Pavel Florensky and “inactive effort”. Philosophy of religion as a source of concepts for epistemology

Abstract

Pavel Florensky in “The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters” in “Letter Two: Doubt” describes the complex epistemic structure of religious experience. The article shows that the central element of this structure is the act of “inactive effort”, which does not give a clear result, but gives rise to a “tone of hope” in the mind of the subject, the expectation of discovering the possibilities of comprehending the object, which cannot be obtained in the way of the usual rational method of cognition. According to the thoughts of Florensky, the presence of such an act is due to the fact that the object of religious experience (in this case, dogmas) is beyond what is possible for rational cognition, and nevertheless it must be somehow captured and expressed by this cognition. As a result of the analysis of Florensky’s text, the article formulates an epistemological model of cognitive acts of this kind, which require great effort from the cognitive, but at the same time are devoid of any signs of action. In addition to the subject of cognition and its object, the structure of such an act contains a third element, the “tone of hope,” which allows the act of cognition carried out by the intellect to go beyond the intellect into the realm of transcendental. This model, obtained in the analysis of religious experience, may be useful for describing some cognitive events that are not related to religion. For example, in a situation where the conditions of cognition do not allow for obtaining a reliable result, but the subject continues to carry out cognitive acts according to the model of “inactive effort”, and suddenly, without sufficient reason, receives knowledge that exceeds all expectations. This opens up the possibility of significantly expanding the problem field of epistemology.