Dialektika mifa -- Raboty 1916-1988 godov -- Istorii︠a︡ filosofii kak shkola mysli.

A. F. Losev, one of the most important Russian philosophers and historians of ancient aesthetics and culture in the 20th century, develops in his ‘Dialectics of the Myth’ (Dialektika mifa), 1930, a personalistic ontology by using elements of neoplatonic philosophy and Orthodox Christian belief. According to Losev reality in all its different expressions and ontological strata must be understood as “mythical”, i.e. as “living mutual exchange of subject and object”. The subjective and personal aspect of reality is (...) not grounded in man’s epistemic relation to it alone; reality in itself has to be characterized as personal and subjective. The main philosophical opponent is Descartes, the founder of “modern rationalism and mechanism”. (shrink)

The researcher scrutinizes one peculiar historical and philosophical fact which has been generally overlooked when studying Dostoevsky. The analysis of the writer's works was carried out by the outstanding Russian philosopher Aleksei Losev at the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences. The article also provides further information on Losev's work at the Academy in the 1920s. Special regard is paid to the Russian philosopher's activities in the Literary Section in 1927-1929. The author provides ample evidence of (...) the special treatment Losev paid to Dostoevsky, including numerous discussions of reports on the Russian writer's oeuvre. The article draws attention to the fact that the main focus of Losev's analysis of Dostoevsky was the writer's symbolism. It is noted that Losev turned to the study of such as early as in the 1920s. However, the philosopher managed to publish his findings much later. According to Losev, symbolic images pervade all of Dostoevsky's works. Based on the comprehensive evaluation of archival sources and their comparison, the article unveils a picture of the Russian philosopher's activity and agenda. That helps us better grasp the range of his scholarly interests, significantly expands the opportunities for further research into this period of Losev's life and provides new data for the GAKhN history. (shrink)

L.P.: Earlier, Georgii Liudvigovich, we spoke at some length about your personal acquaintance with such distinguished Russian émigré scholars and thinkers as Fr. Vasilii Zen'kovskii, N.O. Losskii, and Fr. Georgii Florovskii. Today I'd like to ask you about your meetings in Moscow with the late A.F. Losev.

The paper analyses Aleksei F. Losev’s position in respect to the notion of time, which he considers in a dialectical perspective. The Russian philosopher proceeds from the Platonic interpretation of the relationship between the one and the many, according to which each plurality carries in itself a unifying principle, as its ontological grounding. This anti-modern perspective represents a rejection of the positivist “objectification” of the world, which introduced the “metaphysical” notions of absolute space and time. According to (...) class='Hi'>Losev, time as an indefinite continued progress of events that occur in an apparently irreversible succession does not exist as such and cannot be considered other than within the framework of the overall unity of temporal fragments, so that they acquire a common background. By placing the interpretation of time on the ontological plan, in its dialectical connection with its opposite, Losev manages to overcome the problem of the measurability of time, raised in Aristotle’s definition of time as a “measure of motion.” Losev also rejects modern subjectivist ideas about time as an experience of the present or as pure duration, both conceptions inevitably leading to the problem of identifying in the continuous flow of time a stable ground that serves as the basis for any temporal change. Besides that, Losev’s approach to the interpretation of time leads to criticism of the modern idea of progress, understood as an endless striving for the future, which always remains unattainable. The main task then is to find “mobile rest,” a unifying principle that can give meaning to human existence through the combination of past, present and future. (shrink)

I know about you only from your valuable books and from the little that was communicated to me by telephone in Moscow in September. Nevertheless, we share a warm interest in Greek culture generally and philosophy in particular.

Audacity of the Spirit by A.F. Losev demonstrates the merits of the dialectical method to understand antiquity, history, culture and philosophy. The book is a guide to dialectics for beginners and a major philosopher's summing-up of his reflections to a general audience. It is an English translation from the Russian original Дерзание духа (Politizdat Moskva, 1988), translated by Peter R. Weisensel and Vitali I. Betaneli.

Until quite recently, Russian philosophy was studied mainly from the standpoint of its development "along the path to Marxism." Understandably, attention was mainly devoted to "the solid materialist tradition," which overshadowed all other currents of Russian thought. However, the question arises of whether this "materialist tradition," i.e., the philosophy of the Russian revolutionary democrats, is so consonant with Marxism. One need only examine the facts to persuade oneself of the untenability of such an assumption.

I identify the main underlyingcomponents of Losev''s philosophy(phenomenology, Neo-Kantianism, symbolism,onomatodoxy/imjaslavie) and undertake acomparative analysis of their similarities (theprinciple of the priority of pure sense) anddistinctive features (i.e., whether logic andnatural language are accompanied by an eideticlevel of pure sense, and whether the principleof correlation or of expression is dominant).On this basis I define the pivotal concept ofLosev''s radical project as ``eidetic language.''''The general contours of Losev''s radical projectand its neglected potential for the philosophyof language are described by means (...) of ananalysis of the relationship between eideticlanguage and logic, dialectics, myth, naturallanguage, and exterior ``reality'''' (in the worldof ``referents''''). (shrink)

"Mysl"‘ Publishers timed the appearance of this book to mark the one hundredth anniversary of Friedrich Engels's work Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Engels quite pointedly dubbed the theories which emerged in Germany in the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries as "classical philosophy." It was among the highest achievements of the world's wisdom, and it prepared the ground for the genesis of dialectical and historical materialism. German classical philosophy is the theoretical (...) wellspring of Marxism. (shrink)

Исследуя философские и мировоззренческие основы художественной прозы А.Ф. Лосева, Джорджия Римонди приходит к выводу о том, что эстетическое (символическое и музыкальное) познание является у А.Ф. Лосева средством постижения глубины человеческого бытия не менее значительным, чем познание рассудочное, а музыка, философия и литература различаются между собой лишь способом передачи смысла. Всвоей работе автор предпринимает попытку эксплицировать эстетическую концепцию А.Ф. Лосева через реконструкцию выраженных в прозе музыкально-философских воззрений, представляющих собой проекцию всей его философской системы.Творческое наследие А.Ф. Лосева представлено в данном исследовании как (...) сложное и многослойное явление, основанное на строгой понятийной системе. Внутреннюю цельность всего его творчества подтверждают и многочисленные ссылки в рассказах, повестях и романах на его собственные философские работы, благодаря чему изучение выразительных средств художественной прозы А.Ф. Лосева приводит к неизбежному выводу об общих корнях философии и литературы. (shrink)

In order to cure the social sciences of many of their inveterate diseases, it seems to me extremely important and useful to support and develop in some measure A.S. Tsipko's ideas on the doctrinal preconditions of our difficulties and failures in the building of socialism, ideas that have provoked such wide-ranging responses.

Mountains of books have been written about the life of the great sage Socrates, his philosophy, his condemnation by an Athenian court, and his execution. Nonetheless, one of the most erudite experts on ancient culture and philosophy, A.F. Losev, wrote: "Socrates is one of the most difficult problems in all ancient philosophy…. And it is now by no means an easy matter to discern the true Socrates" . This judgment of Losev's is all the more true in view (...) of the fact that Socrates did not write any philosophical works and we have to get all our information about his personality and philosophy from the more or less reliable reminiscences of his pupils and followers, first of all Plato and Xenophon. (shrink)

The editors planned the appearance of this article to coincide with the seventy-fifth birthday of the author, which was to have been marked in December. The issue had already been approved for publication when the sad news came of the sudden death of Aleksandr Fedorovich Shishkin, prominent Soviet philosopher, member of the editorial board of our journal, a remarkable human being, our comrade and friend.

As in Marx's and Lenin's time, bourgeois critics of Marxism are accusing Marxists of denying ethics in principle. Some of them say that Marxist economic theory entirely rules out any element of free choice of actions and ethical judgment. Others say that Marx's economic analysis includes a moral indictment of capitalism as an unjust society, but that this means no more than that the ethical element in Marxism is entirely pushed aside by economic analysis and plays no independent role. In (...) the opinion of these critics, Marxism merely reduces such questions as what man should do, and what the ethical norms of his life are, to acceptance of the justice and moral rightness of whatever emerges in history as economic necessity. In other words, Marxism allegedly "makes a virtue of necessity" where ethics is concerned, and demands of human beings nothing more than adaptation to what is or to what will be. In either case, according to that interpretation of Marxism, people must accept without qualification that which corresponds to historical necessity. Free choice, reason, and human conscience can play no role. (shrink)

From the editors of Voprosy filosofii: December 23, 1972, marked the seventieth birthday of A. F. Shishkin, leading Soviet philosopher, major specialist in the field of ethics, one of the oldest and at the same time most active members of the editorial board of our journal. The editors sincerely congratulate Aleksandr Fedorovich on this anniversary and wish him further successes in his work, firm health, and long years of life.

The article considers A.F. Losev''s philosophy of music in the context ofhis entire religious worldview and as the part of hisChristian-Neoplatonic philosophy. Synthesizing Pythagorean-Platonic andRomantic musical doctrines, Losev concludes: music is the expression ofthe life of numbers, a meonic-hyletic element that rages inside numericconstructions. So it is necessary to analyse the concept of number inthe system of Neoplatonic thought. In the Neoplatonic hierarchy of theuniverse both numeric sphere and music are located at the source of allthe eidei, above (...) them and between the One (the first hypostasis) and theWorld Intelligence (the second hypostasis). Then music is considered inthe context of the relation between the uncreated Absolute (Tetrade A)and the created world (Tetrade B). Losev''s doctrine on the Tetrades Aand B (connected not by essence but by energies) is the importantmodification of Neoplatonism. Finally the article considers Losev''saccount of music in relation to the absolutized individual person. (shrink)