An expression apophatic philosophy can be understood as an appropriate synonym for a more traditional expression apophatic theology. Traditional philosophical views on the mystery of God created besides its mere rational reflection also thought which is over-rational but definitely not antirational. It can be found in texts in the field of mysticism, both religious and philosophical. Classical Greek culture joined with Christian faith. Therefore, we cannot talk about it as an individual entity being separated by these two worlds. (...) Athens can be recognized in Jerusalem – to use expression of Leo Shestov. A symbol joins the mind. Can anybody still follow its directness? Slovenian philosophical field has developed specific understanding for Christian mystical tradition in its high theoretical expression. Most credit can be given to the thought of Gorazd Kocijančič (born 1964), a philosopher, poet, translator and publisher since it confirms axiomatics of the reality of a spiritual world, which does not correspond to any other reality. Radical denial or negation (apo-fasko) as a modus vivendi of philosophy represents at the same time a relationship of a radical openness between mysteries of God and human being. This contribution will mostly focus on Kocijančič’s synthesis from his philosophical trilogy: Razbitje: Sedem radikalnih esejev [Being broken apart: seven radical essays] (2009), Erotika, politika itn. Trije poskusi o duši [Erotics, politics etc.: three essays on the soul] (2011), O nekaterih drugih: Štirje eseji o preobilju [On some others: four essays on superabundance] (2016) and mainly on his relationship towards phenomenological thinking. As he stresses in his preface to his translation of Levinas’ Le temps et l’autre, apophatics goes beyond the phenomenology. (shrink)

I investigate Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of love and its relation to ethics. I argue that his phenomenology of love provides a possibility for developing ethics. I rely on the saturated phenomenon of the icon and his phenomenology of love. I establish that the icon provides a rich sense of relation, a need to modify certain appraisals of justice, and provides a descriptive account of the virtue of receptivity. In chapter one, I give an exegesis of Marion's phenomenology of the icon. (...) He argues that the icon moves toward charity, yet does not relate to ethics. Experience of the icon gives transformed vision that voids universal laws and frees the beholder to experience communion. In chapter two, I provide three examples of iconic experience that emphasize the importance of justice for the icon in contrast to Marion's formulation that justice is equivalent to revenge. I argue that Marion attacks justice because of its link to a deontological definition; yet, freed from deontology, Marion makes room for an apophatic way that moves toward a virtue ethic. In chapter three, I look at Marion's reasons for leaving ethics out of the icon. His critique of Kantian ethics, as well as his use and critique of the Levinas suggest that he opposes modern metaphysical ethics. In discussion of the receptivity to the call of the Other, he relies on the virtues. This reliance shows that Marion has room for a descriptive account of ethics, and that ignoring ethics undermines his overall project. I investigate Marion's claim that the icon opens up to charity by reading the apophatic doctrine of the icon in concert with the erotic reduction. I conclude that Marion’s phenomenology can be viewed as a counter-ethics a way to see phenomenology as a virtue practice, to unify reason and love in ethics, to remove the ego from the central concern of ethics, and to see the need for openness and vulnerability to the iconic other. (shrink)

In the traditional sense, a work of art creates an illustration of the outside world, or of a certain text or doctrine. Sometimes it is considered that such an illustration is not literal, but is an interpretation of what is visible, or an interpretation of a certain literary or ideological message. It can also be assumed that a work of art creates its own visual world, a separate story or a separate philosophical statement. The Parc de La Villette represents the (...) last of these possibilities: it is a philosophical statement that develops the premises derived from poststructuralist philosophies and the philosophy of deconstruction. The uniqueness of its being status, however, is that it does so not only at the level of the theoretical assumptions, but also through its functioning as an active philosophical work. This means that a park is a happening philosophy. Its activity, however, does not refer only to the present tense, but is also an attempt to penetrate the future, all otherness and impossibility. This kind of activity assumes that the work, in a sense, does not yet fully exist, but is also still produced in the processes of its interpretation. The theoretical foundations of the park included texts by Bernard Tschumi, in which he questioned traditional ways of creating a work of architecture, postulating in return the use of a long series of negations, which were comparable to the crisis of metaphysics characteristic of contemporary philosophy. It is therefore no coincidence that the publication containing Tschumi’s theoretical text on Parc de La Villette was accompanied by an essay by Jacques Derrida developing some of the architect’s concepts. The next step in integrating philosophy into the process of park design was a series of discussions between Peter Eisenman and Derrida, who completely moved the creation of the park into the world of thoughts, without accentuating the need for their realization in the material reality. The main topic of these discussions was the problem of the chôra, which was taken up by later commentators and used to interpret the park as a work in which the philosophy of the beginning is manifested relating to issues of politics, morality and religion. The park was therefore interpreted as a space of invention within the scope of creating new rules of functioning of the community and democracy. Thinking about the political future may, however, exceed the horizon of ordinary expectations. Although philosophical thought is always connected with contemporary problems and metaphysics sometimes intertwines with current politics, yet at the same time the customs of philosophy also include crossing horizons and thinking about absolute otherness and impossibility. Initially, the chôra, différance, Absolute Otherness (tout autre) and the Impossibile were concepts of pure philosophy of atheistic character, but with the further development of the discussion, more and more theological motifs began to emerge. One of the reasons for this phenomenon was the fact that radical negations of all being, which were contemplated in contemporary philosophy (by Heidegger and Derrida, among others), had previously been manifested in negative and apophatic theologies (by Master Eckhart, among others). Also the category of the “Other”, taken from Emmanuel Levinas, was clearly connected with the thought about God. A further reason for connecting the chôra with the theological thought was the interest in the philosophy of deconstruction expressed by some theologians. Caputo in particular managed to persuade Derrida to participate in discussions on the current status of religion. In the late period of Derrida’s writing, further statements on religious topics appeared. All these reasons led to posing a question about the identity of the chôra and God. Although there were no satisfactory conclusions on this issue, the discussion was also important to create an interpretation of the park as a place of worship. The chôra, representing, according to Plato, the preoriginal emptiness is the place of every beginning, but it turns out that it is not neutral to the being created in it. The chôra deposits itself in every being as an irremovable beginning that interferes with its stability. The chôra, therefore, forces us into a palintropical movement, but it also turns out to be a pure compulsion, an erring necessity and a fundamental force from which, in the human perception, motifs useful to the individual and to the community are extracted. All definitions of this force, including its anthropomorphisation, are formulated in such a way that they allow for building private and collective morality upon them. Such definitions are changed depending on variable political situations. It is difficult to determine whether in the processes of changes in the formulation of “God’s names” any essential value is retained, which is not subject to change. The current definitions of the chôra (God?), which can be found, for example, in the philosophy of Caputo, stress that she is a combination of various and contradictory forces. This characteristic inherits much of Plato’s concept, reminds us of Master Eckhart’s views on Gottheit and, at the same time, is not unfamiliar to Tschumi, whose essays were an apologia of contradictions. The current concept of chôra, transferred into the sphere of politics, is the praise of social diversity and the protection of the difference from the forces of order. In the Parc de La Villette, the future community and democracy were elevated as a system of safe existence of individuals in all their singularity. The park is a temple of a future community in which individual beings have nothing in common. (shrink)

This paper highlights the corrective and complementary role that historically informed philosophy can play in contemporary discussions. What it takes for an experience to count as genuinely mystical has been the source of significant controversy; most current philosophical definitions of ‘mystical experience’ exclude embodied, non-unitive states -- but, in so doing, they exclude the majority of reported mystical experiences. I use a re- examination of the full range of reported medieval mystical experiences (both in the apophatic tradition, which excludes (...) or denigrates embodied states, and in the affective tradition, which treats such states as fully mystical) to demonstrate how a better understanding of the historical medieval mystic tradition can serve as a valuable complement to ongoing philosophical discussions of religious and mystical experience. (shrink)

Within the Neoplatonic tradition, the absolute transcendence of the First Principle—the One-Good, from which the whole reality in its various articulations derives—plays a crucial role. This philosophical perspective implies, particularly in Plotinus and Proclus, some fundamental philosophical consequences, above all the transcendence of the Principle with respect to being and thought as well. This necessarily implies that the One-Good must be conceived of as beyond the intelligible Beauty itself. In this paper I aim to examine the theoretical implications and consequences (...) of this perspective with specific reference to the conception of God’s absolute transcendence outlined within two texts of the Corpus Areopagiticum, overall characterized by the reworking of some fundamental Neoplatonic concepts in the context of Christian theology: the De divinis nominibus and the De mystica theologia. Indeed, in the De divinis nominibus it is shown that the names/predicates attributed to God in the Sacred Scriptures must be understood only in an allegorical-symbolic meaning, because God is above any possible definition. Not even the character of Beauty can be attributed to him, since he radically transcends it: in fact, God constitutes the absolute foundation and the very first source of Beauty itself. Therefore, God must be understood as ἀκαλλής, that is, “devoid of the connotation of Beauty”, precisely because he completely transcends it. In line with this theological and theoretical perspective, in the De mystica theologia a form of radical and absolute apophatism is developed, which in turn must ultimately lead to its own overcoming for the sake of the henosis, the mystical union with God. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Religious Epistemology Through Schillebeeckx and Tibetan Buddhism by Jason VonWachenfeldtRobert MagliolaRELIGIOUS EPISTEMOLOGY THROUGH SCHILLEBEECKX AND TIBETAN BUDDHISM. By Jason VonWachenfeldt. T&T Clark: London, 2021. 240 pp.In his "Introduction," Jason VonWachenfeldt explains the "crisis of authority" experienced by many religious believers, and then commits his book (hereinafter RET) to a "dialogic negotiation" offering middle ways between religious tradition and postmodernity. The "dialogic negotiation" is between the brilliant but controversial (...) Catholic theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx (1914–2009), and the brilliant but controversial Tibetan monk (then ex-monk), Gendun Chopel (1903–1951). They both deconstruct the epistemologies of their respective traditions, but insist on the orthodoxy of their "middle ways."VonWachenfeldt opts for Aaron Stalnaker's methodology of "bridge concepts" (topics enabling interfaith comparison) and the comparison of two "historically situated" individuals (13). He names "religious epistemology" as RET's "bridge-concept," and to further facilitate comparison, three epistemological "categories" are posited: "perspectivalism, hermeneutics, and apophaticism" (64). Schillebeeckx's "phenomenological Thomism" constitutes his perspectivalist first phase, and holds that revelation includes both a "concrete-existential" and non-conceptual "implicit intuition" of the divine reality (32). There is an antinomy between the individual's act of abstraction and the "implicit intuition" of the "reality of God in Godself" (33).Chopel's negative way is more extreme. Chopel is a Madhyamakin but rejects Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka's version which affirms the "conventional validity" of the mundane. For Chopel, all formations lack even conventional validity but "common [End Page 404] beings" falsely affirm them (35). The few "noble ones" (the enlightened) are those aware of pure emptiness (understood as "absence," not "openness"). Schillebeeckx's second phase affirms that one is embedded in ongoing history and cannot escape mundane finitude. God must be seen as "mystery" active within it (45). Chopel's second phase extends the notion that an unbridgeable chasm exists between the conventional and the ultimate but that the Buddha can manipulate the mundane so the leap to enlightenment can occur (49). Schillebeeckx's third phase practices a "negative realist metaphysic": The individual encounters the "really real" external to oneself only by way of "glimpses negative in nature" (58). Chopel's apophaticism describes ultimate reality in terms of a "nonaffirming negative" (63).Next, RET treats the role of religious community in knowledge formation (67). For Schillebeeckx, our "non-divine finitude is precisely the place where the infinite and the finite come most closely into contact" (90). The later Schillebeeckx retains loyalty to the institutional Church but because of the finitude of language and human nature he deems it necessarily subject to critique (92). Chopel practices a "pious skepticism" (97), and increasingly satirizes institutional monasticism (circa 1934, he disrobes). Addressing the role of historical founders of religions, Schillebeeckx maintains that theology should shift from an unsalvageable truth lost in the past to the more eschatological language of "the [always] Coming One" (123). Jesus's epistemological authority does not reside in his ability "to supply answers" as much as it is to open up individuals to "a future reality in the making" (148). Honorific titles such as "Savior" or "Christ" as such are not serviceable. Jesus's story is an exemplar of how to construct meaning in our lives by the "praxis" of helping the suffering. Chopel likewise demythologizes Sakyamuni Buddha (151), but—unlike Schillebeeckx—insists he does so endogenously. For example, he enters the definitive/provisional (nītārtha/neyārtha) debate, but argues that all the teachings of Śākyamuni are both—they are definitive for those whom they help toward emptiness and merely provisional for all others (157, 158).RET's chapter 5 addresses the authority of personal experience in the apophatic knowledge of ultimate reality. How is it possible for "true knowledge" to be "primarily experiential in nature as distinct from being conceptually or linguistically based?" (163). Schillebeeckx holds that our very experience of human finitude brings us negatively in contact with the "unknown ultimate reality itself" (169). He maintains that the apparent lack of ontological contact between beings and ultimate reality (God) is "one-sided," persisting only from the side of our finitude and not from the side of ultimate reality: Though humans can never directly... (shrink)

In this article, we propose to question the accuracy of Jean Wahl’s definition of Vladimir Jankélévitch’s Philosophie Première (1953) as one of the “ultimate efflorescences of negative theology.” In fact, we maintain that—although conceiving the apophatic discourse as a necessary (but insufficient) stepping-stone to the absolute—the aforementioned work constitutes, if anything, an effort to overcome it by means of what we shall call a tesiphatic philosophy, i.e., one that identifies the first principle, not as the absolute negation of (...) being, but as the absolute position of being. To defend our thesis, we shall start by discussing the meaning of the five divine names that Jankélévitch bestows upon his absolute, namely, (1) the “totally-other-order,” (2) the “super-truth,” (3) “the itself,” (4) the “I-know-not-what,” and (5) the “almost-nothing.” In this section of our paper, we will try to show how Jankélévitch’s discourse is, in fact, shaped by the whole negative theology tradition (from Plotinus to Nicholas of Cusa). Finally, in the last part of our paper, we will strive to reflect upon Jankélévitch’s interpretation of the limits of a apophatic metaphysical discourse, questioning whether his Philosophie Première effectively overcomes negative theology’s conception of the absolute. (shrink)

This paper argues for a reinterpretation of madness and mysticism through an apophatic lens. By using Wouter Kusters' theo-philosophical definition of madness, I argue for a re-evaluation of female mysticism which rethinks ecstatic and ascetic devotion as a form of agency. Focusing on The Book of Margery Kempe, I reconsider theological passion and ground Kempe’s madness within the historical tradition of affective piety, which expresses a desire to join with the humanity of Christ. Within modern readership, there has (...) been an impulse to label Kempe and other mystics with specific psychiatric diagnoses. In resisting this urge, I instead argue for a convergence of madness and mysticism which enables a paradoxical agency through negation of thought and language. This apophatic agency is precisely what imbues female mysticism with the potential for radical, queer social resistance. In extending this discussion to issues of fasting and abstinence, I then consider the role eucharistic devotion plays in enabling women control over the gastronomical and sexual parameters of their bodies. The denial of food and sex becomes integral to Kempe’s mysticism in asserting agency over the psychosexual self. Finally, I end with some reflections on how Kempe’s mysticism might influence contemporary discussions of mental health. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Comparing Eckhartian and Zen1 Mysticism2Jijimon Alakkalam JosephMeister Eckhart (ca. 1260–1328?), often referred to as “the man from whom God hid nothing,” is one of the great Christian theologians and philosophers of all time. But it is as a mystic that Eckhart is generally known. So any serious study of mysticism, in our times, cannot overlook this Dominican whose birth, childhood, and death remain obscure to this day.3 About the (...) age of eighteen, he probably entered the Dominican order. He was trained at the universities of Cologne and Paris. After completing his higher studies in theology at Paris, twice he was appointed as Paris magister (i.e., lesemeister or master)—in 1302 and in 1311—a rare honor, until then given only to Thomas Aquinas, whose teaching influenced him.After completing his second term as Paris magister, in 1313, he was called to function as the special vicar for the Dominican master general. From 1314 to 1326 Eckhart lived and worked first in Strasburg and then in Cologne, where he served as a spiritual guide for many Dominican nuns, also for Beguines. It was there Eckhart plunged into a life of a preacher and spiritual guide (lebemeister). His academic accomplishments, the positions he held, and the sermons he preached bear witness to his influence on Christian theology, philosophy, and mysticism.During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as the Occident came in contact with Oriental religious traditions, Eckhart’s theology and mysticism were suddenly seen in a new light. His daring insistence on the transcendence of the Godhead, his central theme of the union of God and the soul, his genius for apophatic theology, and so on were considered as the European parallel to the metaphysics of Asian religious traditions, especially Vedanta and Mahāyāna Buddhism.Of all the Christian mystics, Eckhart perhaps comes closest to Asian religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, especially the Mahāyāna tradition. Scholars like the late Ananda K. Coomaraswamy saw Eckhart as a bridge between Hinduism and Christianity, and called Eckhart’s sermons the “Upanishad of Europe.”4 Eminent Japanese Zen Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki considered Eckhart to be an “extraordinary” Christian, saying that Eckhartian mystical thoughts “closely approached Buddhist [End Page 91] thoughts, so closely indeed, that one could stamp them almost definitely as coming out of Buddhist speculations.”5A plethora of writings have compared Eckhartian mysticism with Zen, which has its basis on the Mahāyāna tradition. In this paper I will highlight some of those already discussed comparisons and explore a few more areas that could serve as a jumping-off point for the dialogue between these two mysticisms, especially in the Asian context. My point is not that these two mystical traditions are totally identical. Differences do exist. But I will only make a very brief mention of them because as a novice researcher of comparative religion my interest is to delve deeper into religious traditions of the world to discover those teachings that unite them.godhead and buddha-natureIn Eckhartian mysticism, ultimate reality is called Godhead, which he distinguished from God. “The Godhead is for Eckhart, … an expression for the character of the Highest Being.”6 Godhead “includes both existence and the existing subject.”7 Godhead is being itself. Godhead is “pure Being,” “completely ‘fashionless,’ without … mode of being,” “above all conceptions and conceptual differentiations, and so beyond all comprehending and apprehending.”8 “It is not only beyond being, beyond goodness, but the ‘supra-Being’ and the ‘supra-Good.’”9 “It is neither conscious nor self-conscious … It is beyond the contrast of subject and object, knower and known, yet it is above and not below this contrast.”10 For Eckhart, “this highest Godhead is … the absolute ‘One.’”11 “Is-ness”12 is another term used by Eckhart for Godhead. He uses “is-ness” as “an abstract noun to draw our attention to the primordial existence that every existent thing and every predication about existent things presupposes.”13For Eckhart, “Intellect” is the privileged term for Godhead. God is the “pure intellect.”14 “The One, being, and intellect, the three most important concepts in Eckhart’s understanding of God... (shrink)

All or nothing? Nature in Chinese thought and the apophatic occident -- Nothing and the poetic making of sense -- Immanence: the last word? -- Universalism, or the nothing that is all -- An extra word on originality -- Intercultural dia-logue and its apophatic interstices -- Analytic table of contents.

Across a variety of religious and philosophical traditions, it is common to think that it is possible that God defies all description. This presents a problem, however, as the claim that God defies all description itself appears to describe God. Drawing on multiple religious and philosophical traditions, this paper proposes an addition to the pragmatic stock of approaches to this problem. The proposal is that apophatic utterances are best interpreted—at least in the first instance—as invitations to engage the world (...) aesthetically and creatively, as an act of faith. Their goal is principally to motivate us to act in ways that will allow us to appreciate the extraordinary or divine, rather than to, say, believe that some proposition regarding the extraordinary or divine is true. (shrink)

This article is about the ontological dispute between finitists, who claim that only finitely many numbers exist, and infinitists, who claim that infinitely many numbers exist. Van Bendegem set out to solve the 'general problem' for finitism: how can one recast finite fragments of classical mathematics in finitist terms? To solve this problem Van Bendegem comes up with a new brand of finitism, namely so-called 'apophatic finitism'. In this article it will be argued that apophatic finitism is unable (...) to represent the negative ontological commitments of infinitism or, in other words, that which does not exist according to infinitism. However, there is a brand of infinitism, so-called 'apophatic infinitism', that is able to represent both the positive and the negative ontological commitments of apophatic finitism. Unfortunately, apophatic finitism cannot adopt that way without losing the ability to represent the positive ontological commitments of infinitism. (shrink)

The ancient doctrine of negative theology or apophasis--the attempt to describe God by speaking only of what cannot be said about the divine perfection and goodness--has taken on new life in the concern with language and its limits that preoccupies much postmodern philosophy, theology, and related disciplines. How does this mystical tradition intersect with the concern with material bodies that is simultaneously a focus in these areas? This volume pursues the unlikely conjunction of apophasis and the body, not for the (...) cachet of the "cutting edge" but rather out of an ethical passion for the integrity of all creaturely bodies as they are caught up in various ideological mechanisms--religious, theological, political, economic--that threaten their dignity and material well-being. The contributors, a diverse collection of scholars in theology, philosophy, history, and biblical studies, rethink the relationship between the concrete tradition of negative theology and apophatic discourses widely construed. They further endeavor to link these to the theological theme of incarnation and more general issues of embodiment, sexuality, and cosmology. Along the way, they engage and deploy the resources of contextual and liberation theology, post-structuralism, postcolonialism, process thought, and feminism. The result not only recasts the nature and possibilities of theological discourse but explores the possibilities of academic discussion across and beyond disciplines in concrete engagement with the well-being of bodies, both organic and inorganic. The volume interrogates the complex capacities of religious discourse both to threaten and positively to draw upon the material well-being of creation. (shrink)

This essay explores the potential for eco-theology as a part of the (Christian) theological tradition that, so far, has only been analyzed to a limited extent with regard to what it might contribute to forms of theology that further more sustainable forms of humankind’s (co-)inhabitation of the world: the tradition of apophatic theology. The question is: ‘can dimensions of the apophatic tradition be identified that can contribute to the development of eco-theology in the Christian tradition by informing the (...) shaping of the relationship between humankind and the rest of creation?’ The question will be answered affirmatively, for which this essay takes the following steps. First, the conditions under which apophatic approaches can inform the relationship between humankind and the rest of creation are considered. Second, a recent discussion of apophatic theology by Rowan Williams is used as a point of departure to discuss apophatic theology, epistemology and representation. Third, the theology of icons, expressive as it is by forms of relational and ‘decentered’ observation, that can be understood as being closely connected with apophatic concerns, is considered as a model for humankind’s relating to the rest of creation. (shrink)

First published in Great Britain in 1948, this book examines the definition of goodness as being distinct from the question of What things are good? Although less immediately and obviously practical, Dr. Ewing argues that the former question is more fundamental since it raises the issue of whether ethics is explicable wholly in terms of something else, for example, human psychology. Ewing states in his preface that the definition of goodness needs to be confirmed before one decides on (...) the place value is to occupy in our conception of reality or on the ultimate characteristics which make one action right and another wrong. This book discusses these issues. (shrink)

Plato’s discourse on beauty in the Hippias Major and the Symposium is distinctly apophatic in nature. Plato describes beauty in terms of what it is not (an approach sometimes referred to apophasis, or the via negativa). In this paper, I argue that Platonic apophatic practise in the Hippias Major and the Symposium depicts beauty as an ally to certain aspirations of philosophical discourse. In the first section, I offer some brief prefatory remarks on the nature of apophasis and (...) its presence in Plato’s thinking. In the second section, I provide some background to the dialogue of the Hippias Major and highlight the apophatic nature of the descriptions of beauty offered therein. In the third and final section, I discuss the Symposium, a dialogue within which, in addition to representing beauty apophatically, Plato illustrates how we may become able to achieve some positive, or cataphatic, insights into the nature of beauty. I conclude that the purpose of the Platonic apophatic portrayal of beauty in the Hippias Major and the Symposium is to show that, while beauty cannot be reduced to a series of assertive truth statements, it can nevertheless function as an accessory to other dimensions of philosophical thinking. (shrink)

Definitions vary according to context of use and target audience. They must be made relevant for each context to fulfill their cognitive and linguistic goals. This involves adapting their logical structure, type of content, and form to each context of use. We examine from these perspectives the case of definitions in ontologies.

Theology, particularly negative theology (which maintains that we can know only what God is not), has taken the lead historically in developing reflection on the limits of language and the beyond o...

This paper is about the specific character of the aesthetic experience of icons. I am arguing for the idea that the aesthetic experience of icons is a necessary condition of their role and function in Christian worship, and, moreover, that this particular aesthetic experience is of an apophatic kind. My arguments will be developed on the background of the Byzantine iconoclastic debate and the apophatic theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Also, they should present the very debate from the (...) perspective of aesthetics, often overlooked in favour of more theological or ontological issues related to it. (shrink)

The reason for writing the article was the book of the famous analytical theologian Thomas Morris "Our Idea of God", in which he writes Gregory Nazianzin in the camp of pessimistic theologians and criticizes apophatic theology. In our opinion, his criticism is devoid of solid foundations and apophaticism itself is understood one-sidedly, while with a closer examination, the conflict between rational and mystical reason can be at least noticeably reduced. The following text is devoted to the study of this (...) problem field and the illustration of these theses. (shrink)

This essay examines animality through an analysis of Les Chants de Maldoror, an obscure but influential nineteenth-century text by the Comte de Lautréamont. Drawing upon the work of Gaston Bachelard as well as the apophatic tradition in Christian mysticism, Les Chants de Maldoror can be read as a text that complicates the boundary between animality and spirituality, producing an “apophatic animality” that ultimately impacts the poetics of the text itself.

How can the psychotherapist think about not knowing? Is psychoanalysis a contemplative practice? This book explores the possibility that there are resources in philosophy and theology which can help psychoanalysts and psychotherapists think more clearly about the unknown and the unknowable. The book applies the lens of apophasis to psychoanalysis, providing a detailed reading of apophasis in the work of Pseudo-Dionysius and exploring C.G. Jung's engagement with apophatic discourse. Pseudo-Dionysius brought together Greek and biblical currents of negative theology and (...) the via negativa, and the psychology of Jung can be read as a continuation and extension of the apophatic tradition. Henderson discusses the concept of the transcendent function as an apophatic dynamic at the heart of Jung's thought, and suggests that apophasis can provide the key to understanding the family resemblance among the disparate schools of psychoanalysis. Chapters consider: -Jung's discussion of opposites, including his reception of Nicholas of Cusa's concept of the coincidence of opposites -Jung's engagement with Neoplatonism and Pseudo-Dionysius -the work of Jung in relation to Deleuze, Derrida and other writers -how motifs in Pseudo-Dionysius' Ecclesiastical Hierarchy resonate with contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The in-depth examination of primary sources in this comprehensive volume provides a platform for research into apophasis in the wider field of psychoanalysis. It will prove valuable reading for scholars and analysts of Jungian psychology studying religion and mysticism. (shrink)

According to an influential view, asserting a proposition involves undertaking some “commitment” to the truth of that proposition. But accounts of what it is for someone to be committed to the truth of a proposition are often vague or imprecise, and are rarely put to work to define assertion. This paper aims to fill this gap. It offers a precise characterisation of assertoric commitment, and shows how it can be applied to define assertion. On the proposed view, acquiring commitment is (...) not sufficient for asserting. To assert, commitment must be acquired by explicitly presenting a proposition as true. (shrink)

There is a device used particularly in Orthodox Christian theology known as apophatic theology. In this God is spoken of only in 'negating concepts' to emphasize the inability of language to adequately describe the nature of deity. My question is whether there is any way in which this concept, used as it is to underline the 'otherness' of a transcendental god, can be applied to a thealogy of Goddess. This'way of negation' figures prominently in mystical theology, where it is (...) often associated with the 'way of union'. Historically, many mystics believed in the possibility of a true union with God achieved through a vision of divine light. This light leads us towards Sophia, or Wisdom, arguably an ancient goddess predating the Jewish Yhwh. Thus theology and thealogy can be reconciled in this concept of light traced back to its pagan beginnings and apophasty can be applied to an 'intransitive' goddess such as Nisaba-Nidaba. (shrink)

For Martin Heidegger the story of Western philosophy ended basically in egocentrism or the metaphysics of “subjectivity”; however, he acknowledged the possibility of another path in Greece: that of pre-Socratic thinking. Yet, there is a further path he did not acknowledge: the tradition of Orthodox philosophy and theology. The paper focuses on some key works of the prominent contemporary Greek philosopher Christos Yannaras, for a long time professor in Athens. Taking over the notions of “Being” and ontology, Yannaras construes them (...) not as ontic “substances” amenable to epistemic knowledge, but as guideposts to “relational” or participatory experience. His early text On the Absence and Unknowability of God: Heidegger and the Aeropagite explores the affinity between the German thinker and the Orthodox stress on “apophaticism.” For Yannaras, apophaticism profoundly reorients philosophical inquiry; it also has important implications for human “personhood” and “freedom.” Far from denoting individuation, personhood for him means a face standing out toward others, just as freedom transcends self-will in the direction of a relational event. By way of conclusion, I probe the status of relational “community.” For Yannaras, I ask, is community a concretely achieved way of life ; or does it point more apophatically to a future advent? (shrink)

Apophaticism in mainstream analytic theology and philosophy of religion has come to denote a metaphysical and semantic thesis: that, due to divine transcendence, God is ineffable, inconceivable, or incomprehensible. But this conception fails to properly take account of the central claim of apophaticism as a special type of _mystical _theology. As such, the apophatic commitments to divine ineffability are instrumental. More fundamental is the function of theological ignorance to uniquely inform the task of theology and transform the theologian in (...) union with God. Taking Jonathan Jacobs’ recent account as a test case, I argue that reconstructions of apophaticism need to be supplemented by an account of this informational and personally transformative value that apophatic mysticism places on its commitment to divine incomprehensibility. I supply the needed account of apophatic valuing in terms of wonder as the appropriate emotional attitude toward divine transcendence. (shrink)

I argue that Christian apophaticism provides the most powerful and economical response to the evidential argument from evil for the non-existence of God. I also reply to the objection that Christian apophaticism is incoherent, because it appears to entail the truth of the following contradiction: it is both possible and impossible to know God’s essential properties. To meet this objection, I outline a coherent account of the divine attributes inspired by the theology of the Greek Father’s and St. Gregory Palamas.

In “Idolatry and the End of Apologetics,” I worried that while continental philosophy can aid Christian philosophers and theologians, it can also tempt us toward the “Idolatry of Linguistic License”—an idolatry which sets God so far beyond our words that we deny God’s normative place in the community of speakers while safeguarding our autonomy vis-à-vis God. My essay suggested that some passages in Myron Bradley Penner’s helpful book, The End of Apologetics, might pass too close to the Idolatry of Linguistic (...) License. In Penner’s irenic reply he affirmed that the Idolatry of Linguistic License is a real worry, but protested that I had misread him at several points. This response seeks to continue that irenic tone in a discussion of three points where I still have some questions. (shrink)

In the fifth version of our response-paper [26] to Imamura’s criticism, we recall that NonStandard Neutrosophic Logic was never used by neutrosophic community in no application, that the quarter of century old neutrosophic operators (1995-1998) criticized by Imamura were never utilized since they were improved shortly after but he omits to tell their development, and that in real world applications we need to convert/approximate the NonStandard Analysis hyperreals, monads and binads to tiny intervals with the desired accuracy – otherwise they (...) would be inapplicable. We point out several errors and false statements by Imamura [21] with respect to the inf/sup of nonstandard subsets, also Imamura’s “rigorous definition of neutrosophic logic” is wrong and the same for his definition of nonstandard unit interval, and we prove that there is not a total order on the set of hyperreals (because of the newly introduced Neutrosophic Hyperreals that are indeterminate), whence the Transfer Principle from R to R* is questionable. After his criticism, several response publications on theoretical nonstandard neutrosophics followed in the period 2018-2022. As such, I extended the NonStandard Analysis by adding the left monad closed to the right, right monad closed to the left, pierced binad (we introduced in 1998), and unpierced binad - all these in order to close the newly extended nonstandard space (R*) under nonstandard addition, nonstandard subtraction, nonstandard multiplication, nonstandard division, and nonstandard power operations [23, 24]. Improved definitions of NonStandard Unit Interval and NonStandard Neutrosophic Logic, together with NonStandard Neutrosophic Operators are presented. (shrink)

Ontologies are being used increasingly to promote the reusability of scientific information by allowing heterogeneous data to be integrated under a common, normalized representation. Definitions play a central role in the use of ontologies both by humans and by computers. Textual definitions allow ontologists and data curators to understand the intended meaning of ontology terms and to use these terms in a consistent fashion across contexts. Logical definitions allow machines to check the integrity of ontologies and reason over data annotated (...) with ontology terms to make inferences that promote knowledge discovery. Therefore, it is important not only to include in ontologies multiple types of definitions in both formal and in natural languages, but also to ensure that these definitions meet good quality standards so they are useful. While tools such as Protégé can assist in creating well-formed logical definitions, producing good definitions in a natural language is still to a large extent a matter of human ingenuity supported at best by just a small number of general principles. For lack of more precise guidelines, definition authors are often left to their own personal devices. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing the ontology community with a set of principles and conventions to assist in definition writing, editing, and validation, by drawing on existing definition writing principles and guidelines in lexicography, terminology, and logic. (shrink)

A definition of emotion common to the affective sciences is an urgent desideratum. Lack of such a definition is a constant source of numerous misunderstandings and a series of mostly fruitless debates. There is little hope that there ever will be agreement on a common definition of emotion, given the sacred traditions of the disciplines involved and the egos of the scholars working in these disciplines. Our aim here is more modest. We propose a list of elements (...) for a working definition of emotion and discuss the justification for the inclusion of elements from our respective perspectives (philosophy and psychology). This working partial definition may at least serve as a litmus test to examine theories of emotion, old and new, across disciplinary boundaries. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 60 Heft: 1 Seiten: 103-121.

This paper discusses Frege's account of definition by induction in Grundgesetze and the two key theorems Frege proves using it.

An introduction to the project of defining music, which considers extant definitions and suggests a new definition.