{"id":341,"date":"2025-01-13T14:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T14:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/01\/13\/individuum-ineffabile-est\/"},"modified":"2025-01-13T14:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T14:57:09","slug":"individuum-ineffabile-est","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/01\/13\/individuum-ineffabile-est\/","title":{"rendered":"How Could God be Ineffable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mystically inclined say that God is ineffable.  The ineffable is the inexpressible, the unspeakable. Merriam-Webster:<\/span><\/p>\n

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 Ineffable<\/em> comes from ineff\u0101bilis<\/em>, which joins the prefix in-<\/em>, meaning "not," with the adjective eff\u0101bilis<\/em>, meaning "capable of being expressed." Eff\u0101bilis<\/em> comes from eff\u0101r\u012b<\/em>, "to speak out," which in turn comes from ex-<\/em> and f\u0101r\u012b<\/em>, meaning \u201cto speak.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." (Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus<\/em>, 7) Does it follow that there is nothing ineffable, inexpressible, unspeakable? Some will draw this conclusion; Hegel is one. Ludwig the Tractarian, however, does not draw this conclusion: <\/span><\/p>\n

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There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. (Tractatus<\/em>, 6.522)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

God is the prime example of das Unaussprechliche<\/em>. But if we cannot say anything about God, then we cannot say any of the following: he exists; he does not exist; he is transcendent; he is immanent; he is all-knowing; he is not all-knowing; he has attributes; he has no attributes; he is ineffable; he is not ineffable; and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is this a problem? Maybe not.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Consider any mundane thing, a rock, say.  Can you put it into words? Can you capture its existence and its haecceity (its non-qualitative thisness) in concepts?  You cannot. At most you can capture  conceptually only its quidditative determinations, all of which are multiply exemplifiable or repeatable. But the thing itself is unrepeatable and escapes conceptual capture.  The discursive intellect cannot grasp it. Es ist unbegreifbar<\/em>.  It cannot be 'effed' linguistically or conceptually.  Individuum ineffabile est.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

If you can see that the individual qua<\/em> individual is conceptually ineffable, why do you balk at talk of the divine ineffability? If the haecceity of a grain of sand or a speck of dust cannot be conceptualized, then a fortiori<\/em> for the super-eminent haecceity and ipseity of the super-eminent Individual who is not a mere  individual among individuals but Individuality itself.   <\/span><\/p>\n

The Ineffable One cannot fall under any of our ordinary concepts. We can however, point to it by using a limit concept (Grenzbegriff<\/em>).  A limit concept is not an ordinary concept. Note that we do have<\/em> the concept of that which is beyond all concepts. (If we did not, this discourse would be nonsense when it plainly is not, pace<\/em> Wittgenstein.) That smacks of self-contradiction, but the contradiction is avoided by distinguishing between ordinary and limit concepts. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, while remaining within the ineluctable discursivity of our discursive intellects, I am able to point beyond the sphere of the discursive intellect into the Transdiscursive.  You can understand this by analogy to the transdiscursivity of a stick, a stone, a dog, a bone, a bird, a turd, or any part thereof.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do I gain epistemic access to a mundane particular such as a stick or a stone in its unrepeatable particularity?  By sensible intuition (sinnliche Anschauung<\/em> in Kant's sense).  We do it all the time. And so, by a second analogy, we can understand how epistemic access to the Absolute and Ineffable One is to be had: by intellectual intuition or mystical gnosis. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mystically inclined say that God is ineffable.  The ineffable is the inexpressible, the unspeakable. Merriam-Webster:  Ineffable comes from ineff\u0101bilis, which joins the prefix in-, meaning "not," with the adjective eff\u0101bilis, meaning "capable of being expressed." Eff\u0101bilis comes from eff\u0101r\u012b, "to speak out," which in turn comes from ex- and f\u0101r\u012b, meaning \u201cto speak.\u201d But: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in … Continue reading “How Could God be Ineffable?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,143,270,274,41,275],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-absolute","category-god","category-kant","category-limit-concepts","category-mysticism","category-wittgenstein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}