The aspiration for God and for oneself as the highest good in Dante

Abstract

The article analyzes the final fragment of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" (Canto XXXIII of "Paradise") in the context of the philosophical assumptions of Dante's doctrine regarding the soul's striving for the highest good. The focus is on the paradoxical coexistence in Dante's thought of two concepts of the ultimate goal of human desire: God as the sum of all goods and man as the source of love for oneself. The author shows that these two seemingly incompatible positions find their resolution in the mystical experience at the end of the poem. The study relies on the psychoanalytic method (in the tradition of Jungian analysis), the historical-philosophical method, and comparative analysis of Dante's philosophical treatises ("Convivio," "La Vita Nuova") and their poetic embodiment in the "Comedy." Special attention is given to the conceptual divergences between the official dogma of the Catholic Church and Dante's original ideas, as well as the influence of the mystical tradition of the 12th century (Richard of Saint Victor, Bonaventure) and ancient philosophy (Aristotle, Boethius). It is shown that Dante does not come to the negation of the human but to its highest affirmation through a return to lost love for oneself. The study utilizes the psychoanalytic method (in the tradition of Jungian analysis), the historical-philosophical method, and a comparative analysis of Dante's philosophical treatises and their poetic embodiment. For the first time in Russian-language literature, a systematic psychoanalytic reading of the ending of "Paradise" is proposed as a resolution to the deep conflict between the striving for God and love for oneself. It is shown that in Dante's philosophical treatises two concepts of the ultimate goal of human desire coexist: God as the sum of all goods and man as the source of love for oneself. These concepts do not reduce to one another and create internal tension in Dante's thought. The ending of the "Divine Comedy" can be read as a dramatic resolution of this tension. The disappearance of Beatrice, the appeal to the Virgin Mary, and the contemplation of the three divine circles are stages of a psychoanalytic journey in which Dante passes through the loss of love objects, regression to the maternal principle, and finally reaches personal integration.