Chapter published in:
Beyond MeaningEdited by Elly Ifantidou, Louis de Saussure and Tim Wharton
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 324] 2021
► pp. 135–150
Experiences of ineffable significance
Nigel Fabb | University of Strathclyde
An ‘experience of ineffable significance’ is sudden feeling of
knowing something very significant but which cannot be described in
words, sometimes accompanied by chills or tears. Amongst its types
are the sublime and (secular) ‘epiphanies’. Drawing on work by Huron
and by Meyer, I propose that it is a type of surprise, arising from
perceptions whose match to our schematic knowledge falls outside the
normal range of discrepancy, either by radical discrepancy or by
uncanny identity. Assuming a theoretical context of Relevance
Theory, and drawing on work by Sperber and by Raffman, I explore
some reasons how we are able to suddenly judge that the perception
produces deeply significant knowledge, and why that knowledge cannot
be expressed in words.
Keywords: inferential pragmatics, relevance theory, ostension, meaningnn
, non-intentional communication
Article outline
- 1.Experiences of ineffable significance
- 2.Etiology: Discrepancies outside a normal range
- 3.Epistemic feelings: Significance
- 4.Ineffability
- 5.Representation and metarepresentation
- 6.An example
- 7.Conclusion
-
Notes -
References
Published online: 10 November 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.324.c8
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.324.c8
References
Bohrer, Karl Heinz
Burke, Edmund
Clark, Andy
Fabb, Nigel
Fletcher, Paul C., and Chris D. Frith
Foster, Meadhbh I., and Mark T. Keane
Gabrielsson, Alf
Hart, J. T
Huron, David
Joyce, James
Kant, Immanuel
Laski, Marghanita
Mendelssohn, Moses
Meyer, Wulf-Uwe, Michael Niepel, Udo Rudolph, and Achim Schützwohl
Miall, David S
Mishara, Aaron L., and Paolo Fusar-Poli
Panksepp, Jaak
Smith, Barbara Herrnstein
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson
Sundararajan, Louise
Von Hofmannsthal, Hugo
Wassiliwizky, Eugen, Thomas Jacobsen, Jan Heinrich, Manuel Schneiderbauer, and Winfried Menninghaus