The Philosophy of Cosmic Thinking as Research and as a Life Style

UDC 304.9; 304.2

Galina B. Svyatokhina – Ufa state University of Economics and Service, Department of Philosophy, Political Science and Law, Associate Professor, Ph. D (philosophy), Ufa, Russia.

E-mail: svjatog@mail.ru

145, Chernyshevsky street, Ufa, Republic Bashkortostan, Russia, 450078,

tel: +7(917)476 73 50

Abstract

Background: The aspiration to understanding cosmos and man in it has been an important element of philosophical research in different historical epochs, beginning from the times of Ancient East and West up to the present time. But the problem of revealing the principle in the basis of Being which gives an opportunity to see the whole world as a single organizing itself integrity as well as man’s place and meaning in it remains actual.

Results: For cognizing such a principle of cosmic thinking and developing research methodology based on it the holistic approach being the foundation of the original Russian philosophy is of considerable interest in our point of view. Having an indissoluble connection with the world philosophical thought but shaped historically on the basis of the Russian spiritual culture it found its most consistent and logical expression in the Living Ethics Doctrine. Its specific character consists in the fact that it serves not only for forming a synthetic way of understanding the world, but, directing man to spiritual improvement or Transfiguration, contributes to a harmonious way of life and further cosmic evolution. To implement this methodology theoretically and practically it is important to cognize the algorithm of the dynamics of Manifested Being resulting from the Three-Hypostases Being of the Absolute.

Research implications: The study deals with the philosophy of cosmic thinking as a historical problem but it will be important to demonstrate convincingly its influence on contemporary life in our future research. Representing the essence of Absolute principles of cosmic thinking maintains their importance in research methodology and in the life practice.

Conclusions: The philosophy of cosmic thinking extends not only to the possibility of the research methodology, but also to the way of life. Having understood the principles and meaning of their Being, cosmic laws including Living Ethics, having started to use them in their life, mankind will find ways out of global crises and speed up the process of their evolutional cosmic development.

Keywords: cosmic thinking, holistic approach, synthesis, Manifested Being, Non-Manifested Being, Three-Hypostasis Essence, the Absolute, cosmic laws, The Living Ethics.

Introduction

It is a pity to realize that the contemporary life of mankind faces a lot of global problems. The main purpose of philosophy is searching the optimal ways to solve them. In connection with this, appealing to the holistic approach which developed in the Russian philosophy appears to be actual. It has an old tradition of cognizing both in eastern and western philosophy. The Upanishads, “I-Ching” as well as Pythagor, Plato, Neoplatonics, Kopernik, Cusanus, Bruno, Boehme, Paracelsus, Pascal, Vivekananda and other philosophers spoke and wrote about cosmos and man in it, about the principles and harmony of cosmic Being springing from the Divine Foundations, about methods of cognition leading to Verity. In XX century these ideas enjoyed a great deal of attention with many scientists, philosophers and researchers, A. Einstein, W. Heisenberg, N. Bor, T. de Chardin, C. Jung, M. Eliade and many others being among them. Their ideas are widely known and make a considerable contribution in understanding the world and processes taking place in it. An actual and unsolved problem here is the problem of revealing the principle underlying the Foundation of Being which gives an opportunity to see the world as a whole as a single integrity organizing itself as well as man’s place and meaning in it. For cognizing such a principle of cosmic thinking and developing research methodology based on it the holistic approach being the foundation of the original Russian philosophy is, in our point of view, of considerable interest. Having an indissoluble connection with the world philosophical thought but shaped historically on the basis of the Russian spiritual culture it created important premises for developing the methodology of synthesis. This tradition found its most consistent and logical expression in the context of total integrity in the Living Ethics Doctrine. At present its methodological principles have not been studied yet in detail. But it is obvious that studying them will contribute to man’s spiritual transformation, and give new opportunities to solve systematically urgent problems both in the sphere of cognition and in life as a whole.

The Principal Features of the System of Cosmic Thinking and Related Research Methodology

As Pythagor, who once proceeded from the assumption that philosophy is called upon for improving man up to his likeness to God, Russian scribes basing on eastern Christian tradition and the doctrine of Hesychasm originally interpreted philosophy as a kind of cognizing God, a lofty aspiration to Sofia, or Divine Wisdom. At first this approach developed philosophical thought through artistic and plastic images, vivid figurative word, aspiration to moral and esthetical matters, to inner spiritual creativity on the basis of personal dialogue with God, rather than in the form of categories and notions. This circumstance laid the foundation of the original Russian philosophy of synthesis where heart is given specific importance to as a synthetic organ of cognizing the world. And it is Love, being a quality inherent to heart only, which serves as the main condition of man’s improvement and of creation synthesis methodology. Such notions as live cognition, integrity, conciliatory nature of mind, sofianess (wisdom) of thinking, total unity, Three-Hypostases Principle (Trinity, Triune) as the principle underlying the Foundations of Divine Being, Non-Manifested Being of the Absolute and its Manifested Being having a dual nature or the principle of binary opposition in the basis of all phenomena and other notions are gradually formed in this context. This synthetic character of categorical structures including in the sense content not only empirical and rational means of cognizing the world but will and spirituality connecting them with Divine Source created a special type of thinking which V. Soloviev called “free theosophy”. This way of thinking synthesizing the methodical resources of science, art and religion creates premises for man’s spiritual improvement on the way of mastering it. It gives man an opportunity to cognize the world deeply and subtly and its integrity followed by evolutional cosmic development of mankind.

The ideas of the holistic systemic approach in understanding the world were successively developed in the works of different representatives of the Russian religious philosophical thought. In XIX – XX centuries among them we find A. S. Khomyakov, I. S. Kireevsky, V. S. Soloviev, B. P. Vysheslavtsev, A. I. Ilyin, S. N. Trubetskoi, E. N. Trubetskoi, S. N. Bulgakov, N. A. Berdyaev, P. A. Florensky, N. O. Lossky, K. E. Tsiolkovsky, V. I. Vernadsky, L. A. Chizhevsky and others. In XIX a significant scientific contribution in the development of the methodology of systemic and holistic comprehension of the world’s structural organization was made by Helena Blavatskaya on the basis of comparative analysis and synthesis of a lot of ideas and scientific, religious and philosophical texts. In the context of the dynamics of evolutional cosmic development of mankind the holistic approach received its most complete and systemic manifestation in the principles of cosmic thinking in the Living Ethics Doctrine, the philosophy of Cosmic Reality connected with the names of Helena and Nicholas Roerich. This doctrine, being the synthesis of philosophical ideas of the East, scientific achievements of the West on the basis of the Russian spiritual culture, reflected systemic and integral representations of the structure of the universe in harmonic unity of practical, moral and aesthetic being included, rules and norms of the Cosmic Being. Among the contemporary researchers in the field of cosmic thinking we should note such researchers as L. V. Shaposhnikova, S. A. Amonashvily, A. V. Ivanov, K. A. Kedrov, R. E. Rovinsky, A. V. Fedotov, V. V. Frolov, L. M. Gindilis, G. N. Dulnev, A. A. Lebedenko etc.

Let us consider some peculiarities of the philosophy of cosmic thinking.

It was Plato who noted that the obviousness of the external life phenomena is not enough for a philosopher to make judgments. He wrote: “…philosophers are people who are capable of perceiving what is eternally identical with itself” [2, p. 277].

Thus, according to Plato, a philosopher’s judgment should possess an internal indissoluble connection with the eternally existing and the invariable. Hence the research methodology should find and reflect such systemic and structural expression of the algorithm of integral thinking which will be accurately correlated with the principles of the integral Cosmic Being in Eternity and Infinity and will adequately reflect the dynamics of actual cosmic energetic processes. To solve this uneasy problem let us use the ideas systemically developed by Russian philosophers and important methodological principles of the Living Ethics Doctrine. Of course, solving such a task is impossible in the framework of this article but some major issues in this approach can be designated.

From the mentioned above categories of the Russian philosophy of cosmic thinking let us pay attention to the Trinity principle and, namely, the Three-Hypostasis Essence of the Absolute. To explain its inner structure let us use S. N. Bulgakov’s judgment comparing the principle of the trinity with the grammatical structure of coherence among the main parts of the sentence. He writes: “Substance” exists not only “in itself, as a subject, but also ‘for itself’, as a predicate and simultaneously ‘in itself and for itself’, in a liaison as reality. And all these three elements are not only dialectical moments of the one, withdrawing and abolishing one another in the synthesis, but three simultaneous and equal essences, so to say roots of the reality, in their totality showing the life of substance” [1, p. 318 – 319]. In other words, understanding the Three-Hypostasis Essence of the Absolute realizing its potentialities in Eternity and Infinity according to the principle Itself, By Itself, In Itself comes to existence.

To get a clearer idea of “the life of substance” or the essential dynamics of the Absolute, which is urgent for a synthetiс research methodology, let us supplement it by E. Roerich’s citation. She writes: “The Absolute contains the notions of the Non-Manifested and the Manifested. Only the Manifested Cosmos can reveal its infinite potential” [3, p. 252]. It means that everything in the Manifested plural Being reveals its potentialities according to the Three-Hypostasis principle, too. Taking this into account the Essence of the Absolute in both Manifested and Non-Manifested Being cannot be cognized other than in the trinity of its ontological, epistemological and axiological sense. How can this be explained?

Thus, the ontological sense of considering the Three-Hypostasis Essence of Being marks out the Hypostasis that can be defined as the principle of dynamic integrity or Life of the Absolute Ego. It comes to its realization in the Manifested Being in an innumerable multitude of Monads which are the basis, the centre of any integral developing form of life, including hierarchically organized one or that being in a hierarchically organized system. Having an indissoluble connection with the Origin of Being, Monads, as manifested centres of life, in their essence, possess the potentiality of the Absolute. Hence, when certain inner spiritual efforts are applied they dispose of an unlimited opportunity of evolutionary creative development and perfection of their cosmic form of life in eternity in the process of periodical manifestations of the cycles of Being. The meaning of life in this context consists in evolutionary creative development of the Monad, or the centre of life, revealing more and more its aptitude for consciousness. And so, move to the Infinity, the Living Ethics Doctrine declares.

But such a statement would be an abstract judgment without understanding the connection of this Hypostasis with the two others in the context of integrity. Therefore it is necessary to consider this essential principle of the Absolute – the Life of Ego – in its interconnection with the two other principles or Hypostases – Mind and Love of the Absolute Ego. Being the structural elements of Three-Hypostasis Essence of the Absolute they express the gnoseological and the axiological way of integrity consideration.

The gnoseological way – the principle of Mind of the Absolute Ego – represents understanding structural and logical specificity of the system of conformed interrelations of the Hypostases of the Essence of the Absolute providing its integrity and stability in Eternity and Infinity of Manifestations. In fact, the Hypostasis of Mind of the Absolute expresses the principle of an integral structure being the basis of life of everything in Cosmic Being and resulting from the Three-Hypostases Essence of the Foundations. Therefore, the essential logical structure of an integral act of life per se, or a separate form of life, together with the gnoseological component of an integral methodology can be symbolized by a system with feedback or double negation of the type “Ego – not Ego – not-not Ego”. Here the role of the positive feedback as well as the control signal is played by Love, or the third Hypostasis presenting the axiological way of understanding integrity. It is this positive feedback of this triune holistic system of life-cognition-perfection that indicates man’s following the evolutional way of revealing their spiritual potential as the meaning of Being. Love in this context is presented as the criterion of integral verity.

The axiological type of the Three-Hypostases Essence of the Foundations of Being – Love of Absolute Ego, the nature of God, as it is referred to in the Russian philosophy – represents the valuable spiritual nature of the Unity. The functional role of the Hypostasis of Love in the Three-Hypostases integrity is connected with its highest energetic and vibratory nature providing a harmonious unity and integrity of the Unity, including the dynamics of its Manifestations in Eternity and Infinity. The example of understanding the nature of God as Love can be found in works by P. A. Florensky: “God is Love…, i.e. love is the divine essence, His true nature” [4, p. 83].

In the context of a holistic philosophical approach there is an urgent necessity for the mankind to master the synthetic type of cosmic thinking. But this supposes understanding the heart as a synthetic organ of the world perception. As early as in the epoch of mechanistic rationalism B. Pascal in anticipation of the tradition of irrationalism in the European philosophy suggests the idea of cognizing by means of both mind (proving) and heart (feeling). But it was the Russian philosophy where this idea developed in a school called “The philosophy of Heart”. One of its main sources was the Christian idea of warm-hearted love as the foundation of Being and cognizing the world. This key thought is well-defined in the Bible and has been cited by plenty of Russian religious philosophers, representatives of the conception of the whole unity, Russian cosmists on many occasions. The Living Ethics Doctrine contains a whole book called “Heart” which is devoted to understanding the meaning of heart not only in man’s life and society but also as the central Governing Wise Force in Cosmic Being as a whole. Therefore the development of heart spirituality and including it into a conscious process of a holistic perception of the world becomes an important task for the contemporary mankind. It is also necessary to include it in the research methodology as a synthetic instrument of cognizing the world giving an opportunity to use new cognition methods on its basis.

Conclusion

The study showed that the philosophy of cosmic thinking extends not only to the possibility of the research methodology, but also the way of life. Having understood the principles and meaning of their Being, cosmic laws including Living Ethics, having started to use them in their life, mankind will find ways out of global crises and speed up the process of their evolutional cosmic development.

References

1. Bulgakov S. N. The Philosophy of Economy. The Tragedy of Philosophy [Filosofiya khozyaystva. Tragediya filosofii]. Sochineniya v dvukh tomakh. T.1 (A two-volume edition. Vol.1). Moscow, Nauka, 1993, 603 p.

2. Ancient Greek Philosophy. From Plato to Aristotle [Drevnegrecheskaya filosofiya. Ot Platona do Aristotelya]. Sochineniya (Works). Moscow, Kharkov, Eksmo-Press, 1999, 831 p.

3. Roerich E. I. On the Threshold of the New World [U poroga Novogo Mira]. Moscow, MTsR, 2000, 464 p.

4. Florenskiy P. A. The Pillar and Foundation of the Truth: Experience of Orthodox Theodicy [Stolp i utverzhdenie istiny: Opyt pravoslavnoy teoditsei]. Moscow, AST, 2003, 640 p.

Ссылка на статью:
Svyatokhina G. B. The Philosophy of Cosmic Thinking as Research and as a Life Style // Философия и гуманитарные науки в информационном обществе. – 2013. – № 2. – С. 133–138. URL: http://fikio.ru/?p=706.