Emanation - is that a concept? Description of emanation

Quite often, words and expressions from scientific and philosophical circulation fall into colloquial speech. There they can drastically change their meaning, right up to the opposite. For example, it happened with the word "emanation". He was often used by Russian writers in a very ironic sense, for example, Saltykov-Shchedrin. When he wrote that while in society, one should not spoil the air, he spoke about the "emanations of the backyard" allegorically. And in other cases, many believe that emanation is a smell. Therefore, this word is pronounced in one phrase with the verb "catch". In sense, "to catch a smell" or the breeze proceeding from somewhere.

But what is the true meaning of this term? Let's try a little investigation.

Translation and scientific interpretation

And in fact, if we open the Latin dictionary, we find that emanation is a word that means the expiration and spreading of something. Encyclopedias and scientific interpretations tell us that we are talking about some kind of substance or phenomenon, which, arising, has become so due to flow from somewhere. Another sense of the word "emanation" is the isolation of some elements from a more complex substance. Therefore in physics this term is used in the theory of so-called radioactive decay. From the point of view of this concept, emanation is when special substances emit rays or emit gases in the process of such decomposition. In the chemistry of such a name, the radon element was awarded, although now its isotopes are so named.

Computer games

The popular word did not remain without the attention of gamers. For example, emanation is an element of the online strategic fantasy game "Heaven". With the help of this artifact, participants can make objects. Since there are several cults or classes of characters in this game, there is a corresponding amount of emanations. They have different names. For example, "emanation chaos" - the most popular among players - is part of an artifact such as "the perfect relic of the Destroyer." There are other similar elements. "Emanation of love" refers to the so-called cult of the Virgin. It can be obtained by examining the "perfect relic" of the class of the same name. And the "emanation of power" refers to the cult of the Defender. All these artifacts in the game can be bought, exchanged for "diamonds" or you can get by analyzing "perfect relics".

Origin of the term

For the first time this word appeared in ancient philosophy. Thinkers began to use it, trying to determine the origin of our world from a single divine Universum. In other words, this is an explanation of how being came from heaven to earth, and why it got this kind. Even the above-described online game has some, albeit very indirect, relation to this original concept. No wonder it is called "Heaven". Elements of the concept of "emanation" can be found even in pre -ocratic philosophy. When Democritus or Empedocles thought about the process of cognition, they believed that any object emits some "patterns", copies that affect the person's feelings and thus cause a sense of the "model" in the subject's mind. The transition concept of this theory appeared in Plato and Aristotle.

Classics of ancient philosophy

The connection between emanation and the origin of the world appears indirectly in the term "aporroya". It belongs to Plato and also means "excretion." As you know, the Greek philosopher introduced the world in the form of a kind of pyramid, on top of which there is the concept of "Good". It seems to emit or radiate from itself the being itself and the possibility of understanding everything that exists. The good generates a world of ideas, the "emanations" of which are the things of this world. Aristotle, however, attributes the meaning of this term to the notion of a special kind of energy. The Divine Universe, from the point of view of the Areopagite, is the Pervomotor. It emits energy, which, spreading out of the original source, as if "winds up" the whole mechanism of the universe.

Development of understanding of the term

The tradition of Platonism, formed in ancient philosophy, gave rise to specific schools of thought. Their representatives have created a very persistent metaphor of the theory of emanation, understood as an outcome from an inexhaustible source that constantly produces something, but remains eternal. For example, they compared the Universum to the beginning of the river, which generates water, but does not dry out. Or with the sun emitting rays, but not losing light. A little more developed this understanding of the Stoics already in the era of Ancient Rome. They took the Greek concept of the Logos for the creative foundation of the world. Stoics believed that this "original fire" emits its own breath - pneuma - which, gradually cooling and cooling, generates an organic nature.

The theory of emanation

However, this term was universally known to the Neoplatonists. They also created the modern philosophical meaning of the word. One of the largest representatives of this school - Plotinus - presented the Absolute Good, the Universum as a source of creative energy, in a constant surplus. That is, the Benefit is so full of its creativity that it is constantly overflowing with it. The creative energy flowing from the universe creates our world in an involuntary and natural way. However, the farther away from its source this divine light, the more it fades and weakens, until it dies away altogether. Therefore, the world is divided into different levels - according to its proximity to the original. The further from the source - the less good and, accordingly, more evil (which is a lack of good). Thus, emanation in philosophy is, first of all, the concept of loss of perfection in the process of a gradual outpouring of the Absolute's energy, down to non-being, by which in Neoplatonism is meant matter.

Perception of Christianity

Neoplatonic theory initially opposed the new, emerging in the Roman Empire, religion. In Christianity, the creation of the world through the act of God's will was a concept absolutely opposite to the idea of the "natural expiration" of the good due to the nature of the Universum. After all, the Bible believes that everything Yahweh created is "very good," and depravity is a consequence of the violation of the will of the Lord. However, later the theory of emanation was in some of its elements positively received by Christian thinkers and apologists. For example, the idea of "impoverishing the good" in creation and evil as a lack of good was developed by Thomas Aquinas, based on this the Catholic theodicy. He argues that God can be gradually learned through his creations, referring to the same principle. Dionysius the Areopagite introduced the theory of emanation into the canon of the Christian faith and created a treatise
About the celestial hierarchy.

Mystical and unorthodox interpretations

The idea of a gradual outpouring of the good and energy into the world with their gradual cooling and impoverishment has not only become popular, but has also become the subject of controversy. It was shared by many mystical currents of Christianity and Islam, as well as unorthodox, so-called heretical directions. For example, the concept of emanation was very popular in ancient Gnosticism, but here it is mixed with the Christian concept of disobedience to God and the "pleroma" from the higher world. Such a dissident Christian movement as Catharism, in the person of one of its best philosophers, Giovanni de Lugio, retained the Platonic metaphor for the sun that emits rays, but at the same time objected that such light could diminish in its glow. It is not for nothing that the Gospel says that this is not about the earthly radiance, but about the one that "darkness does not encompass". Be that as it may, the concept of emanation became firmly embedded in the paradigm of European culture and became part of modern philosophy, literature and even esotericism. Based on this theory, he built his views, for example, Carlos Castaneda.