Introduction to the theological philosophy of A. F. Losev

Abstract

The theological philosophy of the Russian Orthodox professor Alexei Fedorovich Losev (monk Andronicus) was a certain reasonable typological model of the philosophy of "all-unity" (with Sophia), which uses the classical Greek dialectical metaphysics of "essence-energy". This is a somewhat unusual type of synthetic thought, synthesizing in the sphere of Orthodox faith 1) the philosophical methodology of Palamism, 2) the dialectical logic of Platonism and 3) the concepts of the Orthodox worldview. Undoubtedly, the system of thought is integral, very interesting and useful. Theologians will have many questions about it. Of course, it needs more detailed elaboration, for example, in the sphere of energology and Sophian construction. That is why it is theological philosophy. And Losev's history of ancient aesthetics, when fully read, turns out to be not a work on art criticism at all, but also a kind of theological philosophy, only ostensibly reduced to the problems of artistic forms, but in reality it is an analysis of the expressive energies of ancient Greco-Roman mythologems with an exit to the Cappadocian Orthodox synthesis.