Moce patrystyczne. Imiesławie, palamizm i kauzalny esencjalizm

Paweł Rojek

doi:10.18290/rf26741.5

Published : 2026-03-25

Vol. 74 No. 1 (2026)

Patristic Powers. Onomatodoxy, Palamism and Causal Essentialism

Paweł Rojek

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2584-0108

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rf26741.5

Abstract

The patristic distinction between essences and energies seems very close to the analytical distinction between qualities and powers. Pavel Florensky has proposed an interpretation of Palamism according to which having energies is a sufficient but not necessary condition for having essences. This view corresponds to Michele Paolini Paoletti’s recent theory of Semi‑Necessitarian Categoricalism. Contrary to Florensky, I argue that Palamism is rather closer to the Non-Reductive Causal Essentialism of the late Sydney Shoemaker, according to which having powers is both a necessary and sufficient condition for having qualities, but nevertheless qualities are distinct from powers. In this way, I hope that the analytical ontology of powers can help in understanding the patristic doctrine of energies.

Keywords:

Palamism, onomatodoxy, energies, powers, dispositions, Kantian humility, Pawel Florensky

Details

References

Statistics

Authors

Download files

pdf (Język Polski)

Citation rules

Rojek, P. (2026). Patristic Powers. Onomatodoxy, Palamism and Causal Essentialism. Roczniki Filozoficzne, 74(1), 97–121. https://doi.org/10.18290/rf26741.5

Altmetric indicators

Cited by / Share

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

Allen, Sophie R. 2016. A Critical Introduction to Properties. London: Bloomsbury.

Andronik (Trubachev). 2015. Put’ k Bogu: Lichnost’, zhizn’ i tvorchestvo sviashchennika Pavla Florenskogo. T. 3. Sergiev Posad: Fond nauki i pravoslavnoi kul’tury sviashchennika Pavla Florenskogo, Gorodets.

Armstrong, David M. 2005. „Four Disputes About Properties”. Synthese 144: 309–320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-005-5852-7.

Bird, Alexander. 2007. Nature’s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Biriukov, Dmitry. 2024. „ «Palamism» and «Barlaamism» in the Russian Name-Glorifiers Controversy of the 1910s: The Philosophical Background”. Sophia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-024-01029-7.

Biriukov, Dmitry. 2025. „The Name-glorifying Projects of Alexei Losev and Pavel Florensky: A Question of Their Historical Interrelation”. Studies in East European Thought 77: 205–215. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-023-09555-9.

Bradshaw, David. 2004. Aristotle East and West. Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bradshaw, David 2023. Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction. St. Paul, MI: IOTA Publications.

Bulgakov, Sergii. 2022. Philosophy of the Name. Tłum. na j. angielski Thomas A. Smith. Ithaca, NY: Northern Illinois University Press.

Ellis, Brian. 2002. The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism. Hoboken, NY: Taylor and Francis.

Florenski, Paweł. 2009. „Imiesławie jako zasada filozoficzna”. Tłum. Teresa Obolevitch. W: Paweł Florenski. Sens idealizmu. Metafizyka rodzaju i oblicza oraz inne pisma, 129–172. Warszawa: IFiS PAN.

Florenskii, Pavel’ A. 2000a. „Ot Redaktsii. Predislovie sviashchennika Pavla Florenskogo k knige ieroskhimonakha Antoniia (Bulatovicha) Apologiia very vo Imia Bozhie i vo Imia Iisus”. W: Pavel A. Florenskii. Sochineniia v chetyrekh tomakh. T. 3/1, 287–294. Moskva: Izdatel’stvo Mysl’.

Florenskii, Pavel’ A. 2000b. „Primechaniia sviashchennika Pavla Florenskogo k stat’e arkhiepiskopa Nikona Velikoe iskushenie okolo sviateishego Imeni Bozhiia”. W: Pavel A. Florenskii, Sochineniia v chetyrekh tomakh. T. 3/1, 299–344. Moskva: Izdatelʹstvo Myslʹ.

Graham, Loren, i Jean-Michel Kantor. 2009. Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Gravin, Artem A. 2022. „Osmyslenie imiaslaviia v sovremennoi otechestvennoi lingvofilosofii”. Platonovskie Issledovaniia 16 (1): 266–285. https://doi.org/10.25985/PI.16.2.13.

Gregory Palamas. 1983. The Triads. Tłum. na j. angielski Nicholas Gendle. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

Gregory Palamas. 1988. The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters. Tłum. na j. angielski Robert E. Sinkewicz. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.

Grzegorz Palamas. 2009. „Na ile sposobów w Bogu istnieje zjednoczenie i rozróżnienie”. Tłum. Iwona Zogas-Osadnik. Logos i Ethos (1): 135–160.

Hawthorne, John. 2001. „Causal Structuralism”. Philosophical Perspectives 15: 361–378.

Kenworthy, Scott M. 2020. „The Name-Glorifiers (Imiaslavie) Controversy”. W: The Oxford Handbook of Russia Religious Thought, red. Caryl Emerson, George Pattison i Randall A. Poole, 327–342. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Langton, Rae. 1998. Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lenart, Karol. 2020. „Quiddytyzm i quidditas w metafizyce analitycznej”. Filozofia Nauki 28 (1): 61–84. https://doi.org/10.14394/filnau.2020.0003.

Leskin, Dmitri. 2004. Spor ob Imeni Bozhiem. Filosofiia imeni v Rossii v kontekste afonskikh sobytii 1910-kh gg. Sankt-Peterburg: Aleteiia.

Leskin, Dmitri. 2008. Metafizika slova i imeni v russkoi religiozno-filosofskoi mysli. Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatel’stvo Olega Abyshko.

Lewis, David K. 2009. „Ramseyan humility”. W: Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, red. David Braddon-Mitchell i Robert Nola, 203–222. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Losev, Aleksei F. 1990. „Filosofiia imenii”. W: Aleksei F. Losev. Iz rannykh proizvedenii, 9–192. Moskva: Nauka.

Losev, Aleksei F. 1997. Imia. Izbrannye raboty, perevody, besedy, issledovaniia, arkhivnye materialy. Sankt-Peterburg: Aleteiia.

Martin, Charles B. 2008. The Mind in Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Martin, Charles B., i John Heil. 2008. „Zwrot ontologiczny”. Tłum. M. Bucholc, T. Ciecierski. W: Analityczna metafizyka umysłu. Najnowsze kontrowersje, red. Marcin Miłkowski i Robert Poczobut, 262–298. Warszawa: IFiS PAN.

Meyendorff, John. 1998. A Study of Gregory Palamas. Tłum. na j. angielski G. Lawrence. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Modest (Strel’bitskii). 1860. Grigorii Palama, mitropolit solunskii, pobornik pravoslavnogo ucheniia o favorskom svete i o deistviiakh Bozhiikh. Kiev: Tipografiia Antona Gammershmida.

Molnar, George. 2003. Powers: A Study in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mumford, Stephen. 2004. Laws in Nature. New York: Routledge.

Nizhnikov, Sergei A. 2010. „Filosofiia imeni v tvorchestve P. Florenskogo: platonizm ili palamizm?”. Vestnik Rossiiskogo universiteta druzhby narodov. Seriia: Teoriia iazyka Semiotika. Semantika 3: 48–59.

Obolevitch, Teresa. 2025. From Onomatodoxy to Aesthetics: Aleksei Losev’s Concept of Symbol. Leiden: Brill.

Paolini Paoletti, Michele. 2022. „A Brighter Shade of Categoricalism”. Axiomathes 32: 1213–1242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-021-09578-z.

Petrova, Liubov’ A. 2022. „Imia Bozhie i bozhestvennaia energiia v filosofii iazyka S. N. Bulgakova”. Platonovskie Issledovaniia 16 (1): 226–245.

Pino, Tikhon. 2023. Essence and Energies: Being and Naming God in St Gregory Palamas. London: Routledge.

Porfiriusz. 1975. „Wstęp do Kategorii Arystotelesa (Isagoga)”. W: Arystoteles. Kategorie i Hermeneutyka z dodaniem Isagogi Porfiriusza. Tłum. Kazimierz Leśniak, 85–114. Warszawa: PWN.

Reznichenko, Anna I. 2012. O smyslakh imen: Bulgakov, Losev, Florenskii, Frank et dii minores. Moscow: Izdatel’skii dom Regnum.

Rojek, Paweł. 2013. „The Logic of Palamism”. W: Logic in Orthodox Christian Thinking, red. Andrew Schumann, 38–80. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.

Rojek, Paweł. 2019. „Pavel Florensky’s Theory of Religious Antinomies”. Logica Universalis 13: 515–540. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11787-019-00234-0.

Rojek, Paweł. 2025a. „Analytic Patristics: The Logic of Apophaticism, Natural Theology, and the Metaphysics of the Trinity”. Studies in East European Thought 77: 51–84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-023-09609-y.

Rojek, Paweł. 2025b. „Trinity and Universals: Pavel Florensky’s Analytic Trinitarian Ontology”. W: Trinitarian Ontologies. Towards a Trinitarian Transformation of Philosophy, red. Eduard Fiedler i Pavel Frývaldský, 47–83. Baden-Baden: Karl Alber. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783495993484-47.

Schaffer, Jonathan. 2005. „Quiddistic Knowledge”. Philosophical Studies 123: 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-004-5221-2.

Senina, Tat’iana A. 2013. Poslednii vizantiets. Religiozno-filosofskaia mysl’ ieroskhimonakha Antoniia (Bulatovicha) i ee vizantiiskii kontekst. Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatel’stvo Dmitrii Bulanin.

Senina, Tat’iana A. 2015. „Palamizm bez Palamy: K voprosu ob istochnikakh ucheniia russkikh monakhov-imiaslavtsev nachala XX veka”. Verbum 17: 220–230.

Shoemaker, Sydney. 1980. „Causality and Properties”. W: Time and Cause, red. Peter van Inwagen, 109–135. Dordrecht: Reidel.

Shoemaker, Sydney. 1998. „Causal and Metaphysical Necessity”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (1): 59–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0114.00050.

Smith, Deborah J. 2016. „Quid quidditism est?” Erkenntnis 81: 237–257. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-015-9737-y.

Świtkiewicz-Blandzi, Agnieszka. 2018. Pseudo-Dionizy a Grzegorz Palamas. Bizantyjska synteza wschodniej patrystyki. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Sub Lupa.

Uspenskii, Fedor I. 1893. Sinodik v Nedeliu Pravoslaviia. Svodnyi tekst s prilozheniiami. Odessa: Tipografiia Odesskogo voennogo okruga.

Wang, Jennifer. 2016. „The Nature of Properties: Causal Essentialism and Quidditism”. Philosophy Compass 11 (3): 168–176. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12307.