This book offers the first systematic presentation of synergetic anthropology, a new transdisciplinary approach in anthropological studies. Analyzing the experience ofhesychasm,an ancient Eastern Orthodox mystical and ascetic tradition, the approach finds new concepts and viewpoints alternative to classical Aristotelian model of Man and advances to a new treatment of basic anthropological subjects and problems. Our summary contains a brief description of the origins, structure and composition of synergetic anthropology.

А. Hesychasm

The initial stage of synergetic anthropology is the conceptual analysis of hesychast practice. As described in classical ascetic literature such as the «Ladder of Paradise» by St John the Sinait of the 7thcentury, it belongs to the class of practices of self–transformation known today as practices of the Self(pratiques de soi,the term coined by Michel Foucault). It is a step–by–step anthropological process, throughout which a human successively transforms all his or her energies: physical, psychic and intellectual. The process can be viewed as a ladder, directed towards the actual ontological transformation–conversion of present being into a different mode of being: Divine being. The transformation is of a purely energetic nature, conceived as the perfect union of all human energies with Divine energies. Known astheosisordeification,this union is asui generismeta–anthropological ‘final step’ of the Ladder. Hence, the steps of the Ladder are not substantial, but energetic and dynamic formations, each representing a particular configuration formed by the complete, heterogeneous set of energies of a human being. The Hesychast Way is then represented as a ladder of energetic anthropological forms, ascending from the initial step of conversion and repentance known as theSpiritual Gateormetanoia,to the final metaempiric step of theosis. A detailed description of all the steps of this ladder can be found in the «Analytical Dictionary of Hesychast Anthropology» in our book «The Phenomenology of Ascesis» (Moscow 1998).

Even more important than this structural aspect of the Way is its dynamic aspect. The ascent to the meta–empirical goal of theosis is an actual ontological transcension, which cannot be achieved by means of human energies with their source in empiric reality. Irrespective of any theological or philosophical arguments, it was found experientially by the Desert fathers that the driving force of this ascent (especially obvious in the highest part of the Ladder) is a certain energy, whose source cannot be located anywhere within the horizon of Man’s experience or existence. Joined together, ascetic experience and dogmatic theology identify the energy of this «Source–Out–There» as Divine energy or God’s grace. The dynamics of this anthropological process are not restricted to the action of Divine energy alone, however. Human energies are also involved, and the key point is the specific relationship established between these two ontologically different types of energy.

To describe this relationship, a special concept calledsynergy(συνεργία) was created in Byzantine theology. Synergy supposes the perfect coherence, harmonic coordination and cooperation of the two energies. This, however, is not completely symmetrical. The economy of this cooperation is such that human energy strives to give all initiative and freedom of action to Divine energy, avoiding the creation of any obstacles to this action and making all Man’s inner reality an open space for Divine energy. An ancient ascetic expression claims that, in synergy, a human should make him or herself «transparent for grace». This does not imply complete passivity or the cessation of all emotional activity. In this respect, synergy should be compared and contrasted with the Stoic ideal of ataraxy and the ideal of Far–Eastern practices: attaining nirvana or the Great Void. The special nature of synergy is determined by that horizon of being, the reaching of which is the goal (or, more correctly, trans–goal or «telos») of hesychast practice. This way of being, known as «personal being–communion» in modem theology, has its own structure, described by the dogma of the Trinity, and ontological (but not temporal) dynamics best described by another Byzantine notion:perichoresis(circumincessio, perpetual circular motion). This notion basically means the perfect exchange of being between the Three Hypostases of the Trinity. It is the personal nature and dynamics of Divine being which imply the profoundly nontrivial nature and dynamics of synergy.

Thus, synergy is the key paradigm of meta–anthropological dynamics and hence, the basic concept of the hesychast model of Man. Another important feature of synergy is its relation to the well–knownsynergetic paradigm in the dynamics of open systems.This relationship is discussed in detail below, in the text «The Phenomenon of Orthodox Ascesis as an Interdisciplinary Problem». Here we shall mention only that synergetics as a branch of physics and systems theory deals with specific structurisation processes launched in open systems by energy coming from outside. There are indeed certain structural and conceptual parallels between these processes and the dynamics of hesychast practice, determined by synergy as a meta–anthropological and theological paradigm. Yet it is still more important to find, and not to breach, the limits where such parallels end. Synergetic dynamics in physical, biological or social systems are an interplay of the polar principles of necessity and chance, whilst synergy represents the very different ontological dynamics of personal being characterised by the principles of freedom and love. The exact relationship between the theological and anthropological principles of synergy and synergetic paradigm in the theory of open systems has not yet been the subject of thorough study.

The last vital element in our conceptual picture of hesychasm is its methodological and epistemological dimension. Hesychast practice being directed towards a unique goal which is absent in the horizon of empiric being, special terms like trans–goal or telos are more appropriate. Whilst absent, this goal is at the same time not arbitrary, not just anything outside our mode of being, but a very concrete reality precisely defined in theological discourse. Naturally, in order to find and maintain one’s orientation towards such telos, a strict guide is needed, a meta–dimension of the Hesychast Way, involving all the rules for organising, securing, regulating and checking one’s advance towards the telos. This meta–dimension is nothing butmethod,which means literally μέθ’ οδός meta–way, in Greek. In Byzantium, hesychast practice was often simply called the Method. This guide, or set of instructions, must be complete, and the method in question must be the complete method, or the complete practical and theoretical canon of hesychast experience as a particular kind of anthropological experience. In Aristotelian terms, this canon is known asOrganon',and the conclusion is that the specific nature of hesychast experience requires hesychast practice to be provided with its own organon. For this reason, the practice includes a large trans–individual element. The core of the practice is of course strictly individual ascetic work, throughout which the adept is fully concentrated on his or her inner reality and its transformation. However, transformation is only possible on the basis of the organon, and both the creation and the operation of the latter are the work of the ascetic community as a whole. It took exactly one thousand years, from the 4thto the 14thcentury, to develop the complete hesychast organon.

Thus, hesychast practice implies the existence of a collective body, which creates, identically preserves and operates the hesychast organon. This collective body, a kind of a necessary living medium for individual practice, is known as thespiritual traditionor, more specifically, the hesychast tradition. The obvious paradigmatic parallel to the dyad «(individual) practice — (collective) tradition» is a biological species, where the individual existence of any specimen is only possible inside the species as a living medium.

B. The Paradigm of Spiritual Practice

Next, we extend the orbit of our consideration to the entire class of anthropological phenomena known as spiritual practice and including, besides hesychasm, the classical schools of mystical experience in other world religions: Islamic Sufism, Tibetan tantric yoga, Taoism etc. Analysis shows[101]that the three key features described above (a step–by–step process, synergetic dynamics determined by the energy of the «Source–Out–There» and the necessity of a method and organon resulting in the dyad «individual practice — collective tradition») are characteristic of this entire class. Taken together, they define a certain anthropological paradigm which we call theParadigm of Spiritual Practice.This describes the self–realisation of Man in actual ontological transcension conceived energetically, i.e. as a perfect union of all human energies with an ontologically different energy. In other words, it describes theunclosing(the term corresponding to the HeideggerianErschliessenin «Sein und Zeit») of Man or present being to a different ontological horizon: Other Being, or God.

In the different world religions, Other Being is conceived in various ways, which means that, despite the universal properties shared by all spiritual practices, these practices have profoundly different trans–goals (telos). The principal difference is the distinction between the so–called religions of Personality and the religions of the Cosmos. Importantly for us, in the former, Personal Other Being is endowed with its own structure and untemporal, ontological dynamics, whilst in the latter, Impersonal Other Being (often identified with Non–Being) is completely devoid of these. There is a Great Bifurcation in the spiritual practices of Man, which divides them into practices with personal and impersonal types of telos. The telos determines the entire dynamics of the advance towards itself, which means that the above distinction implies further distinctions, which may a priori touch upon any part of the step–by–step (meta-)anthropological process. We discuss these distinctions in the text «The Phenomenon of Orthodox Ascesis as an Interdisciplinary Problem».

C. The Anthropological Border

Thus, in our reconstruction, spiritual practice is presented as a certain mechanism, by means of which a human constitutes him or herself, i.e. his or her nature as a human being, builds up his or her identity and acquires his or her own self–definition. This mechanism is basically the actualisation of Man’s relation to his Other. The process of actualisation possesses the following features:

1) The fundamental relationMan vs. the Otheris considered in the energy dimension, or «being–action». In other words, Man is conceived energetically as a particular structured and ordered configuration of heterogeneous energies.

2) The Other is endowed with ontological otherness: it is Other Being, a different mode of being.

3) Actualisation is achieved in the unclosing, or opening up of «Energetic Man» to the Other, which results in a union of the energies of both sides.

This list allows us to extend the scope of our consideration to all anthropological reality. The fundamental relationMan vs. the Otheris the universal source, in which the constitution of Man as such originates. This relationship is actualised through anthropological manifestations which, in one way or another, are marked by the presence of the Other, influenced or determined by this presence. Since the Other is, by definition, determined by a set of fundamental predicates, completely or partially different from those of empiric human existence, through these manifestations, the fundamental predicates of human existence begin to change. We call this important type of manifestationextreme anthropological manifestationsorEAMs.Now, unclosing oneself to the Other means opening oneself up and directing one’s energies towards contacting the energy of the Other. Hence, it is obvious that the unclosing takes place through EAMs, and is a universal way of actualising, or putting into action, the fundamental relationship (cf. the analytic ofErschlossenheitin «Sein und Zeit», par. 44). However, the feature (2), that is representation of the fundamental relationship as ontological, and of the Other as Other Being, is clearly not universal. A human can identify the horizon of his or her existence with that of his or her consciousness. In this case, the Other is represented as theUnconscious,which is never considered to be a different mode of being; its otherness isontic,but not ontological. Hence, this representation of the Other produces a different system of EAMs and a different constitution of human being.

The logic of our arguments clearly brings us to a definite general view of the constitution of Man. We singled out a certain class of anthropological manifestations — namely, EAMs — that are constitutive in the sense that they actualise the fundamental constitutive relationshipMan vs. the Other.The emerging picture also implies that Man is a pluralistic being, since different representations of the Other and various types of EAMs exist. This allows us to reformulate the problem of the constitution of Man: to solve this problem amounts to find all representations of the Other and present a complete repertory of EAMs.

We term all EAMs taken together theAnthropological Border.This is the central concept of synergetic anthropology. The first task of synergetic anthropology as a general approach to the phenomenon of Man is the systematic description of the Anthropological Border. This task is addressed in detail in the opening text of the book. We conclude that the Border is formed of three principal parts which we calltopics.The first of these is theontological topic,consisting of all EAMs in spiritual practices. The second is theontic topic,or topic of the Unconscious. This includes EAMs determined by energies of the Unconscious such as psychoses, manias, phobias etc. The third,virtual topicincludes EAMs of a somewhat different nature. It encompasses phenomena of virtual anthropological reality, not constituted by any representation of the Other. These, nevertheless, are also EAMs. All virtual phenomena are related to definite actual phenomena by means of the relation of privation: they lack some of their constitutive properties. Every virtual anthropological manifestation lacks actualisation in some essential characteristic(s). Hence it follows that the reality of such underactualised anthropological phenomena is defined by fundamental predicates different from those of actual human existence — thus, this reality consists of EAMs. Finally, the three principal topics overlap, generating three so–calledhybrid topics.The corresponding EAMs, discussed in the opening text, play an enormous role in the anthropological situation of today.

D. Synergetic Anthropology as a Model of Man

So, what follows? What prospects does the definition of Man in terms of the Anthropological Border open up? As stated above, we present a specific general view of the constitution of Man: namely, anenergeticand anti–essentialist view, stating the constitutive status ofextremeanthropological manifestations. Coupled with the complete description of the entire range of these manifestations, this view becomes a self–contained approach to anthropological study, which can be applied — in principle, at least — to all anthropological discourses and disciplines. In accordance with the basic dynamic paradigm of this approach, it is natural to give it the namesynergetic anthropology.Its grounds are sufficiently general to allow for further development — again, in principle at least — into a full–scale anthropological model.

The book presents a number of studies, examining various problems and spheres of anthropological reality within the framework of synergetic anthropology. We look at the constitution of identity in a human being and the reconstruction of an entire spectrum of types of identity; the role of somatic levels of human being in EAMs, especially the role of the body in spiritual practices; aesthetic problems and creative practices viewed with regard to the Anthropological Border; the historical evolution of the dominating topic of the Anthropological Border; connections between anthropological factors and the problems of modem globalisation, as well as the ways in which these factors affect the global situation etc.

A wide range of issues still remains open or barely discussed. First of all, there are issues concerning the conceptual core of synergetic anthropology: its key notions of energy and synergy. The basic fact is that in spiritual practices and other EAMs, energy is conceived in a specific way. Albeit implicitly in most cases, it is supposed to have properties — its relation to essence in particular — which are incompatible with the classical concept of energy created and used in European philosophy from Aristotle to Heidegger. Instead, these properties are close to some notions, or, rather, symbols of Far–Eastern thought, such as dharma in the Buddhist tradition. Thus, in this sphere, an alternative concept of energy is required. The development of such concept is a difficult task. Psychoanalysis did not succeed in solving the problem, albeit the reasoning of Freud, Lacan and subsequent French thinkers close to psychoanalysis, such as Deleuze and Nancy, can be considered the main contribution to the ongoing search. A general analysis of the problem can be found in our text «Type or Pseu–do–type? Notes on the Ontology of Virtuality» in the book «On Things Old and New».

We will not, at present, list the applied problems connected with extending our approach to other areas of anthropological reality. It is, however, important to show that these problems relate in a specific way to the methodological and epistemological aspects of synergetic anthropology.

E. Synergetic Anthropology as an Epistemological Program

As mentioned above, synergetic anthropology offers a particular universal approach to anthropological phenomena, which is, in principle, applicable to fields of problems in all the humanities. Very roughly, this approach can be applied as follows:

1) Selecting a chosen discourse in the humanities, we identify the class of anthropological manifestations with which it deals, thus defining it in terms of these manifestations.

2) By virtue of the constitutive role of EAMs, the anthropological manifestations in question are somehow related to EAMs. We try to establish the concrete form of this relationship. Synergetic anthropology possesses special notions such as «participating anthropological strategy» which describe possible forms of the connection between EAMs and other anthropological manifestations.

3) On the basis of the explicit established connection with the topical structure of the Anthropological Border, we reassess and reinterpret the discourse in question, integrating it into the orbit of synergetic anthropologyThis scheme shows that synergetic anthropology possesses its own built–in methodology and epistemology, valid in principle for any arbitrary problem field in anthropological reality. Hence, it follows that this approach also possesses a certain potential for development into a metadiscourse, or episteme for the humanities. If all discourses in the humanities are reformulated and reinterpreted in accordance with their relation to the Anthropological Border, this will, by definition, signify that the entire sphere is organised into a certain comprehensive episteme.

In this respect, synergetic anthropology can be seen as a particular approach to the problem of converting disciplines and discourses in the humanities into an anthropologically founded episteme. This problem is currently among the central issues for scholarly thought in the humanities. Seen in this light, synergetic anthropology follows the general «anthropological turn» taking place in the humanities at present. This aspect of synergetic anthropology remains largely undeveloped, however: we plan to address the matter in the course of further studies in synergetic anthropology.