Abstract
The key focus of this essay is the experience of encountering divine wonder in things. The examination of the divine encounter is staged against the phenomenological backdrop. Specifically, the concept of the divine wonder is taken in its original, Husserlian, definition as Verwunderung and is traced via Levinas and his concept of face (le visage) to the early 20th century Russian philosopher, Pavel Florensky (1882–1943), whose 1922 essay “Iconostasis” approaches divine representation (лuк) in icon painting explicitly and consistently as a phenomenon of wonder. More broadly, by connecting Florensky and his work to the phenomenological project at large, this essay aspires to show that the early 20th century Russian contributions to phenomenological thought go beyond adaptations and simulations of the traditional phenomenological prolegomena toward highly original philosophical encounters.
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Notes
Cf. Florensky(1922/1996), pp. 116–117.
Ibid., pp. 53–54 (this and subsequent translations are mine).
Welton (2002), p. 13.
Cf. Husserl (1931).
Husserl (1973), p. 363.
This particular claim is advanced by Anthony J. Steinbock (1998), pp. 163–204.
Stähler (2003), pp. 138–145.
Cf. Husserl (1967), p. 285.
Cf. Husserl ( 1993).
In his Phenomenology of the Social World, Alfred Schutz defined wonder in the presence of other human being as the foundation for sociality. In a somewhat divergent manner Maurice Natanson describes wonder “as a self-centered procedure insuring its indubitable facticity” in his Edmund Husserl. Philosopher of Infinite Tasks, pp. 54–56.
This and all subsequent references to the term das Fremde come from Edmund Husserl ( 1973a).
To be consistent with the common convention used to distinguish Other and other, I consider ‘Alien’ (with a capital “A”) to be the alien person. The use of ‘alien’ (with a lower case “a”) refers to alienness generally.
Husserl (1973b), p. 69.
For a comprehensive overview of the religious turn in phenomenology, see the collection Phenomenology and the Theological Turn.
Heidegger ( 1991), p. 5.
Ibid, p. 7.
Heidegger ( 1996), p. 74.
Ibid., p. 261.
Husserl (1950), p. 114.
Levinas ( 1987), p. 78.
Ibid., pp. 78–79.
Levinas (1969), p. 200.
Ibid., p. 191.
Ibid., p. 181.
Ibid.
Ricoeur (1988), pp. 123–126.
Levinas (1969) p. 59.
Benso (2001), p. 30.
Levinas ( 1969), p. 50.
Cf. Zenkovsky (1948/1991).
Florensky ( 1922/1966), p. 23.
Ibid., p. 116.
Levinas (1985), p. 85.
Florensky ( 1922/1966), p. 56.
Ibid., p. 60.
Levinas ( 1987), p. 187.
Dionysius the Areopagite, ( 2005), p. 127.
Florensky ( 1922/1966), p. 49.
Ibid., p. 37.
Florensky (1922/1966), p. 141.
Ibid., p. 172.
Ibid., 186.
Florensky (1922/1966), p.125.
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Kozin, A.V. Iconic wonder: Pavel Florensky’s phenomenology of the face. Stud East Eur Thought 59, 293–308 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-007-9035-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-007-9035-6