ENERGY-RELATED INTERACTION OF THE THING AND THE NAME IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF A.F. LOSEV

Abstract

The article is devoted to disclosing of relations of “name” and energy” categories in A.F. Losev’s philosophy. The problem of sameness of a name and the thing designated by it was touched upon in theological disputes of the beginning of the 20th century about the Orthodox tradition of “onomatodoxy” study which was adhered to by quite a large part of Hesychast monks in Russian Athos monasteries who confessed that the God Himself is present in a prayfully pronounced God’s name. A.F. Losev, being a representative of the junior generation of onomatodoxes, considered philosophic aspects of onomatodoxy. The essence of the onomatodoxy philosophic sense is revelation, in philosophic categories, of indivisibility of a thing from its name which is inevitable for the human thought. Such a conceptual structure is possible when a name is regarded as energy of the named thing, i.e. emanation of the thing wherein it is perceived by the people around. Energy is a way of presence of a thing outside its contours which are shaped by the form and matter generating the thing. The thing’s name and the name itself create in itself a uniform fact of the thing. Speaking about possibility of the presence of the thing outside itself will be allowed by equation of the thing itself and images wherein the thing is accessible for perceiving thereof by the surrounding world (visual, audial, tactile, olfactory). A name as the energy delivers a thing in outside as a personality, disclosing not the essence of aspect but its hypostasis. The name, being identic to the thing in sense, expresses this sense outside in a matter other in relation to the thing.