Cantor gave us the language to put what was previously unknown into words. Do we use "ineffable" for things we might say, but so far haven't? Isn't "ineffable" reserved for stuff that we cannot in principle say?Seems like that would be the logical query to follow, “only the unknown cannot be put into words”. — Mww
Beyond 's quite valid criticism of that phrasing, Cantor shows that what was previously unknown can indeed be put into words; putting it into words is the act of making it known.Only that which is unknown cannot be put into words. — RussellA
Yes. Per my example, it is something they cannot do, and we (sighted) cannot say, to them. We cannot say the experience of sight, it is ineffable. — hypericin
Only that which is unknown cannot be put into words. Only that which is unknown is ineffable. If it is known, it can be put into words and is expressible. — RussellA
All well-said.
Do we….or do we not….still need to stipulate the criteria for determining how the unknowable isn’t a mere subterfuge? Seems like that would be the logical query to follow, “only the unknown cannot be put into words”. — Mww
Merely mouthing words is not enough. By your logic this thread is a non-starter, for as soon as anything purportedly ineffable is merely mentioned, it is no longer ineffable. — hypericin
the experience of color cannot be communicated. — hypericin
This has support when we consider that sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to feel a certain way about a certain thing, e.g., doesn’t make sense to cry over beautiful music. — Mww
Doesn’t the unknown in practice still require an explanatory principle? I should think that if it is the case that knowledge is only possible in conjunction with principles, the criteria for the unknowable must be either the negation of those, the validity of its own, or the absence of any. But principles at any rate. — Mww
I can't put that "knowing" into words that could communicate what she looks like such that you could, on the basis of what I told you. recognized her on the street. — Janus
Isn't "ineffable" reserved for stuff that we cannot in principle say? — Banno
This says the cup is colored red, but nothing about the experience of the color red. — hypericin
don't understand that. What are "principles"? — Banno
Principles are ineffable. — Tom Storm
Hence: Nietzsche’s principle of will to power, Freud’s principle of will to pleasure (in fairness, together with his reality principle), Frankl’s principle of will to meaning, and the one which I find most important, Enigma’s principles of lust.
It might take a whole lot of reasoning to make me change my mind on this stance: — javra
You can take it as frustration at what must be a mental block of some kind. — hypericin
Ok. It might help if you stated what you think he is claiming. — Banno
I think he's claiming that you can't teach someone what red is. You can only point to it. If they have the anatomy and physiology that allows them to have that experience, you can help them attach the word "red" to it. — frank
When you face the world with understanding, it is not that the world is sitting there telling you what it is. — Constance
What makes the world the world is your history of experiences, and this is what separates your world from a "blooming and buzzing" infant's world. But if it is education that informs the understanding, then how is it that the this education can ever access the "out there" of the world as it really is, given that the understanding is all about this stream of recollection? Sure, there is something before me, a tree or a couch, but isn't this recognition of what these are just the occasion for memories to be brought to bear in the specific occasion, and the palpable things of the world in their "really what they are" ness just an impossible concept; impossible because to have it as an an object at all is to be beheld AS a kind of regionalized set of memories, you know, memories about couches kick the moment you see a couch and there is no "in between" time to catch the couch in all its "pure presence". — Constance
But it goes directly to the issue of ineffability, for what is really on the table here is whether it makes sense to talk like this at all. — Constance
memories about couches kick the moment you see a couch and there is no "in between" time to catch the couch in all its "pure presence". — Constance
Sure there’s a difference, but there’s nothing ineffable about it. The word representing a universal conception won’t refer to a particular example of it. — Mww
True enough. Herein is the limit of metaphysical reductionism. Conceptions represent thoughts….but there is no justifiable hypothesis for the origin of thoughts. If one wishes to call the origin of thought ineffable, insofar as there are no words to describe it, that’s fine, but we’ve already understood we just have no idea from whence come thoughts, so why bother with overburdening the impossibility with ineffability? — Mww
Truth be told, I don’t agree that’s what we’re doing. You say the problem is we try to do this thing we can’t do, I say we can’t even do, in any way, shape or form, what you say we’re trying to do, so the problem itself you say we have, should just disappear and along with it, the very notion of ineffability. — Mww
This is just as much fun as trying to fathom why some of us are right-handed and some are left. Why some of us like spinach and some of us gag on it. Only product there can be is fun; we ain’t gonna solve anything here, are we. — Mww
This from a gentleman who questions 1+1=2 is a surprise. — jgill
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