Philosophical inquiry and the work of prayer as ways of understanding the world

The author of this article examines the similarity of states in Cartesian meditation and in prayerful vigil, each of which leads the cognizant subject, respectively, either to “intellectual intuition” or to revelation that allows him to go beyond the limits of empirical, objective data, and contemplate essence and predetermination. It is asserted that for Orthodox theology, unlike Roman Catholic theology, primarily the creativity of prayer, perfected in the experience of asceticism, rather than the verbalization and rationalization of this experience, takes on a central role. Te anthropocentric epistemology that triumphed in the Western cognitive tradition denied metaphysics the right to exist, which made the philosophizing process itself problematic, impossible without wondering about what is known and aspirations for the unknown in which this known is given. Terefore, philosophy as a set of philosophizing systems viewed as peculiar steps on the life path toward truth and crystallized in the processes of “prayerful contemplation”, degrades. Tus, science has chosen not the path of prayerful contemplation, of thinking and striving to comprehend the world in its beginnings, but the path of pagan magic, tuned to finding forces hidden in nature forces that could provide power to the person who knows them