“The Synergistic Revelation of Reality”: Observations of Background, Sources and Content of the Concepts of “Symbol”, “Synergy”, and “Energy” in Pavel Florensky at the Context of the Assimilation of Palamism in Russian Thought of the Early 20th Century

Abstract

The article studies the philosophy of symbol in the works of Pavel Florensky in Palamite context. Comparing Florensky’ symbology with one of Gregory Pala­mas, and keeping in mind that, in the course of the Name-Glorifiers dispute, Flo­rensky began to speak of a symbol using the Palamite language of essence and ener­gies, I discern two stages in Florensky’s philosophy of symbol: pre-Palamite and Palamite ones. In order to conceive the compliance of Florensky’s Palamism with historical Palamism, I compare Florensky’s teaching on symbol at his Palamite stage with that of Gregory Palamas. In the course of this, I explore the reading cir­cle of the Palamite literature by Florensky. I conclude there is a crucial difference between the two thinkers: Palamas conceives “symbol” to be a natural energy of essence, while, for Florensky, it is an essence, the energy of which is in synergy with the energy of another essence. In this regard, I explore the background of Flo­rensky’s concept of synergy and highlight two lines: the first one relates to the Ger­man notion Synergismus, the second one relates to Serapion Mashkin’s doctrine. Finally, I discover a difference in ontologies between Palamas and Florensky. I as­sociate it with the difference in teachings on “symbol” of the two thinkers.