Antti Piilola

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.

The chapter takes up the difficulties of discussing mysticism and mystical experiences philosophically. How to describe something that is almost by definition ineffable? There is a notable tradition of the philosophy of mysticism, which has said a lot of meaningful things about mysticism. This chapter argues that an essential virtue for the philosophy of mysticism is coherence between three aspects of mysticism: the mystical subject, the mystical Object, and the mystical experience that mediates the two. The philosophy of mysticism is discussed in connection to the study of esotericism, and it is pointed out that the two have very different approaches to essentially the same phenomena. It is argued that while essentialism about mystical experiences is to be avoided in historical, empirical studies, which the current study of esotericism is mostly about, it is still a possible approach in the philosophy of mysticism.

Ineffability is a long-time partner of the philosophy of religion and mysticism. Through apophatic conceptions of the divine, it can act to guarantee the transcendence of the divine, elevate it to something beyond our conceptions. It has also held the central role in defining if not the nature, then at least the characteristics of mystical experience. Sometimes it is that which affirms the unique nature of mystical experience, and sometimes it is what challenges the concept of mysticism as incoherent and paradoxical. In this article, I will explore if there could be a Being Ineffable that unites both the mystical experience and its (purportedly) transcendent object, while acknowledging the problem of coherence that ineffability entails. I will do so by forming an argument for ineffability that attempts to both validate and define absolute ineffability as the point of convergence between three meanings of Being Ineffable: as a definition of absolute (ineffability), as a mystical experience of it, and finally, as the Ineffable, that is, the God/Absolute/Ultimate; all the meanings are held together by an argument from ineffability—a permeating and silently expressed attempt to turn ineffability from its usual role of a negation into a necessary affirmation.