Сергей Хоружий - Что такое Synergia?

On the other hand, our map did not include some fields of lesser scale where synergy is also present. The most important of them is the field of biology. The phenomenon of life as such is based entirely on the fundamental principle of the energy and matter exchange between the living organism and surrounding milieu. Evidently, this principle presupposes the meeting and the concerted action of two energies, inner and outer, of different type and source, and so it represents a certain version of the paradigm of synergy; because of its central role in all living systems, one can even say that biology is the sphere of synergy par excellence. But what is the “biological paradigm of synergy”? It is equally evident that it should be close to the synergetic paradigm of synergy, but it has also many special features of its own: they are reflected, e.g., in such mechanisms as the diaphragms and such theories as the autopoiesis. So does it go entirely in the synergetic paradigm of synergy? This is a priori not known; and the analysis of the biological paradigm of synergy is today an interesting open problem.

Another open problem is the study of the phenomenon of so called violent synergy. It is a specific modification of synergy used in ideological/anthropological practices of totalitarian regimes. In this case outer energy is represented by the totalitarian terror machine that inculcates on man’s consciousness the basic contents of the totalitarian dogma embracing all the principal aspects of man’s existence, ideological standings, emotional reactions, behavioral patterns and so on.

Exerting all means of extreme, unbearable pressure on the consciousness, the totalitarian message performs a kind of the breaking-open the consciousness, it enters deeply into it and acts incessantly; so that eventually the consciousness starts involuntarily to respond to this message. It starts to convince itself that the message is acceptable, is good after all, and so it develops gradually the collaboration with the outer energy of the terror machine. The final result is unmistakable synergy, the coherence and collaboration of the two energies, but the way to it was the breaking-in and violence. So in what domain of the territory of synergy are we here? There is no answer yet since the phenomenon was just briefly described so far in my recent works.

The last but not least, there is one more subject that should necessarily be mentioned. Synergy is inseparable of energy, any definition or description of it goes in terms of energy, and so its conceptual analysis cannot be complete if it does not include conceptual analysis of energy.

Unfortunately, we are exactly in this situation. In both the theological and anthropological domains there is no concept of “human energy”, although this term is used abundantly (only Divine energy has got a proper conceptual elaboration in Orthodox theology of energies). Classical conceptions of energy by Aristotle and Plotinus do not fit the context of anthropological practices and activities of consciousness, and the term “energies” (or “human energies”, “psychic energies”, etc.) used in this context – in psychology, ascetics, and other discourses – is nothing but conventional name for some reality that successfully resists conceptualization so far [15] In synergetic anthropology and other anthropological and psychological theories that try to preserve correct and rigorous discourse, one avoids the use of the term “human energies” finding various substitutes and correlates (e.g., katexis in Freud’s works); synergetic anthropology uses “anthropological manifestations” as the basic term. . This lacuna is in no way accidental.

Energy, like Being, is a great topos of philosophical reflection; but, in contrast to Being, it was left th out of sight in the Western philosophical tradition. It is only in the 20 c., due to the powerful effort and influence of Heidegger, that the problem of energy comes back to the forefront of philosophical thought as one of its cardinal open problems. As for the paradigm of synergy, it constitutes an ancient and important sub-topos in the great topos of energy. Studies of synergy must be coordinated with the modern advancements in this topos, and the conceptual lacuna in the synergic discourse must be reflected upon thoroughly. Surely, this brief discussion does not exhaust all open problems in the sub-topos of synergy.

As our survey shows, the situation in this sub-topos is in active development, and the ancient paradigm of synergy still has rich heuristic resources. Avoiding the use of the classical essentialist discourse, it is of fully nonclassical nature. Providing a synthesis of concepts and methods of secular and religious discourse, it can contribute to the development of modern postsecularist ideas.

And both these aspects show that it can play an important part in the formation of the new vision of reality that is emerging now.

1 J.Habermas. Religion in the public sphere // Europ. J. of Philosophy. 2006. 14(1). P.17.

T.Ware. The Orthodox Church. Penguin Books. 1985. P.263, 227.

J.Meyendorff. Byzantine Theology. Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. Mowbrays, 1975. P.164.

Vl.N.Lossky. Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church // Bogoslovskie trudy. 1972, vol. 8. P.108 (in Russian).

L.P.Karsavin. On Principiums. St.Petersburg. 1994.P.183.

The treatment of the concept of constitution based on its connection with the concept of unlocking is presented in my article: S.Horujy. The constitution of personality and identity in a perspective based on practices of the Self, old and new. // Voprosy Filosofii, 2007, no. 1, 75-85. (In Russian. The English version can be found on the website www.synergia-isa.ru).

This repertory presents strikingly pluralistic view of the human being resembling to some extent postmodernist vision of human subjectivities in philosophy of Deleuze and Foucault.

One should add, however, that on the practical level the separate construction of the melting-pot is needed for each humanistic discourse, and only in a few cases this anthropologizing remelting has been actually done so far. The most important case is the representation of historical process as the successive change of anthropological formations; versions of such anthropologization of history were presented in theory of practices of the Self by Michel Foucault as well as in synergetic anthropology.

E.Laszlo. The Age of Bifurcation. Understanding the Changing World // Put’ (Moscow). 1995, No 7. P.118. (The back-translation of the Russian translation of the original published in 1991.)

H.Haken. The interview to E.N.Knyazeva // Voprosy Filosofii. 1999. No 6. P.55. (In Russian.)

I.Prigogine, I.Stengers. Order out of chaos. Man’s new dialogue with nature. Moscow, 1986. P.54. (The back- translation of the Russian translation of the original published in 1984.)

St. John Cassian. Works. Sergiev Posad, 1993. P. 340. (In Russian.)

St. Nilus of Ancyra. To Magna, the deaconissa of Ancyra. On inacquisitiveness. // Dobrotolyubie. Vol.2. Sergiev Posad, 1992. P.229. (The text is here attributed to st. Nilus of Sinai, as many texts by st. Nilus of Ancyra were till recent time.)

S.Horujy. Zen as an Organon // Diogenes’ Lantern. A synergetic anthropology project in the modern context of the humanities. Moscow, 2010. Pp. 522-572. In Russian.)