Casus Gogotishvili: critical remarks on the concept of predicative symbolism

About the author:

Leonid G. Kaianidi, Assotiate Professor, Department of literature and journalism, Smolensk State University, Smolensk, Russia, leonideas@bk.ru, ORCID 0000-0002-4937-1908

Abstract:

L.A. Gogotishvili’s linguophilosophical concepts have become the subject of intense scientific interest in recent years. The research of S. V. Fedotova, A. A. Gravin, E.K. Sozina is devoted to them. These concepts receive panegyric assessments, while they have, in our opinion, a number of obvious semantic and historical inconsistencies. The material of our research was two articles by Gogotishvili devoted directly to the work of Vyacheslav Ivanov (“Between the name and the predicate (symbolism of V. Ivanov against the background of the imiaslavie)” and “The Antinomic principle in the poetry of V. Ivanov”). To critically comprehend Gogotishvili’s concept, we used dialectical-phenomenological, hermeneutic and comparative-historical methods. We critically examine the juxtaposition of Ivanov’s symbolism and imiaslavie, which Gogotishvili justifies on a single mention of imiaslavie in Ivanov’s work, and show that Ivanov was not specifically interested in linguistic and philosophical issues. Then we investigate the problem of the existence of a transcendent referent of the symbol in Ivanov. It is denied by Gogotishvili. However, the analysis of Ivanov’s mystical-aesthetic theory shows that the poet understood the symbolic referent as an objective entity that directly appears in the symbol-name. The Ivanov symbol cannot be understood as an objectless predicate, meaning detached from the transcendent essence. Ivanov’s understanding of the symbol is ontological and as close as possible to Florensky’s concept of the symbol as a face. Gogotishvili claims that the referent of the symbol in Ivanov is a transcendent-immanent “state of consciousness”. We show that this directly contradicts Ivanov’s aesthetics, which has pronounced platonic features and is akin to Plotinus’ teaching about intelligent beauty.

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