Being Ineffable: Ineffability and Philosophical Discourse on Mysticism

This PhD project is situated within philosophy of mysticism, a distinct and increasingly active field within philosophy of religion. Even if the term ‘mysticism’ itself is a modern invention, the topics central to the study of mysticism have a long history within both philosophy and theology. The focus of my research has been on ineffability, the unsayable and unknowable “mystical something” that makes mysticism a truly unique field of study. It is a boundary beyond which our words and concepts cannot reach, and one is right to wonder how one can study something that cannot be known, cannot be talked about. In my research, the core research aim has been to explore how both mysticism and ineffability can provide content to philosophical discourse. What does it mean to “be” ineffable, unsayable and unknowable, and why should we – philosophers of mysticism – try to say something about it, try to know it? My three papers, while independent inquiries into different aspects of mysticism and ineffability, also form a narrative, a thematic whole that binds the papers together. Paper I “Embracing the Unknowable: Paradigm of Ineffability” traces a path between an argument for ineffability towards an argument from ineffability. It proposes that instead of something to be found at the end of an argument, at the silence that ensues, ineffability can, and perhaps even should, be placed at the beginning of an argument, as a paradigm. Paper II “Mystical Ensemble: (Re)defining Mysticism” explores the often-confusing difficulties that studies of mysticism encounter as they try to define what it is that they are researching. It identifies a tripartite structure, a mystical ensemble that is necessary to any complete understanding of mysticism. It offers a way to demarcate and evaluate definitions and understandings of mysticism, whether or not they form a coherent whole in which each part is commensurable with every other. As a conclusion, it proposes that the variety of definitions that abounds in the study of mysticism is not a problem, but a necessary result of the uniqueness of mysticism. Paper III “Being Ineffable: The Meaning of Mysticism” challenges and problematizes the conclusions of the first two papers by introducing the absolute ineffability validated by Paper I into a mystical ensemble presented in Paper II. It asks the question of whether absolute ineffability, something that cannot, in principle, be known or talked about, can somehow be commensurable with an ordinary subject. It proposes that the noetic quality required to counterbalance absolute ineffability needs to be absolute in equal measure, and it suggests that such knowledge must be soteriological. By elevating ineffability from a problem to an answer, from the terminus of an argument to a paradigm, I have attempted to show that scholars of mysticism can and should speak about the ineffable. Ineffability is presented and proposed as a measure of mysticality, something essential for understanding the phenomenon of mysticism, which has intrigued philosophically-inclined minds for more than two thousand years. Mysticism is about a connection and separation between the ordinary and the transcendent, between the human nature and the divine nature. While that represents the longest journey across the deepest gulf possible, the “mystical something” continues to offer novel ways to explore both the bridge and the gap.