Ineffability: The Failure of Words in Philosophy and ReligionScharfstein describes the extraordinary powers that have been attributed to language everywhere, and then looks at ineffability as it has appeared in the thought of the great philosophical cultures: India, China, Japan, and the West. He argues that there is something of our prosaic, everyday difficulty with words in the ineffable reality of the philosophers and theologians, just as there is something unformulable, and finally mysterious in the prosaic, everyday successes and failures of words. |
Contents
The Exaltation of Words | 47 |
The Devaluation of Words | 85 |
Reasons behind Reasons for Ineffability | 135 |
In Judgment of Ineffability | 179 |
Notes | 221 |
Bibliography | 253 |
| 287 | |
Other editions - View all
Ineffability: The Failure of Words in Philosophy and Religion Ben-Ami Scharfstein Limited preview - 1993 |
Ineffability: The Failure of Words in Philosophy and Religion Ben-Ami Scharfstein Limited preview - 1993 |
Common terms and phrases
ability abstract argument basic become beginning believe Bhartrihari blind brain Buddhist Cambridge chap child Chinese Chuang Tzu color concepts consciousness cosmic deaf Derrida devaluers différance Dogon emotional emptiness everything exalters existence experience explain express feel Gadamer Gödel grasp hear Heidegger hierarchy human Ibid idea imaginative Indian Philosophy ineffability infinite intellectual intuition Kierkegaard kind knowledge Krishna Kurt Gödel language Lao Tzu linguistic logic mathematical meaning memory metaphysical Mimamsa mind mnemonist mystical Nagarjuna nature Neoplatonic Neoplatonists Nietzsche object one's perception person philosophical Plotinus poem poet poetry possible principle Proclus Psychoanalysis psychological quoted reality reason relation religion religious says Schopenhauer Self-Disclosure sense sentence silence Søren Kierkegaard sounds speak speech superlative symbolic synesthesia synesthetic Tao Te Ching Taoist texts theory things thought tion trans translation true truth understanding unity Upanishads Valéry verbal voice Wittgenstein words writing York