PhilPeople

University of Cologne
Cologne Center for Contemporary Epistemology and The Kantian Tradition

Lecturer
Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Researcher

Cologne, NRW, Germany

0000-0002-4199-6778

Areas of Specialization

Formal Epistemology

Areas of Interest

Logic and Philosophy of Logic

Philosophy of Cognitive Science

Philosophy of Computing and Information

Metalinguistic apophaticism
Peter van Elswyk

Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. forthcoming.

A conviction had by many Christians over many centuries is that natural language is inadequate for describing God. This is the doctrine of divine ineffability. Apophaticism understands divine ineffability as it being justified or proper to negate statements that describe God. This paper develops and defends a version of apophaticism in which the negation involved is metalinguistic. The interest of this metalinguistic apophaticism is two-fold. First, it provides a philosophical model of historica…Read more
A conviction had by many Christians over many centuries is that natural language is inadequate for describing God. This is the doctrine of divine ineffability. Apophaticism understands divine ineffability as it being justified or proper to negate statements that describe God. This paper develops and defends a version of apophaticism in which the negation involved is metalinguistic. The interest of this metalinguistic apophaticism is two-fold. First, it provides a philosophical model of historical apophaticisms that shows their rational coherence. Second, metalinguistic apophaticism enables a minimal understanding of ineffability that is independently plausible given its minor commitments.