The Limits of Discourse: Solov'ev's Language of Syzygy and the Project of Thinking Total-Unity

Abstract

In his work as both philosopher and poet, Vladimir Solov'ev is motivated by seemingly contradictory desires: to apprehend in the world a higher, mystical "total–unity" that lends coherence and meaning to our lives, and to assert the validity of otherness, of the varieties of individual experience in this world. Throughout Solov'ev struggles with the possibilities inherent in available intellectual discourses–scientific, poetic, philosophical, and religious–to arrive at that combination of conceptualization and sensory experience that he called "thinking" total-unity. His historical revaluation of erotic love, The Meaning of Love (Smysl liubvi, 1892-1894), is a pivotal work in this quest. In addition to its well–known arguments in defense of erotic love, this essay focuses on the problem of discourse and its role in articulating and conceptualizing the mystical or revealed knowledge that eludes sense and reason.

Syzygy: Love Made Strange

“…Syzygic pairs are thus small communions of love, nothing less than an intimate koinonia of two. 10 Unlike Solovyov, however, I have emphasized the productive role of non-identity in establishing such a communion. Especially in twin myths, this non-identity means a hierarchy between the model and the one who imitates.…”