Shugurov M.V., Duplinskaya Y.M.
Apophatic model of the philosophy of religion of S. L. Frank and Christian religious-mystical experience: fundamentals and results of interdisciplinary synthesis
// Philosophical Thought.
2022. ¹ 1.
P. 34-72.
DOI: 10.25136/2409-8728.2022.1.37431 URL: https://en.nbpublish.com/library_read_article.php?id=37431
Apophatic model of the philosophy of religion of S. L. Frank and Christian religious-mystical experience: fundamentals and results of interdisciplinary synthesis
Shugurov Mark Vladimirovich
ORCID: 0000-0003-3604-3961
Doctor of Philosophy
Professor of the Department of Philosophy, Saratov State Law Academy
Duplinskaya Yuliya Mikhailovna, Shugurov Mark Vladimirovich.
(2022)
Mystical Experience in the Spectrum of Altered States of Consciousness: Overlapping Discourses of Theology and Secular Sciences. Ôèëîñîôèÿ è êóëüòóðà
10
.
DOI: 10.7256/2454-0757.2022.10.38787
DOI:
10.25136/2409-8728.2022.1.37431
Received:
29-01-2022
Published:
09-02-2022
Abstract: The subject of this research is the approach of S. L. Frank towards the study of the religious-mystical experience of Christianity based on the conceptual matrix of "wise ignorance" and phenomenological method, which underlies the metaphysical system in his philosophy of religion. The authors examine in the specificity of philosophical mysticism of S. L. Frank and points of its intersection with the Christian religious-mystical experience. The unfolding of phenomenological approach to in-depth layers of the religious-mystical experience of Christianity means the functionality of philosophical reflection within the universal paradigm of Christianity, and thus, the characteristic archetype of religious-mystical experience. Special attention is given to the role of individual mystical-religious experiences of the philosopher and their rational categorization in creating his philosophical system. The main conclusions lie in theoretical provisions that Frank's philosophy of religion, outlined by him as a philosophical mystical theology, became the platform for the apophatic model of "wise ignorance", which led to theoretical reflection of the profound layers of not only mystical-philosophical, but also the religious-mystical experience of Christianity. The authors’ contribution lies in substantiation of the statement that the peculiarity of mystical-theological phenomenology of S. L. Frank is that it represents a version of contemplative mysticism and cannot be viewed as a special philosophical reflection on the diversity of Christian mysticism and the model of Christian mystical theology, which in no way detracts from the interdisciplinary nature of generalizations of the philosopher. The novelty of this article consists in explication of the philosophy of religion of S. L. Frank as a system of conceptual representations, which based on the model of apophatic "sophisticated ignorance", reflects the essential component (archetype) of the Christian religious-mystical experience underlying its diversity and divergence.
Keywords:
philosophy of religion, religious mysticism, Frank, phenomenology, God, transcendence, apophaticism, religious faith, Orthodoxy, Christianity
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Fourth, the peculiarity of Frank's mystical-theological phenomenology is that it is a variant of speculative mysticism as such, and cannot be considered as a special philosophical reflection on the diversity of Christian mysticism and the model of Christian mystical theology, which in no way detracts from the interdisciplinary nature of Frank's generalizations.
In fact, Frank enters the sphere of religious faith without ceasing to remain a philosopher, i.e. he orients himself in this space on the basis of mystical intuition and interrelated concepts of unity and monodualism, and not on the basis of confessional orthodoxy. However, his positioning in this space does not mean the choice of some alternative and marginal margin, on the contrary, his religious-mystical intuition becomes the basis of a philosophical reflection of the essential characteristics of Christianity in general and characteristic of the latter religious-mystical archetype, in particular.
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First Peer Review
Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential. The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.
The reviewed article is a qualified study of the philosophy of religion by S.L. Frank, the author seeks to present his own research on the stated topic as the results of studying the creative heritage of the thinker, which in recent decades has been constantly updated with new publications. However, the general appreciation of the article does not mean that after reading it, questions and criticisms do not arise. The noted quite justified desire of the author to take into account the results of publications that have already taken place, without emphasizing the difference in his own position, can cause the reader to doubt the novelty of the results obtained in the article. It should be noted that the author himself is trying to determine the novelty of the article (in the final part of the introduction), but the result is, admittedly, not very convincing. The numerous fragments from the works of other authors cited by him show that for many years of research (in the post-Soviet period) they have been identifying similar features in S.L. Frank's philosophy and giving it similar characteristics. It seems that the questions themselves, which the author sets himself as the topics of future research, are largely to blame for this. Some of them sound not only too general in nature, but also simply as abstractly formulated: no matter how you answer them, you will not make a mistake, but at the same time you will not reveal something really new, unusual in the philosopher's legacy. For example, let's look at the question: "can a philosopher be attributed to researchers of religious and mystical experience in general and its Christian version in particular?". And what kind of cognitive uncertainty does it reveal, logically speaking? None, therefore, it turns out to be extremely unproductive to collect quotations on this topic from publications by other authors, such work does not bring any "conceptual increment". Or the following questions: "Did he (the philosopher, the reviewer) set as his task the creation of an original concept of the religious and mystical experience of Christianity and methods of its comprehension? Did he build a meaningful connection between mystical insights and Christian orthodoxy?" – The philosopher could "not set the task ...", but the "original concept", nevertheless, could take place; and in the following case: it does not matter whether there was a (conscious) "building ...", the historian of philosophy must analyze the "connections between ..." actually presented in the texts. In short, already in the formulation of tasks, that abstractness manifests itself, which does not allow us to draw sufficiently definite conclusions. At the very beginning of the article, the author writes: "mysticism not only can deny rationality and appear in the form of irrationalism, but in some cases it can form a kind of unity with rationalism, i.e. it can be a "smart" mysticism embedded in the desire of reason to comprehend the supra-rational. This is the case of Frank." Has the author managed to show that the "Frank case" is exactly like that? Both the text itself and the conclusions presented in the conclusion do not provide an opportunity to answer this question quite definitively. Further, the article has too much volume (mainly due to the features discussed above); even without a list of references, the text is more than two printed sheets, that is, twice the volume of an expanded journal article. Is such an excess justified from a conceptual point of view? Should I have cited such a huge number of quotations from other publications? In general, it seems that the author's voice is simply lost among them, and it is already difficult for the reader to judge what exactly the author's position is manifested among this abundance of assessments. In the reviewer's opinion, this is the case when it is "cramped" not to thoughts, but to words, the volume of the article can easily be brought back to normal without prejudice to the actual content. The same should be said about the list of references. Are all these sources needed to build a text? The author demonstrates indisputable erudition, but does it help to demonstrate "conceptual consistency"? In addition, there are fragments in the text that can be simply removed, for example, an indication of the methods used, obviously it duplicates (maybe in an expanded volume) what is indicated in the abstract to the article. Summing up, it should be stated that the reviewed article may be of interest to readers, but for this it should be shortened, eliminating the abundance of unnecessary quotations and repetitive evaluations, while obscuring the originality of the author's approach. I recommend sending the article for revision.
Second Peer Review
Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential. The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.
The relevance of the research is primarily due to the need to comprehend the apophatic model of S.L. Frank's philosophy of religion and Christian religious and mystical experience from the perspective of intellectual trends of postmodernism and an interdisciplinary research approach. As the author rightly notes, there are a number of questions regarding the scientific work of S.L. Frank, which were not previously the subject of special study. Among them, the following stand out: ".. can the philosopher be attributed to researchers of religious and mystical experience in general and its Christian version in particular? Did he set out to create an original concept of the religious and mystical experience of Christianity and methods of its comprehension? Did he build a meaningful connection between mystical insights and Christian orthodoxy? How does religious-philosophical and religious apophaticism correspond in his work?" These and other related related issues are considered by the author as research tasks, which the prepared article is aimed at solving. The purpose of the work is to consider the model of apophatics, characteristic of the religious-philosophical type of thinking and developed in Frank's philosophy, as well as the phenomenology of the apophatic religious-mystical experience of Christianity and its paradigm from the point of view of their interdisciplinary synthesis. Subject of research: S.L. Frank's apophatic model of philosophy of religion and Christian religious and mystical experience. The methodological base of the research is represented by general scientific (analysis and synthesis, abstraction and generalization) and special scientific methods (systematic approach, comparative philosophical method, hermeneutic method). It is important to note that research tasks are solved using a number of methods, which makes it possible to implement an interdisciplinary approach and the principle of systematic scientific research. As the author reasonably points out, the novelty of the study lies in the disclosure of Frank's philosophy of religion as a system of conceptual representations that allow, based on the model of apophatic "sophisticated ignorance", to reflect the essential component (archetype) of Christian religious and mystical experience, which is at the heart of its diversity and divergence. The study of the depth of the philosophical level of generalizations characteristic of Frank showed that his views not only correlate with mystical theology, but at the same time represent precisely the philosophical theoretical image of the essential core of Christian religious and mystical experience. The article consists of an introduction, the main part, a conclusion and a list of references, including 73 sources, 3 of them in English. The main part of the work has a clear logical and semantic structure and is represented by 3 headings: "The Mystical and philosophical theology of S.L. Frank, the mystical and religious experience of philosophy and Christian apophaticism", "The relationship of religious and mystical experience and religious dogmatics through the prism of philosophical theology of S.L. Frank", "The Doctrine of the Absolute in religious and philosophical ontology S.L. Frank", "The phenomenon of self-existence: a philosophical and religious interpretation of the loss of Communion with God and its restoration." In the first section, the author proceeds from the fact that the result of Frank's creative appeal to apophatics as an ontological and epistemological model of the relationship between man and God was the creation of his own philosophical concept of religion, which has a religious character. In this regard, Frank's position on these issues is considered, expressed in the widely known book "The Incomprehensible" (1939). In order to determine the relationship between religious and mystical experience and religious dogmatics through the prism of S.L. Frank's philosophical theology, the author conducts a deep, systematic analysis of both Frank's works and the researchers who studied his concepts. As a result, it is noted that Frank's metaphysics "sought to rely on deep metaphysical experience, which did not allow his philosophy to become a frozen system." In the second section, "The correlation of religious and mystical experience and religious dogmatics through the prism of S.L. Frank's philosophical theology," the author, based on the results of the study, draws attention to such a characteristic feature of S. L. Frank's religious philosophy "as the dialectic of intimate personal connection and communication between man and God." In the third section, "The Doctrine of the Absolute in S.L. Frank's religious and philosophical ontology", the author draws attention to the fact that within the framework of the ontology of the transfinite Absolute, the problem of cognition is solved not narrowly epistemologically, but ontologically, in accordance with the approach that was developed in the book "The Subject of Knowledge", which substantiates that the source of knowledge It is in Revelation. It is noted that the criterion of "living" knowledge is of particular importance, which consists in the immediate tangibility and evidence of its subject, which, in principle, means recognizing the fact that God is comprehensible, including due to the fact that He is present not only in the world, but also in man. As a result of understanding the essence of the doctrine of the Absolute in S.L. Frank's religious and philosophical ontology, the author argues for the priority of living Communion with God, carried out in the layers of mystical experience. As a result of the analysis of the phenomenon of self-existence, the philosophical and religious interpretation of the loss of Communion with God and its restoration, presented in the fourth section of the article, the author concludes: "Frank believes that since we cannot find eternity and absolute goodness in empirical reality, our dissatisfaction with the world indicates the presence of God in us as the highest reality." In conclusion, the author presented well-formulated, meaningful conclusions and emphasized that Frank's religious and mystical intuition becomes the basis for a philosophical reflection of the essential characteristics of Christianity in general and the characteristic of the latter religious and mystical archetype, in particular. So, the article has a logical structure, it is written in a competent scientific language. The material is presented clearly and consistently. The conclusions are substantiated and may be of interest to representatives of the philosophical community, as well as to theologians, psychologists, cultural scientists, sociologists, and specialists in the field of interdisciplinary research. Accordingly, this study is promising and of interest to a wide readership.
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