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Losev, 1961 A. F. Losev, philosopher
 
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Losev about himself
 

1. Back in 1911, when I, still undergraduate, had begun the detailed studies of PLATON, I was stuck by the overwhelming influence of ZELLER, at least in Moscow. HEGEL still was being downplayed in various ways, and NATORP was denigrated and silenced. Therefore, both were totally unknown. Besides, after the demise of S. N. TRUBETZKOY (1905) no one in Moscow was sufficiently versed in Classic philosophy and PLATON,  and there were no specialists to do research in Platonism. ZELLER alone dominated throughout those lean and mean lectures of Classic philosophy read, with doubtful virtues, by accidental people. Revolution, when crushed the school that was, left intact the science about PLATON -- but only because that there were no science about PLATON in Moscow these days. From the very start I acquired the idiosyncrasy towards the Abstrahierungen by ZELLER and absolute idealization and christianization of PLATON. When reading works about PLATON whose authors classified him either as a Christian theologian or as a Romantic idealist of the XIX century type, I always was vexed by their impudity and lack of historical and philological sense. All that led me to the special affection on VL. SOLOVJOV. In Dramatism of Plato he draws a single most important idea, that PLATON is a Pagan philosopher. Imbued by this idea, in 1916 I wrote a small study, Platonic Eros. Although very naive in many ways -- both in its goal and scope -- it put the certain absolutely right accent, and, most important, it differs from ZELLER in the effort to produce synthesis, albeit primitive, of entire Platonism, transcending the abstract account of isolated elements. The works of FLORENSKIJ were still unknown for me, and they did not influence my work any way. NATORP was left unread by my choice pursuing the overall trend of disdain. Long and hard work on "the Platonic problem" using  the piles of German treatises yielded some training and factual knowledge but no synthesis. The half-biographical, half-philosophical synthesis of SOLOVJOV still remained the best. 

2. My  "Platonic venture" improved significantly in 1917-1918, when I came in my studies to the late period of Classic philosophy, to Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism have opened the new vistas at the Platonism in general, and, specifically, at PLATON. The elegant dialectical system, strict and austere patterns of philosophical mentality, exact and precise terminology, and, finally, uniform philosophical style, unlike Platonic -- half-poetical, half-rhetorical style of philosophizing,-- all that finally have shown me the Platonism in all its stature...

about this project
 

The idea to create this page about LOSEV, who in my opinion, is the most ingenuous philosopher of the entire New Ages, originated during the conferences of the LANCE FLETCHER's listserver back in 1995. Some attendees of these conferences have shown the considerable interest in this philosopher. 

Since then, this site is faithfully serving for you as the almost sole site about LOSEV in the entire cyberspace. A growing interest has recently made me to revamp it to better suit the needs of visitors.

Nowadays some revival of interest in almost forgotten great Classic philosophical synthesis of Neoplatonism is discernible. However, LOSEV is the last and foremost Neoplatonist though a bit late. It is a great pity that most philosophers do not know him.

The bulk of this site is made of the abstract of yet one book of Losev. I have plans to finish it. Even more, I am thinking about other books.

My experience shows that it is rather hard to get into the Losevian philosophy, especially having only a 100-fold distillate of his voluminous books. It is a study for the entire one's lifetime.

Russian language is perfect for philosophy, even more than Greek, and LOSEV deliberately takes a full advantage of it. Sometimes to report one word of Losev the whole page and more should be written (in English, which I know so little). E. g. there are more than two dozen words with the root referring to being, and to convey them into English one should perform a lot of grammatical escapades. I give in Greek a lot of words but I always do my best to keep this to minimum. Sometimes I create new words, e.g. be-sensed, i.e. laden with sense, but not the sense in the meaning of meaning! The sense of LOSEV is more noetic and more eidetic, and the only means to know precisely naturally is the long study. Or, how you would translate the word echronosen from the most poetic Plot. 3, 7, 11?! 

Although designed more ad usum laicorum than of academic specialists, these abstracts are in no way ad usum delphini! I would be very happy to meet people who could contribute to this enterprise, or simply to enjoy it. If You have somewhat on your mind about this, let me know! 

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