P.

Florenskij, Onomatodoxy as a Philosophical Premise (excerpts)

Name is a human energy, of humanity as of single person,- energy of humanity unfolding itself through a personality. But a
subject of a name or its contents, speaking exactly, is not this energy: <human> name as an activity of knowing, takes the mind
beyond a subjectivity and makes it to touch a world, which is outside our psychic states. Psychophysiological <at first>, the name
not disperses in it as a smoke, but makes us to face a reality, so, touching its object, it in the same degree can be held as revealing
this object in us, and us - for and before it. We have come here to the principle, inseparable from human thought, of the connection
between oysia and its energy. This doctrine is behind any lifelike thought, it was the basis of world outlook in all times and for all
peoples. Philosophically it was detailed by antique idealism, then by neoplatonism, further praised by mediaeval realism, studied in
depth by Orthodox Church saeculo 14, in connection with theological controversies about the Light of Thabor. Further it was a
source for GOETHE, somewhat unclear for MACH, and, finally, nowadays <1922>, broke through as a bitter protest against
philosophical and theological illusionism and subjectivism in the Athonic discussion about Name of God.
<...> The significance
of onomatodoxic way of thinking is not restricted by any individual problem of philosophy or theology, but involves the total
Weltanschauung, even the every possible Weltanschauung, and for everyone it is necessary to decide for or against onomatodoxy
in the very depth of one's mentality. <...> What is called a common sense and is in reality the whole consciousness of the
human race as unity,- this should urge anyone to consider the fundamental principles of onomatodoxy. Really: here I am in the
world, in the vast world and with it, with people, with animals, with plants, with elements and heavenly bodies. How to evade a
question, is this all really so, or it is a sort of illusion, of a dream, though necessary and "firmly grounded" - according to LEIBNITZ, or
"objective" - according to KANT? The collective consciousness of a human race tells me that appears that, what really is, whereas
philosophy and science in a majority of their proponents strives to dequalify this appearance and denounce it as empty and
deceiving: appears that, which is not. <...> What we call the onomatodoxy absolutely adheres and takes spiritual responsibility for a
life to the universal consciousness of a human race; onomatodoxy believes in a truth eternally and implicitly belonging for man,
because only truth gives a value for him. <...> The task of onomatodoxy as of special type of intellectual endeavor is to categorize
the eternal human feeling that makes it human, i.e., to discern ontological, gnoseologic and psychophysiological <here, in my
opinion, a bit too much> premises of this universal feeling and self-apprehension. Onomatodoxy wants and ever wanted to
approach it scientifically, fixing what will appear during the analysis. It is ready for antinomies and acknowledges beforehand that
by all means not the all things will be explained and reduced to the whole. But this reduction and explanation it does not holds for
its main task. The main task is to set a consciousness into a position which does not allow for breaking with a consciousness of all
humanity and led into a heresy. <...>

The main intuition of human race - I live in the world and with the world - implies the being, and the real being, both of me, the
human, and of that what is outside me, what is separately, and more exactly, independently of human consciousness. But, along
with this duality of being, the human consciousness involves also a kind of real unity or real surmounting of this duality. <...> In the
process of cognition the subject is inseparable from object: cognition is simultaneously one and another, more exactly, <...> it is the
unity in which one could be separated from another only by abstraction, but, too, this unity object is not dispersed in the subject,
and the latter does not dissolves in the external object of cognition. United, they do not devour each other, though, remaining
distinct, do not remain separated. Theological formula atreptos kai ahoristos is wholly applicable for the gnoseologic interrelation of
subject and object, as it is thought by all the humanity. It is safe to say: anyone, if he it is not persuaded in contrary by scholastic
philosophy, thinks about this cognitive process exactly so. <...>
If this is a universally human conviction, which it cannot be deprived of without losing mental equilibrium and all the impetus for
cultural activity, the integral part of human consciousness is also a recognition of some duality in the subject and in the object. The
being has some interior part which is turned to its core, in its unblending with what it is not, along with some exterior part, directed
towards other being. These two parts are not connected one to other, but they are in the primordial unity, they are the same being,
though opposite oriented. One part serves for self-assertion of being, whereas the other - for appearing, happening, unfolding the
first. It is a life, linking the being with another being. According the terminology of Ancients, these two sides of being are called
essence, or being,
, and act, or effect,
. This terminology, featuring in neoplatonism, in writings of Church Fathers,
recent Orthodox theology, and in some degree in contemporary science (energy - in physical and Naturphilosophic meaning), is

probably most adequate in philosophy. But it is readily accepted by everyday language: when the mediaeval authors speak that the
any being has its energy and that only non-being is devoid of it, this ontological axiom is perfectly understandable by common
sense: it means that all what really is has in itself a life and this life reveals itself in the phenomena of existence, and not only for
other, but also for self. This manifestation of life is energy of any creature.
In this case the beings, remaining not merged in their
and not reducible to each other, not dissolved in each other,- they may
really unite by their energies: then this unity could be thought as not a sum of actions, not as a mechanical incitement of one being
by another, but as a mutual creation of one common energy, as the
, in which there are none separable input energies,
but is some new
. Then the interplay of beings is thought not mechanical way, but organic, and furthermore - ontologically:
it is a cognitive Hochzeit, which yields some third child, which partakes of both input beings, and is even more than sum of both
these. The cognition is this child, a result of communication between knowing spirit and just known world. This result, uniting spirit
and the world in a real, not illusionary unity, does not implies the vanishing of some or both parents, and they both, united and
mutually enriched, still are as the centers of being.
In this manner, coupling of beings, their mutual reference and mutual revelation is some real thing of its own nature. This reality,
never leaving the linked centers, does not reduces to them. It is a synergy, mutual act of
s, and unfolds them both. It does not
equals to none of
s, being new
in relation of each of them, but also it is every one of them, because it unfolds an
appropriate
, and without its energy, and energy caught, any
leaves closed, not expressed, and therefore, not known,
closed for any cognition. Any
of any
could be acquired only by the energy of cognitive
. If the flow of
is lost outside the milieu of counter-flow, the cognitive oysia is not revealing itself as a cognitive, as the energy is required for any
cognitive act. Then it is nothing in relation to the objective oysia, and nothing at all. Energetical stream is flowing through and
beside it not touching it and not noticing it, and itself remains untouched and unnoticed.
<...> synergy <is not only the being of its own, but also it> carries the energies of the
s, which have produced it. It is more
than it is, and <...> being itself, is also a cause which granted a being for it. We always acknowledge the latter as more valuable
and more significant. Any being, revealed in its energies, is in the first place, and the revealing energy is in the second place,
because it receives its value and its very existence from the first. In this way, we come to a definition of a symbol.

A being, which is more than itself,- it is a main definition of a symbol. Symbol reveals by itself what it is not and what is
more than it, but essentially manifests itself through it. Unfolding this formal definition, we can see, that symbol is such an
, the energy of which, merging with the energy of some other, more valuable in a given aspect, oysia, carries in this
way that later
. But, carrying more valuable oysia, symbol, though has its own name, perfectly can be named by the name of
that, more valuable
, and in a given aspect, even should be named in that way.
In order to narrow and therefore simplify this question we will select from the various connections of being only cognitive
connections. Connections of cause and other, as commonly seen outside, in our thought automatically resembles for us the
outside linking or impetus, similar to mechanical causality. This comprehension clearly is superficial, but psychologically natural in
reigning attitude. Therefore we will handle the connections, in which any mechanical apprehensions are intolerable and in which
the interrelation between
s is essentially interior. These connections are cognitive relations, as the spirituality, i.e.,
non-mechanicity.
This by no means implies that these cognitive relations are inoperable by ontological categorization. Transcendental nature of mind
forms does not preclude the ontological evaluation of the mind itself and its transcendental forms <...>
The causal relation is the apprehension of other being in the given being. But we, outside, see not the revealing itself, but only
some change in being. Therefore, the being, revealing itself through the causal action, is discernible only indirectly, not by means
of its energies <...>, but by means of logical operations, i.e., trying to establish some cognitive connection between ourselves and a
source. In this way, we not always communicate with a right center of being. In this kind of relation, causative relation, we
apprehend not a being, but a relation between two <or more> beings.
In contrary, during a cognitive process not an external being is in relation with other being, but I myself, by my energy perceive its
revelation for me and inside me directly from object being. As has been said before, merging with the energy of my apprehension,
this phenomenon of
makes a fundament for all further process of cognition. Because of its cognitive meaningfulness, the
further process of apprehension is not more than the primordial synergy: it obtains nothing more, but seeks to affirm in the subject
the synergetic revelation of reality, and as far as it can, it makes always reproducible in the consciousness that what once and
suddenly revealed itself, and tries to make these repetitive appearances as full as the original apprehension. This organon of
automatic connection between object and subject is a word, and a special kind of a word - the name, or some equivalent of the
name - metonymy.

In a broader sense, the word is any self-dependent manifestation of a creature outside it, because the aim of these manifestations
is not the external energies, but their sense, coming by these manifestations into the trans-subjective realm.<...>

But, between all these activities <language, jests, etc.> is the one which obeys our conscious will most easily <...>. This activity is
a language of articulated human word, it is an organ of voice. <...>
Special causes <why the language is most universal, etc.> yet could be unexplained. But the organ of voice probably has

especially diverse contacts with the centers which together govern the synergetic process of our spiritual relations with reality. <...>
only the word alone sovereigns the cognitive process and objectivizes previously subjective entities transforming them into the
objective truths. And in the uttered word resolves the inner longing for reality and poses before us the cognitive Sehnsucht as the
just reached goal and the nostrified gem of consciousness. <...>
The becoming of cognitive synergesis advances in some cases very slowly, teases as something commencing, but yet not fulfilled.
This process is not yet conscious touching of the object reality, not the reached knowledge, but only preparation for it. Two
energies of reality and of subject are close, maybe, intermixed, but this fluctuating mixture not yet makes a whole, and this
disparate mess of both realms inflicts in us the wearing anticipation of balance. The strain swells, and the contradiction between
subject and object grow more and more acute. It is like before storm. The word is that lightning, which tears a sky asunder from
east to the west, producing the embodied sense: and in the word equilibrate and unify the accumulated energies. The word is a
lightning. It is no more this or that energy alone, nor both in the same place, but new, dyadic energetical phenomenon, new reality
in the world. It is a channel between the two disparate. Geometry shows us, that irrespective what is the shortest distance
between two points by the straight line, it is always possible to find a way along which the distance between them equals nil. The
line of that way is called isotrope. Finding isotrope, we can touch any two disparate points. The utterance of word is that isotrope
between subject and object: thought distinct, they appeared identified with each other. Word is an ontological isotrope.
Being the new phenomenon in the world, bringing together the disparate, the word is not one or other from the brought, it is the
word. But it is impossible to say, that it is only for itself. It does not is without any of connected entries. Being new phenomenon, it
entirely holds itself on both points of its application; a bridge connecting two banks is not any of them, but ceases to be as a bridge,
when one of them disappears. The inverse statement is therefore clear too: a word is cognizing subject and cognizable object, held
by their interweaved energies. Wanderer, standing on the bank, sees a bridge as an extension of the opposite bank. It is a cape
from other bank, which itself had come to his feet. <...>
A word, too, is a bridge between I and not-I. Approached from the bank of not-I, i.e., from cosmology, it is the activity of subject,
and in it is the subject itself, invading the world. When we hear the word, we think <...>: it is the cognizing mind, it is thinking
personality. After that, we by means of the word start to get into the energy of
of this speaking being. It is only way to know a
person, and generally an intelligent being: by its words, because we are certain that they directly give its activity for us, and in this
its essence is unfolding. And we are certain, that the word is the sentient being itself.
Reversely, from the bank of I, we see our own word, and led by psycho- and gnoseology, we think that it is cognoscible reality,
cognoscible object, without paying much attention to the means of expression <...>. And when we recognized the word as the
object itself, as the cognizable reality, we through it get into the energy of its
, certain to know the
itself, expressed by
its energy. Word is the reality, put into the words, not a double of it, a copy, but the reality itself in its authenticity, in its numerical
self-identity. By means of the word, and through the word we discern the reality. And the word is the reality itself. So, it in the
extreme grade is subject of the definition of the symbol: it is more than itself. And this more is twofold: being itself, it is
simultaneously subject and object. The subject of cognoscence is the basic
of the symbol-word, and in this respect all said
about word perfectly fits the aforementioned ontological definition of symbolic
, carrying the energy of other
, merged
with the energy of symbol. And the energy of carried
unfolds it.

Until now we spoke about the word in general. But the more intense spiritual concentration, corresponding the blob of being, in
which crisscrosses the manifold of streams of reality, the carrier of traits and states, substance in the school language, requires for
the more densely concentrated word, which would be a basic point for onomatologic acts, for crossing of sentient activities. This
wordy center is a name.
The common trait of all types of substantive is, according to POTEBNIA, that "it is a denomination of grammatical substance or
thing", given as a set of all traits of that substantive.
Link between the knowing and known substance requires also the increased density of the word, as in the case of name. And
between all substances, namely the personality is thought as the most important assembly of ontological determinations and
existential relations, which give it an unique individuality, a visage, and such a substance also requires an unique name,- personal
name.
Usually our knowledge of reality targets for not a reality itself, but uses that reality for another purpose. In this - tactical, or
pragmatic - attitude towards the object of knowledge it is not held as very valuable or attractive: we are busy merely with some its
traits, some its connections with other beings. Then it sits in our mind or in our language, only because it cannot be deleted without
depriving us of its useful aspects. Naturally, if this object is simply tolerable, we have no urge to direct our mind upon all its
energies, traits, and connections, whereas only in a completeness of these the reality is revealed. <...> Here we emphasize only
the needed traits, whereas the object itself remains pale with its energies obstructed. This aspect of cognoscence is called
abstraction, and the resulting name - impersonal, or abstract, name. <...> This kind of name corresponds to a category of
substance, but not a metaphysical substance, but a grammatical one <...>: whereas metaphysical substance is a thing itself,
detached of all its traits, the grammatical one is a set of traits homologous to any trait which can be etymologically implied in an
appropriate substantive. It means that the thing bearing some substantive <as its name> is thought like a metaphysical substance,
under a cover of a category of substantiality, although we don't think of it as a substance exactly: it is meant as a energy of
substance, but not that substance itself. But the
of this energy is always involuntarily implied. A whole of scientific

knowledge is based upon the impersonal substantives: it is busy with particular types of links and traits, but remains unmoved by
the reality itself, moreover, this reality hampers to build the schematisms of science. The scientific way of thinking "
"
<Kor. A', 14:5>.
It is a way of profitable, not loving, knowledge.
But, although this is dominant, the impossibility of love non sequitur. Sometimes we love the object of knowledge. It is a
sympathetic knowledge, affectionate bow against it, when it itself simply draws towards. The sight of searcher is attracted like by
amazing star, and a longing to know strides along every ray of its light. The knowing spirit is fed by a plenitude of unfolding
,
and spirit tries to embrace it as an individual form, with its obligate all-inclusiveness and interdependence. This concrete
cognoscence is not a limitless and aimless piling of separated traits, driving crazy by its infinity, but it is an aspiration to substitute
the decomposition of abstract knowledge by the unity, self-containment, and wholeness of object as some kind of being. The
infinite line is substituted by sphere. The traits - by visage. Then, personal name emerges. <...>
Linguistics fails to establish, what are primordial, personal or impersonal names, and a variety of doctrines exists holding opposite
views. Exists and will be, because it is the one of a multitude of linguistic antinomies, the destruction of what means the destruction
of the language itself. Both personal and impersonal names are equally necessary for it, as both legs for walking <...>. The
permanence of this antinomy is principal: both types of names are, by their external composition, the same, but with different
accentuation and different concern. But the difference in concern and accentuation is indispensable for any thought, and,
consequently, for any utterance. But in this shift of accents contains also the principal opposition between these two. The structure
of the word implies the necessity of apperception of some trait when using this word. But, then, we could either keep all the
remaining manifold of traits including the given as the annoying mist hindering the logical clarity of thought, i.e. try to pay no notice
the reality itself, or, on contrary, see any appercepted trait as a means to discern that reality, and see it not as a mist, but as a most
crucial point of our cognoscence. In the first case, the reality is by the trait, in the latter - trait by reality, and then our mind deals
with personal name.
Etymologically, personal name is usually as narrow, as co-radical impersonal name, buts its sememe we hold infinitely full and
pithy and want to hold this plenitude in mind as much as possible. And we can do it, but not by accumulation of separate traits, but
by insight of individual form, or thatness (haecceitas, Diesheit,
) of that sememe, and therefore the personal name we call
not the externally corresponding impersonal one, but that thatness itself, that individual form of infinitely fulfilled sememe:
"haecceitas est singularitas <Duns Scot. quaest. libr. metaph. VII, qu. 13, 9>". <...>
VIII. If the name - impersonal name - is more than itself as named and naming, the more is this pronounced in the case of personal
name. However, should be noted some shade of difference: whereas the impersonal name, having its aim not in the reality but in
some other, after all, in the speaker, is the named reality of some kind, but it predominantly serves as an instrument of
self-discovery for speaker and, mainly, presents him, and is mainly the self of him. In contrast, the personal name contains an
object of cognoscence, and therefore, although it unfolds the cognizant and is him, but, mainly, it presents the cognizable reality
and is this reality itself. Here schemes are painted with the fading lines: personal and impersonal name, although contrary
according to inner accentuation, in a course of language often transcend one into another. Lo, sometimes in the selfish mind glares
the spark of affection towards an object, and the pragmatic commonness and impersonality of its name comes to oblivion, and then
"embodied" or "impersonalized" name turns to personal name, not as personal, but really, although for an instant. In this way the
Roman deities have been granted a momentary individuality, and their impersonal names have received a glare of personality, but
have been faded instantly. Or inversely: lovely knowing and (sophron) communication with object sometimes ceases, and living
being sometimes degenerates in our mind to simple means. Everyone knows these leaps from the one mode of cognoscence to
another by his own experience: the face of interlocutor, just some moment ago being a key to his inner weaving and presenting his
most secret life, suddenly covered by a some kind of ontological veil and as torn apart from his inner being, showing against like
some external body. <...> <Florenskij quotes HOFMANNs Gold. Krug, 4: Now we could ask you, dear reader..., and goes on: > in
such a way HOFFMANN depicts a general feeling of the world without a enlivening touch of reality. Drawn consequently, <this type of
Weltanschauung> yields a situation of psychopathological isolation from the world's inner essence (neurasthenia), or from the inner
self (hysteria). When the personal names turn to impersonal ones,- this is a symptom of, maybe delicate, but undoubtedly
psychofunctional malady.
Some methods of verbal art, like a subtle poison, prompts this morbid split of traits from the personality and degeneration of
personal down to impersonal, to the name of some mask,- a visage detached from person. <...> The term "onomatoclasm" finely
fits to this activity <...>. And, the activity of an opposite direction, the cherishing the spiritual core of the names, its intactness,
sheltering it from the encroachments, and, doing so, praising and glorifying it according its value,- this activity quite soundly has
been named onomatodoxy.
Those who are well versed in the theological controversies around this problem are quite aware that although the terms of
onomatodoxy and -clasty are here used in their broadest possible meaning, in the discussions of the past these terms have been
applied almost exclusively only to the one Person and only to the one Name. Nevertheless, strictly philosophical core of these
controversies remains intact upon such a broadening of their meaning, moreover, it details their specific character as the principles
of cognizant and active living, in contrast to illusionistic and nominalistic.

Theologically, position of onomatodoxy is expressed by the formula:

Name of God is God Himself.

Or, more explicitly:

Name of God is a god and namely God Himself, but God is neither the name of Him, nor
The Name of Him Itself.

Most clearly this could be formulated in the language particularly fitted for the philosophical expressions:

Let's explain the last formula. In Greek, article-definitor marks out the part which has it, and excludes it from the set of similar
entities. In this way the unity of content and its self-identity is established. A trait, due its universal nature, cannot have an article.
Therefore, the general rule of Greek grammar forbidding the complement to have an article is self evident. But, in some special
cases, as in philosophy, theology (especially, in NT grammar), a complement nevertheless has an article. Then, this violation of
general rules indicates that the complement is taken not as a general concept the part of which is the subject, but as the some
specificity, ontologically equal to the specificity of subject. In the realm of external experience and external causality reality of
subject and that of the complement not only aren't the same but aren 't even comparable in this aspect. But in the plane if inner
mutuality of beings or according the ontological gestuality these two realities are affirmed as the same by the construction of
sentence: not similar, but ontologically the same. In other words, the complement is meant as a Platonic idea - the concrete
pleroma of sense. The sentence "
" (Mt 5, 13) says not that the Apostles in some external aspect are
similar to salt, or that the concept about them, the apostolity, is a species of physicochemical generic concept of salinity (then
would be good), but that the spiritual
of salt and spiritual
of these persons are identified in
the existential sphere. It is the inner salt of apostolity to which in the ontologically grounded sense refers the name of Salt: the
common salt, a substance, is one of the lesser symbols of that Salt, but apostolity is that Salt itself. (Analogically the article is used
in Mt. 5, 14; 6, 22; 16, 16; 26, 28; Mk. 14, 22; Kor. A' 11, 23-24; Io. 11, 25; 14,6; Eph 1, 23, etc.).
So, in the above formula of onomatodoxy the complement is the Name of God in the first part, and the God in the second part, and
they, in the quality of complements, bear the articles. Their subjects are: the God in first, and the Name in second, and these
subjects are given differently, without article in first instance, and with in second. It reflects, (1) placing (or not, the interdiction to
place) the complement under the concept of subject, and (2), establishment of ontological unity between the reality belonging to
subject and reality belonging to complement, i.e. reduction of subject to complement. It means that the Name of God as a reality
unfolding and presenting the Divine being is more than itself and is divine, and moreover, is the God Itself, manifested by His Name
truly indeed, not delusively or seemingly. But He, although manifested, does not lose His reality during that epiphany: although He
is known, He does remain inexhausted by the knowledge about Him, however deep, and is not His Name <construed by that
knowledge>, i.e. His nature is not a nature of the name, of any name, and of the His Name.
Clearly, the firmament of this or similar formulae is held by the consensus gentium that phenomena reveal the manifestating ones
and rightly could be considered as the names of them. In a special discipline, although utmost principal, the problem of
manifestation and naming has been discussed and solved in concordance with people's consent during Palamitic controversies of
14 century - the long-lasted discussions about energies and
of God. The spiritual light seen by anachorets in an epitome of
their ascetic making and felt as the Divine Light,- is it His real epiphany, or it is some subjective occurrence of human psyche, or
some kind of physical process outside, or some occult phenomenon, failing to yield a divine cognoscence? And, if first is true,
could this light be named Divine and God? That is the general content of these discussions. <...>
<It is necessary to> pick out two aspects of God: inner, or His
, and external, oriented outside, or
, although not
merged, they are inseparable. Due to this inseparability, human and every creature, being in contact with Divine energy, touches
also His
, although indirectly, and therefore has the right to name this energy by the name of Doer. <...>
The intellectual impetus of Gregorios Palama and his fellows, although historically aimed into a narrow province, involves much
wider spheres than seems upon the superficial view, and it is even hard to find where it is of no relevance. Needless to theologize,
needless even to be men of faith to realize the value of these principles <...> Here the relationship between
and its energies
is analyzed, and what namely this
happens to be depends upon the situation. <...>
Certainly, human thought of reality always involves two principal concepts:
, or being, manifesting one, and energy, or
manifestation, acting. <...> The presence of two terms of reasoning makes possible four implicational (if ... then ) clauses:

<Here are the calculations of FLORENSKIJ exposed more shortly:

A -> B
A -> -B (not B)
B -> A
B -> -A.
Also four pairwise inclusions are possible:

A -> B ; B -> A
A -> -B ; B -> A
A -> -B ; B -> -A
A -> B ; B -> -A.
These are all possible schemes. Now, substituting for real terms:
(OY =

; MF = manifestation, phenomenon)

1. MF -> OY; OY -> MF -immanentism

2. MF -> -OY; OY -> MF -radical positivism
3. MF -> -OY; OY -> -MF -Kantianism
4. MF -> OY; OY -> -MF -Platonism.
This 4th version namely is the presupposition of onomatodoxy and represents the meaning of it as the philosophical
premise. >

XI. In conclusion we should observe how the language itself by the means of etymology and semasiology testifies the gnoseologic
value of the name.
At first, what we, anyone, want to say when utter the word name? Of course, various things. But this variety stems for all
Indo-Europeans from the single root, and also on the single root grows the appropriate word for Semitic peoples. Name (rus. im[ja])
really is from Old Slavonic Saecular language: = ,=
= lot. -men, -mentum = sanskr. -man = gr. , etc.
This ending shows the verbality of the word, i.e. that it is made from a verb, and not vice versa. In other words, the noun
by
means of its form shows that it has come via the category of doing or state, but in its essence does not indicate a thing: it is a
thing-like acting or state, but not a source of acting, not any substance. Name is a denomination of some activity, but not of the
product of that activity,
and not
. But basing on the grammatical form, about
could be said that its ending ,
, -men, etc. indicates the activity in its abstraction, in its mental detachment from the doer, i.e. this is a kind of activity which is
meant as something self-dependent. The further question - what is a contents of that activity? If is a formal part, shaping the
word into a determined grammatical form, the informal part is comprised of the phoneme -. The word
we pronounce as
jimya, i.e. with j. But j, being semivowel, is the guttural spiritus lenis (similar to hebr. ). This gutturality if the first phoneme
especially is expressed in cz. jm and jmno, where is not the iotted i, but the proper j, and in bohm. gmeno with its pronounced
guttural g. So, besides a formal part ,
contains the radical guttural spirant as the one of radical elements:
= guttural + ? +

Going further,
is pronounced with j*mm[ja] and as j*nm[ja]; this aspect of pronounce is not very clear, but that
= M
= N
is clear from brus.
,
,
,
,
, and pol. imi. Im-n[ja] is not a
metaphaesis from inm[ja]. Consequently, the radix of
contains one more nasal n, assimilating with m from the formal part.
But it is not clear, is that all, and therefore:
= guttural + nasal +? +
To find these possible elements, lets look into other IE languages:

Latin
Sanskrit
Ancient Baktrian - (language of Zend-Avesta)
New Persian
Gotf
Althochdeutsch
Osetine
French
German
Armenian

nomen
namen
nama
nam
namo
namo
nom
nom
Name
a-nun (from anuan=an-man)

Greek
The similarity of words is striking, this proves their old age and therefore makes them even more interesting. Loss of radical
elements indicates a staleness of these words, disintegrated during the long usage.
This list clearly shows that in the radix has been some vocal corresponding to long or o, or some phoneme between them: ao, as
in hebr. kamed, long a is pronounced by Sephardim sometimes as o, and by Ashkenazim always.
So, the content of this word is:
= guttural + nasal + vocal o +
The majority of languages has lost the guttural, and others it evolved into dental ( similar to j -> zh, or fr. j, g). Lat. nomen formerly
has been gnomen, it is clear from the composite words, when the requirements of euphony compel to conserve the archaic form :
co-gnomen, a-gnomen. The linguistic proportion could be derived:

nomen
Nosco
-----= ----gnomen gnosco
Gnosco is contained in cognosco, agnosco, etc.
Here
: gr.
really is
, and this is evident in ion.
, where when gamma has fallen out the elongation of initial
omicron happened as a compensation. Here radix is always
as in
,
,
,
,
, etc. Skr.
naman has been once gnaman and is conserved in that form to mean sign, indication. Here
.
- from

. Here is a concept of cognition, apperception of an object by signing it, putting a mark, a token on it.

Naming, according the conception of a language itself, therefore is a literally, etymologically, the cognition, some activity by
means of which we know:

Nomen notio

nota rei

(Name =concept =trait of thing

and
(G)nominibus

(g)noscimus

know by names name by knowing

are not only the philosophical aphorisms. They are the etymological reports.

Now lets turn to the Semitic languages and examine the etymology of word, designating name. In the places where Slavonic Bible
uses im[jat], the Masoreth text of Jewish Bible uses not a single word, but a pair, first of them,
, is comparatively scarce, and
second is ubiquitous
.The first word means not name in a strict sense and could be translated in some places as memory,
Andenken, memoria, and in other - as recall, Erinnerung, Gedaechtnis, recordatio. Really, the origin of
is utterly clear, from
= I remember (e.g. Zacharias - The Lord has remembered). Therefore
of an object is a memo of it, its keepsake,
mnemonic tool, and, simultaneously, the result of remembering. It is:
1) memory, memoria,
2) name via which we remember (by LXX 3) praising ("he has made his name").

),

However simple is the etymology of comparatively scarce

, the ubiquitous
has darker origins. <...> The general meaning
of the etymon
is clear: it means sign (Zeichen, signum, designatio), trait (Kennzeichen), feature (Merkmal), according some
researchers. But other maintain that
is something what emerges visible and makes something or someone to appear
noticeable. The following table compares the word name in various Semitic languages <...>:

Hebrew
Arabic
Ethiopic

SHeM
[aliph]iSeM
SaMe

SuMM

SHeM
Aramaean

or

SHuM

Phoenikian

SH(s)M

Sabeic

SM

Assyrian

SHuMu

So, the single radix of these words is clearly visible. It is composed of some half-hissing and half-whistling sibilant , yet not
differentiated into
or , and . But what about the radix sh(s)m? From a deep antiquity two trends have been in Arabic
philology, explaining this origin differently. One of them says that [aliph]iSeM, early form WiSeM, originates from the three-letter
radix WSM, whereas other derives this word from the other three-letter radix SM[aliph]. Both these radices, as generally all threelettered radices, are verbal, and it appears that both these schools have considered the word
as a verbal substantive. And it
appears that the resemblance between this word and the verbs with before mentioned radices is very reasonable.
European scholars followed those Arabs. <...> Recently, this problem has been solved in very simple Columbean way. This
Columbean egg happened to be the assertion that Semitic roots may be derived not only from three-letter predecessors, but also
from two-lettered. FABRE D`OLIVET maintained this in the first half of 19 century, but his voice remained unheard. When KAUTCH and
ZIMMERN acknowledged this possibility, the chance of unifying two schools emerged, and this was realized by REDSLAB and
BOEHMER. They turned all the other way round. If the common genesis of radices WSM and SM[aliph] along with the word
is
clear, then, undoubtedly, these three words should be brought to unity. But, according the rules of modern philology, no word could
originate from two roots simultaneously, and
cannot rootify itself in a pair of radices, therefore both these radices have been
emerged from
. There exists the common stem the boughs of which are three-lettered roots WSM and SM[aliph], and this
stem, according the recent beliefs, is hypothetic two-lettered verbal radix
which means "be externally noticeable". From it
originates WSM with two (transitive and intransitive) meanings, and [sin][mem][he] with the intransitive meaning. This can be
summarized in the following genealogy of radices:

According to these explanations,

means what is protruding visible and makes something bearing it be noticeable. Coming out
in front, prominently visible, catching a sight,- all this is the essence of any thing or phenomenon. For an ancient Semite it is not a
subjectivity, but a self-discerning of the thing in its own depths. This is
. <...>
It has a more massive, material, substantial character than word
degree substantive than
is a transformed verb.

, which has energetical and verbal hue.

is in more

The value of here found etymologies will unfold more vastly, when we will apply the historical and ethnological perspective. But
even now it is useful to compare etymology of IE radix

to Semitic

. At first, similarities:

a) in both cases according to the most fundamental content - radical meaning,- name is a sign sensu latissimo;
b) sign, discriminating an object out of undifferentiated milieu, distinguishes it, takes out of chaos, from the redundancy
of blended impressions.
That we use the names as the instruments of cognition is shown by the both, Semitic and IE, language groups. They make an
evidence of the same fact, but from different directions. In the act of knowledge two aspects are evident: form (how) and contents
(what). Theoretically, we have already identified earlier these two moments as a pair of energies: energy of cognizable reality, and
energy of cognizing subject. Although in an act of knowledge both these are necessary, in the self-consciousness of subject some
one of them is dominant: Harmonic balance of both aspects is not stable. Therefore, name, being the mature act of knowledge,
receives the dominating coloring either from real and objective moment, or from formal and subjective. <...> Cohenian panlogism
and empiriocriticism of AVENARIUS some time ago were the extremal realizations of these two approaches. But already in the heart

of language sit both of them, but without extremistic undermining of the lesser aspect.
and its allies are the knowledges from
the object, they are the content of experience, that what is known.
and its IE kins are the knowledges as seen from subject,
the tools for cognition.
aims at the experienced reality, and
puts the cognizing soul at the front plane. But realistic
moment in its depths is intuition, and further - mystics, whereas idealistic - construction of Noys. Therefore
at the superficial
plane conforms to sensualism, and more deeply - to constructive idealism. If draw further the aspirations of both tendencies, the
first unilateral trend leads to mystical excitement, music, the esoteric speech, and second - the incorporeal logic, more generally mathematics, knowing not about what it speaks and does it speak justly. But these are the extreme provinces of basic gnoseologic
dichotomy, which are shown by languages, but not asserted in their unilaterality: though with different accents, both moments are
present in
as in
. Known metaphysically enters into a knowing one, and subject metaphysically exits the himself to
embrace the known. The first action is mystic apprehension, always mystical -- no difference how to call it, and the second is the
naming. <...> Semites in their etymology displayed that in the knowledge they value mainly the reality, and in the names - their
respective things, whereas for the Aryans the greatest treasure is the intelligence of the known , and in the names - their concepts.
Nomen = omen, name is a token, and from the other side, nomen - notio. This is the antithesis of
and
, philosophically
expressed by SPINOZA and KANT. Examining this antithesis, we could discern the theoretical and gnoseologic, and, further,
ontological opposition of feminine (receptive) and masculine (normative) principles, as in Kabbala. But now we are not to examine
this opposition but to notice the fundamental similarity, to find the common province of both mental layers which they build up
cooperatively. For all the nations name is not a empty soubriquette, not mist and sound alone, not a relative and accidental
concoction, although even ex consenso omnium, but the knowledge, full of sense and reality, about the world revealed in this
world. The Ancients had no suspicion that name is only the sound. It has been known and knowable essence of things, the idea,
for them. Its destination is to discriminate some object from the surrounding chaos of impressions and join it to others again, but
already coordinated. The function of name is a linkage. It disintegrates the irregularity of consciousness and links it again in a
orderly way. It is both real and ideal. It is the principle of articulation, of classification, principle of harmony and tune. Thus, the
name is not a sound but a word,
, i.e. word=mind, sound=sense, both merged. Was Goethe not right translating the
evangelical Word as Action - That? <...>

if You have come from Kosmos abstract, return here

my note about onomatologic discussion about the Light of Tabor

Here I will describe in brief (more explicit account is in biography section) this discussion. It has been started by recluse
schimonach ILLARION which wrote a book Na gorach Kavkaza about his mystical experience during his prayer. He wrote, that the
prayer of Jesus(gospodi Isuse Christe, syne bozhije, pomiluj mia, greshnago - my Lord
Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me -- repeated many thousands of times) helps to
make the Name of Jesus to rest in one's heart, and this Name is divine and it is the Jesus itself, that is not separable from Him. In
this Name is present whole Jesus, in all His essence and all His traits. The eremites of Athos then formed two parties: some were
enthusiastic about it and devised a simple and clear formulas "Name of God is the God itself" (onomatodoxai), whereas the other
(onomatclastai) called them heretics and onomatolatrois. This controversy was very hard for the contemporary Orthodox Church
which was then in a deep crisis and was degenerated into a simply departments of Orthodox states. Especially idiotic was the so
called Synod of Russian Church, which showed its total incompetence in philosophy and theology, and applied the severe
repressions to onomatodoxes. All open discussions has been banned and dissemination of ideas canonically repressed, though a
majority of Orthodox monachs silently continued to be the adherents of onomatodoxy. Many of secular philosophers were for the
onomatodoxes: S. BULGAKOV, V. ERN, P. FLORENSKIJ, A. LOSEV, also archiepiscopes THEOPHAN and THEODOR, mathematician D.
EGOROV, etc.