The work aims to demonstrate that at the heart of Eriugena’s approach to Christian theology there lies a profoundly philosophical interest in the necessity of a cardinal shift in the paradigms of thinking – namely, that from the metaphysical to the dialectical one, which wins him a reputation of the ‘Hegel of the ninth century,’ as scholars in Post-Hegelian Germany called him. The prime concern of Eriugena’s discourse is to prove that the actual adoption of the salvific truth of Christ’s (...) revelation about all humans’ Sonship to God directly depends on the way the truth of God’s Oneness is consistently thought of. It is exactly the dialectic of the universal and particular which allows Eriugena both to tackle the dichotomy between being and non-being and to proceed towards raising a question how the totality of God’s being can be approached so as to let him radically reconsider a predominantly metaphysical view of creation the theological reflection traditionally relies on. According to the dialectical understanding of unity that Eriugena does adhere to, the reality of creation cannot be thought of, and therefore known, otherwise than in the way of being inseparable from the universal Principle of all. This is the Principle abandoned by nothing, unless the mind corrupted by the senses thinks otherwise and, following the metaphysical pattern of dichotomy, improperly sets the creation and its Principle apart. Restoration of the mind to the proper rational motion of recta ratio freed, as Eriugena argues, from the dictates of senses therefore becomes the way of both the epistemological breakthrough to the infinite whole and practical return from the world of finite things to living in the divine reality of creation. The work’s argument is based on the assumption of close affinity between Eriugena’s discourse and that of his Islamic contemporaries, who developed their dialectical ideas within the Mu’tazilah tradition of a philosophically disciplined approach to the truth of God’s Oneness. In particular, al-Nazzam’s engagement with Parmenides’ Periphyseon and his resistance to the danger of a dualistic interpretation of its ontology seem to provoke Eriugena’s innovative approach to Christian theology with a view to suggesting a mode of overcoming dualism as the main obstacle on the way to the Truth revealed. This vision of the meaning of Eriugena’s undertaking allows us not only to better understand the novelty of his approach to Christian theology, but also reconsider some of the key points of his discourse that seem to have become a sort of commonplace in Eriugenian studies: 1. Unlike the prevalent opinion, not the forms of the division of Nature but the modes of interpreting being and non-being are to be understood to constitute the genuine subject-matter of each book of the Periphyseon and, hence, of the five parts of his system. 2. The fourfold division of Nature is to be interpreted not as a basic structure of the system offered by Eriugena, but as a means of introducing dialectic to the body of theology by refuting Augustine’s metaphysical vision of a hierarchical model of the universe and indicating the way of resolution of the cardinally theological contradiction – God does and does not create at the same time. 3. All this gives reason to disagree with a general tendency of associating Eriugena’s work with exploration of the division of God’s Nature and to reinterpret it as an immense anti-division project to be understood as an important turn in the history of Christian thought entirely focused on the truth of God’s Oneness and human life in conformity to it. *** I affirm that this thesis is entirely my own work and has not been submitted for examination in any form elsewhere. (shrink)

The article is aimed at revealing the key features of epistemological paradigms, which change each other in the process of development of Western European thinking. The need for such a study is due to the fact that the distinction ‘classic – non-classic’, which is accepted in Russian philosophical literature, has a formal character. The non-classical paradigm is defined by indicating the absence of certain features of the classical paradigm, such as, for example, fundamentalism, self-centrism, science-centrism, but not by finding the (...) internal principle of each paradigm, on the basis of which its secondary features and the structure specificity of the conscious world of the corresponding epoch could be derived. In search of the basis for paradigm differences, the author turns to the analysis of the classical paradigm. As the analysis shows, it is determined by a change in understanding of the key epistemological opposition – the opposition of our knowledge of reality and reality itself. Тhe ancient and medieval opposition of the sensible and the supra-sensible is replaced by the opposition of subjective and the objective. Thus, the distinction between our knowledge of reality and reality itself is moved into the area of the conscious world, which gives rise to the process of autonomization of this world from another world. This key feature allows us to outline the classic epistemology and answer a number of debatable questions, for example, the question of whether I. Kant and G.V.F. Hegel are the classical philosophers. As the subject-object relation becomes a key epistemological relation, the further paradigm shifts are determined by changes in understanding of the character of this relation and its role in cognition. The author of article shows that the non-classical paradigm, the formation of which begins in the works of A. Schopenhauer, brings with it a denial of the division of the conscious world into subjective and objective contents and the transformation of the relation ‘subject – object’ into the correlation ‘objectification – object’, which implies the exclusion of the subjective from the sphere of consciousness. The analysis allows us to conclude that, contrary to M. Heidegger, the age when the world becomes a picture is not the classical, but the nonclassical epoch. It can be called the epoch of total objectivism, the reverse side of which is subjectivism. The next paradigmatic shift is prepared by the transformation of the worldpicture into the world-text, in which the subject-object relation loses its structure-forming role in the conscious world. As the study shows, the change of the cognitive attitude that determines the structure of the conscious world is carried out through the assumption of a new distinction between the known and the unknown. (shrink)

This paper seeks to explore the way Giovanni Pico della Mirandola treated the Orphics and the Pythagoreans in his Conclusiones nongentae, his early and most ambitious work, so that he formulates his own philosophy. I do not intend to present and analyze the sum of Pico’s references to Orphics and Pythagoreans, since such an attempt is beyond the scope of this paper. Rather, I aim to highlight certain Pico’s aphorisms that allow readers to understand and evaluate his syncretic method and (...) his goals. In addition, I attempt to trace Pico’s sources and evaluate his proper knowledge, understanding and treatment of the Orphics and the Pythagoreans. Pico resorts to the Orphics and the Pythagoreans because he wants to give a practical and applied dimension to his philosophy. He attempted the revival of the original wisdom that underlies the traditions he combined. He was not a fan of the Aristotelian θεωρίης ἢνεκεν. Philosophy does not aim at proper knowledge, but is the key for the manipulation of the cosmos, physically and metaphysically speaking. Pico probably thinks of himself as the modern Orpheus: he does not intend to reveal the paths which cross the sensible and the intelligible, but he aspires to tread them. (shrink)