Universe of Platonic Thought 2020

Universum of Platonic Thought: Plato and Rhetoric

Farida Tagirovna Akhunzianova, CSc in Culturology, Associate Professor; Kostroma State Universaty (Kostroma, Russia), Associate Professor

Plato's ideas in the religious reflection of the beginning of the 20th century: speculatio as a cognition of real existence

Plato's ideas are organically fit into the kulturphilosophical scope beginning of XX century was largely determined and shaped his. Therefore Platonism can be regarded as a universal cultural code, contributing to the relevant understanding kontceptosfery thinkers of these time.

Keywords: culture of early 20th century, Platonism, cultural code, antinomy, identity, metaphor of special eye view

Russian philosophy of the beginning of the XX century in many respects correlates with the traditions of the Platonic worldview. For example, the exceptional role of personality proclaimed by thinkers has direct sources in the philosophy of Plato. The Russian intelligentsia elevates the demonic principle of personality to the status of a brilliant theurgic potential. The task of the individual is to allow the demon to act in man and through man in order to bring humanity closer to the Kingdom of God with his personal destiny. A significant antique symbol in Russian cultural philosophy is children's eyes, wide-open from surprise. At all times, the child was understood as the embodiment of the immaculate soul, open to God. What is open to children's eyes, sacred, wonder does not leave them. Therefore, children's eyes are understood as a way of acquiring true religious experience. To see is to recognize as existing, to see with childish, surprised eyes is to visualize ontological entities. Children's eyes become the vehicle of metaphysical light - the Divine essence, taking through itself the spirit emanating from God as His reflection. With the metaphor of the eye, the metaphor of vision is inseparable, which Plato understood as comprehension of a certain knowledge. The word “idea” itself is derived from the Greek verb “see” and means some content that is accessible only to speculation (mind to vision). The knowledge of genuine being, Plato describes it as an opportunity to look at the bright shine on those things from which the person had seen shadows. The attitude to myth-making also goes back to the Platonic understanding of myth. Through myths, eternal truths are revealed, hidden in images. Plato believed that God poured himself into the world in an act of creation, sacrificing his individual Being. The ideas of Plato about love as a life-giving force that can lead to the disintegrated divine unity to harmony and reunion, is continued by Russian thinkers as a means of overcoming sex and restoring an integral human personality.