To My Children: Understanding the Symbols of Nature in P.A. Florensky's Epistolary Narrative

The speed at which the world around a person and their own perception of it are changing is currently increasing more and more. This statement fully applies to the processes affecting the phenomenon of science. Methods change, materials change, and the scientist themselves changes. These changes in science entail the necessity of rethinking research approaches to the epistolary narrative as one of the most important sources of our knowledge about the problems of contemporary science. Research on epistolary narrative in a scientific-philosophical context is one of the most significant cultural and historical foundations for understanding the personal identification and self-identification of scientists and philosophers throughout history. Scientific-philosophical epistolary acquire particular significance in reflecting on contemporary interdisciplinary problems, where natural sciences, social and humanistic sciences, and spiritual experience intersect. Studies of this kind require correlating highly specialized scientific issues with general humanistic reflection on modernity. In this article, we focus on the cognitive experience of P.A. Florensky. Turning to his epistolary narrative allows us to take a fresh look at relevant thematic layers of eco-philosophical problems, to understand contemporary cognitive strategies of eco-philosophy through the prism of historical experience of selfidentification – that is, to trace the changes occurring in the self-consciousness of the narrative’s author, in his attitude toward Nature, and in his ways of comprehending the world on both professional and existential levels.