Transcultural Studies, 4 (2008), 87-105

TATJANA KOCHETKOVA

THE RELATION BETWEEN SOPHIA AND GAIA: AN IMPULSE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS?

This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence . . . a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.

Plato, Timaeus, 29/30, fourth century BC

This planet will forget offences Of him who trades, of him who kills, And, as in reminiscences, Druids will teach from greenish hills.

Nikolai Gumilev, translated by Y. Bonver

James E. Lovelock’s hypothesis of Gaia, which claims that in its strong form that the Earth is a self-organizing system, able to regulate the conditions favorable to living species, emerged out of empirical research, although its philosophical foundation is still a subject of discussion. At the same time, some of the implications of the Gaia-hypothesis correlate to a particular phe- nomenology of nature, developed by the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solov’ëv (1853-1900) under the name of “Sophia.” Here I compare the two concepts and suggest what Solov’ëv’s view of Sophia can offer for the under- standing of the foundations of Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. We shall look at how these two approaches relate to each other, and the practical implications of Gaia for environmental ethics.

Sophia, Gaia, and the Anima Mundi At first glance, Vladimir Solov’ëv’s Sophia and Lovelock’s hypothesis of Gaia appear to be quite different. However, both concepts seem to support the theory of the Anima Mundi, or World Soul, which was claimed by some an- cient philosophers to embrace the entirety of nature, to animate all matter in the sense in which a soul animates a living being. The idea itself, though de- fended by Plato, is even more ancient. Already known in Indian philosophy as the Brahman-Atman of Vedanta, it was later expressed by the Stoics who be- lieved it to be the vital power of the universe. In the Middle Ages the hermetic 88 Transcultural Studies

philosophers Paracelsus and Boehme continued the idea of Anima Mundi and later it became Leibnitz, Spinoza, Novalis, and Friedrich Schelling. The core of the Anima Mundi seems to be preserved in Lovelock’s Gaia theory. In this article I will first look at how the idea of Sophia evolved in Solov’ëv’s philosophy, and in particular the natural side of Sophia. Afterwards I will consider the Gaia hypothesis, and then examine the philosophical impli- cations of Gaia and the mutual correspondence between strong Gaia and the natural side of Sophia, which I will argue are both akin to the Platonic notion of the world soul. Finally, I will trace the implications of Sophiology and Gaia theory for environmental ethics, in the context of which I will raise the con- cept of the ecological self.

Solov’ëv’s initial idea of Sophia as the world soul For some time, historians of philosophy thought that the concept of Sophia is a rather ambiguous and obscure idea in Solov’ëv’s philosophy. A likely rea- son for this situation might be that the initial idea of Sophia was suggested in his early manuscript La Sophia (published almost a century after its author has passed away), while in his later works (already in The Lectures on Divine Humanity) this idea was significantly changed. The transformation of the ini- tial idea, which is the source of the “conceptual ambiguity,” went unnoticed. Let us examine at Solov’ëv’s initial idea of Sophia, as it was presented in La Sophia. According to Solov’ëv, the first source of all being is the absolute as “posi- tive non-being” (super esse or plus quam esse), which he calls En-Sof and de- fines as active potential of being.1 This positive non-being is the chaotic free- dom prior to any reality, as was so skillfully presented by Schelling. This ab- solute principle differentiates within itself its own other, its dialectical nega- tion. Through self-negation the absolute principle becomes free Spirit, that is, the principle of substance. Spirit, originating directly from En-Sof, is absolute freedom. Spirit is the constitutive principle of the world, and, by organizing matter, Spirit gives birth to the form-creating element. This new element is the third cosmic principle: ideal diversity, called Logos or Nous, and the fourth principle of real diversity is the universal Soul, Anima Mundi. In sum, Solov’ëv presents the universe as an ideal entity consisting of three hypostases: Spirit, Intellect, and Soul. With respect to substance, Spirit is prior to everything, but in phenomenal manifestation Spirit is determined by Intel- lect and Soul. The three hypostases constitute three worlds that are linked, so that they represent the aspects of one and the same universe. The difference between the three worlds is made according to the principles of unity and plu- rality. In the Spirit the unity is absolute; in the Intellect the diversity is ideal, and the unity exists according to substance; in the Soul diversity became real,

1. V. S. Solov’ëv , “La Sophia,” Logos, 2 (1991), p. 190.

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