intellect) are not subject to ontological categories. In fact, the question is raised about “their own nature and their being in themselves.” A

36 P.A. Florensky, “Imeslavie kak filosofskaya predposylka” (“Imeslavie as a Philosophical Premise”), Chapter 7 of U vodorazdelov mysli (At the Watersheds of Thought), vol. 2 of P.A. Florensky. Supplement to the journal, “Voprosy Filosofii” (Moscow: Pravda, 1990), 281-321, at 285, my italics; further cited as ‘Florensky.’