Building an objective life. The concept of activity in Pavel Florensky and Evald Ilyenkov
Keywords:
Florensky, Ilyenkov, activity, labour, ideal, reality
Abstract
The topical debates in philosophy, devoted to the search for modes of human (and non-human) activity in areality where free activity would be possible but “pseudo-activity” or radical passivity to the point of refusal of work would not, allow us to mobilize and engage two contrasting conceptualizations of liberating activity in a conversation. Specifically, the article focuses on Florensky's concept of “concrete idealism” or “sacral materialism” and Ilyenkov's activity theory. The aim of the article is to highlight the relevance of the two different approaches of 20th century Russian philosophy, religious and Marxist, and their antagonism, yet complementarity based on a unifying element — the concept of activity. In these philosophical projects, activity is comprehended and simultaneously justified in the context of the idea of the collective inorganic body, opening the subject towards the object, or, as Florensky puts it, allowing the subject to “rise above subjectivity”. Such an activity is concerned neither with consumption, nor with pleasure, alienation, or instrumentality: these two projects of activity are filled with the pathos of liberation, even overcoming the end of history.
even overcoming the end of history.
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art]. Moscow: Progress.
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Mysl.
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Graeber, David (2018). Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. New York: Simon & Schuster.
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Maydanskiy, Andrey (2010). Realnost kak deyatelnost: ponyatie praktiki v sovetskoy filosofii. [Reality as Activity: The Concept of Practice in Soviet Philosophy]. http://caute.ru/am/text/realact.html
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Pushchaev, Yuriy (2013). “Intervyu s igumenom Andronikom (Trubachevym)” [Interview with hegumen Andronik Trubachev]. Zhurnal Foma. https://foma.ru/ tvorchestvo-otcza-pavla-florenskogo-byilo-ukoreneno-v-pravoslavii.html
Sedykh, Oksana, Khamenkov, Maxim (2016). “Organoproektsiya: russkiy kontekst” [Organ Projections: Russian context]. Philosophy of Science and Technology 21, N 1 (2016): 132–151
Shaposhnikov, Lev (2006). Konservatizm, modernizm i novatorstvo v russkoy pravoslavnoy mysli XIX–XX vekov [Conservatism, modernism and innovation in Russian Religious Thought of the 19th and 20th centuries]. Saint Petersburg: Izdatelstvo Sankt- Peterburgskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta.
Syutkin, Anton (2017). “Sovetskaya teoriya subekta: materialisticheskaya dialektika Ilenkova i Lifshitsa” [Soviet theory of subject: Мaterialist dialectics of Evald Ilyenkov and Mikhail Lifshits]. In Russkiy logos: gorizonty osmysleniya. Materialy mezhdunarodnoy filosofskoy konferentsii, T. 1 [Russian Logos: Horizons of Interpretation, Vol. 1], 284–292 . Saint Petersburg: RHGA.
Timofeeva, Oxana (2020). Spirituality Beyond Man: Toward a Labor Theory of the Soul. Rethinking Marxism, 32:1: 66––87.
Zizek, Slavoj (2008). For they know not what they do. London: Verso. Zizek, Slavoj (2008). Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. New York: Picador, Zizek, Slavoj (2017). In Defense of Lost Causes. London: Verso.
Published
2023-01-30
How to Cite
Popova, Y. (2023). Building an objective life. The concept of activity in Pavel Florensky and Evald Ilyenkov. Stasis, 14(2). Retrieved from https://stasisjournal.net/index.php/journal/article/view/223
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