General characteristics of tetraktida dialectics

(ed. by Aza A. Takho-Godi, Elena A. Takho-Godi, Victor P. Troitski)

Abstract

This is a first time publication of the material found in A. F. Losev’s archive that relates to the initial structure of his famous book The Philosophy of Name (1927). According to Lo­sev’s initial plan, A General and phenomenological analysis of Thought and Word, or Name was the first part of his book, and, for the most part, it would later become part of the published work. In the second part, which was not published, Losev planned to provide a special interpretation of his Dialectic nature of the name. It is this kind of a dialectic sys­tem (an original “dialectics of the name”) that is developed here in the form of bullet points and relates to two different semantic dimensions: the “vertical” dimension, according to the model of a neoplatonic tetraktida, and the “horizontal” dimension, which builds on the model of Hegelian triads. The same system with insignificant variations is also found in other books written by A. F. Losev in the 1920s. In the present fragment, Losev elaborates on some specific features of the dialectic method he employs: a) the logical entailment and the concept of a “dialectic instant,” b) the relation between dialectics and reality, and c) the presentation of dialectics as a special kind of mythology. This text presents an early and very dense version of the basic philosophical ideas that would be developed by Losev in more detail in The Dialectics of Myth (1930), in particular, those that relate to the ortho­dox Christian worldview as “absolute mythology” and “absolute dialectics.”