Khoruzhiy S.S. Hesychasm and Phenomenology

Abstract: The field of philosophical problems generated by the study of the hesychast mystico-ascetical practice is structured into three principal domains: Hesychasm and Phenomenology, Hesychasm and Energy, Hesychasm and the Anthropological Unlocking. The first of these domains is analyzed, in which problems of methodology, epistemology and heuristics of spiritual and philosophical experience are collected. Comparative study of hesychast and phenomenological (intentional) experience demonstrates that these two kinds of experience possess close resemblance and structural parallels. Namely, the triadic structure of the way of spiritual ascension in hesychasm corresponds to three stages of the phenomenological act of the grasping of the intentional object (phenomenological reduction – intentional grasping – noesis). The hesychast principle of soberness (nepsis) is characterized as a specific modus of consciousness, which coincides with intentional consciousness in all principal features.

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