Priest Pavel Florensky: personalism vs. chaos

A review of Polovinkin, S., Khristiansky Personalizm Svyashchennika Pavla Florenskogo (Te Christian Personalism of Priest Pavel Florensky), Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 2015. 362 pp.) Te author reviews the study of S. Polovinkin, who atempts to demonstrate that the philosophy of Priest Pavel Florensky may be considered a form of Christian personalism. In the review, the author demonstrates that Polovinkin’s study, based on a series of published and unpublished archival materials authored by Florensky, shows that Florensky’s views cannot be viewed as pantheism, cosmism, or impersonalism. Polovinkin achieves this result by studying arythmology, antinomism, and monadology as the foundations of Florensky’s worldview. Te author remarks that the finding of personalism in Florensky’s philosophical thought is possible because of his teachings on creativity and freedom. Te author concludes that Polovinkin’s study is original and well-structured and that his proposed approach to interpreting Florensky’s philosophy expands the scholarship in the field and offers new topics for study.