Ineffable Properties and Objects

Abstract

As we saw in the Introduction, it is not at all clear how we can give a metaphysical underpinning to the ways in which the concept of ineffability has been applied historically. This is because the term is used in slightly different ways that seem to point in different metaphysical directions. Sometimes, for example in religious contexts, a person’s experience is called ineffable. This is ontologically noncommittal, given that we can think of all kinds of unmysterious, that is, ontologically neutral reasons for why an experience might be impossible to express. We can think here about the cases of irrelevant ineffability: if someone has an experience of ineffability because he is temporarily out of words to articulate what he wants to say, but remembers the appropriate words after a few seconds and expresses whatever he wanted to express, then there is nothing mysterious about it. We wouldn’t start wondering if some hitherto unknown entity, such as an ineffable property or an ineffable truth, were responsible for his lack of words.