П.А. Флоренский и Ф.М. Достоевский: необходимая антитеза

Abstract

Florensky and Dostoevsky: A Necessary Antithesis

The philosopher and scientist Pavel A. Florensky (1882-1937) has always manifested a great deal of interest in literature and was himself the author of poems and biographical works. Among his literary tastes as well as in his personal formation, however, the novels of Dostoevsky – as he openly declared – “had never found a place”. In spite of all this, numerous quotations from Dostoevsky’s works occur in his philosophical writings and this presence reveals, as if it were in a negative way, a much more relevant meaning than the mere affirmation of his dislike. Dostoevsky seems to represent an “antithesis” to Florensky’s universe of thought, but precisely because of the way that universe is constructed it is a “necessary” antithesis. In this article, which examines the main Dostoevskian occurrences in Florensky’s writings, the ambivalent meaning of this relationship is explored. In many ways, it is a meaning that, extending far beyond a private matter of tastes, tendencies and poetics, finally reveals a universal question: the contradiction itself between the view of the world’s transcendent harmony and the perception of its immanent chaos.

Keywords: P. Florensky, F. Dostoevsky, N. Berdyaev, Orthodoxy, Religious Philosophy.