Plato and the symbolic philosophy of the life of Pavel Florensky

Abstract

The article analyzes the interpretation of Plato and the Platonic tradition by the famous Russian philosopher and theologian of the Silver Age, priest P.A. Florensky. Based on the material of his two works (“The Universal Human Roots of Idealism”, “The Mean­ing of Idealism”), devoted to the interpretation of the Platonic teaching and its roots in the universal worldview, the originality of Florensky’s approach to a wide range of philosophical, historical and cultural problems related to the interpretation of the Pla­tonic teaching is shown. The article analyzes the main conceptual moves that Floren­sky makes in the course of his interpretation, clarifies the relationship of the concepts of a universal or “muzhik’s worldview” to Florensky’s logical and theoretical understand­ing of Platonism. The article reveals some important sources of Florensky’s historical and philosophical judgments about Plato (Walter Pater, É. Schuré), emphasizes the impor­tance of his contemporary European philosophy of life (Nietzsche, Bergson). Also given is criticism of some of Florensky’s historical and philosophical judgments (on the Por­firy’s theory of universals, on the mystery roots of Plato’s teaching). The originality of Florensky’s creative recreation of the systemic logic of Platonism is analyzed in detail, which begins with a kind of historical phenomenology of the roots and origins of Platon­ism, then proceeds to a general theoretical doctrine of ideas, which are understood mainly as a doctrine of the one in the many things, then to the doctrine of synthetic perception and ends with the doctrine of gender and species, in which Florensky sees the key sym­bols of the Platonic teaching.