“Az”: whence is our “I”?

  1. Lemma
  2. АЗЪ: откуда наше Я?
  3. Russian
  4. Saprykin, Dmitry
  5. Theological works of scientists and engineers
  6. 2011
  7. Паршин Алексей [Author]. “Az”: whence is our “I”?
  8. Русская философия (традиция и современность) 2004-2009 : Russian Philosophy (tradition and modernity) 2004-2009
  9. linguistics - Russian philosophy
    1. http://old.bfrz.ru/cgi-bin/load.cgi?p=news/rus_filos/parshin_23_03_2006.htm

    1. A.Parshin compares in his article various traditions and views on the problem of naming oneself "I", "very conditionally speaking, Western (German) and Eastern (Russian)."

      When we use "I" as a word, "I" claims its own existence: the presence of “I” in utterances is first of all the statement: I am here and now, here I am! And, based on the experience of Orthodoxy, in the author's opinion, it is clear that “I” equates some danger. "Saying “I” and asserting my existence, the created one appropriates the Divine, declares the opportunity to do without Him, by oneself and only by myself. Communicating with God suggests belittling one's “I”. Conscious use of “I”, an active emphasis on one's “Self’ means moving away, or stronger, rejecting the Lord. "

      However, within the Orthodox tradition “I am” is not only a "breakthrough of original sin", it can also have a positive meaning. The author discovers in the unpublished works of S. N. Durylin the concept of "I" lost in the Fall, but not extinct, as a guardian angel of a person "keeping" him from final disintegration, from Gehenna decay.

      The author draws an analogy between mathematical symbols (variables) and pronouns: "this analogy represents the connection of pronouns, and first of all of the personal pronoun “I” with something infinite... And this infinity is the obstacle that one must overcome and which could be surmounted only by a jump, in order to introduce “I” into the language".