Abstract
Abstract During the last half century, the category of holiness fell into disrepair although there are recent signs of its revitalization with the Pope’s apostolic exhortation on holiness, Gaudete et Exultate and attention being paid to the category in political philosophy (the work of Agamben and Esposito) and sociology (the work of Hans Joas). In this context, this article argues for the philosophical justification of linking holiness with prepredicative experience as it shows itself through hermeneutical phenomenology, grounded in bio-sociology, but which cannot be isolated from the particular languages of its articulation. Holiness comes into view through the languages of holiness, which in the broadest sense, include human act, and comportment toward world. This involves a discussion about holiness itself being located either in prepolitical experience or being inseparable from political and legal discourse. Of relevance here is also a philosophical discussion of holiness in relation to metaphysical realism.
Highlights
During the last half century, the category of holiness fell into disrepair there are recent signs of its revitalization with the Pope’s apostolic exhortation on holiness, Gaudete et Exultate in April 2018 (Francis 2018), attention being paid to the category in political philosophy, in sociology (Joas 2014), in Jewish studies (Mittleman 2018), and in religious studies (Stausberg 2017)
This is a complex issue that involves a discussion about holiness itself being located either in prepolitical experience or being inseparable from political and legal discourse, which relates to the linguistic construction or otherwise of human experience
While I would wish to defend the category of holiness, this is not a reprising of Otto’s thesis that removes the category of the holy from any political discourse or analysis, but it is to claim that holiness might be rooted in a prepolitical, somatic bio-sociology; stated positively rather than negatively, the question is can Otto’s idea be integrated into a bio-sociological field? I would argue that it can, and that this necessitates a move to a hermeneutical phenomenology to understand it, and that this in turn entails a metaphysical realism
Summary
According to the experience view, holiness is a kind of perception of transcendence, as famously articulated by Rudolf Otto, and according to the politics view, holiness is inseparable from legal discourse, as articulated in the philosophies of both Giorgio Agamben and Roberto Esposito. Otto’s argument in a nutshell is that the category of the holy is found across religions and is rooted in individual human experience or apprehension of something that is wholly other, the essence of which is characterized as a sense of mystery, fear, and fascination (mysterium tremendum et fascinans) that Otto termed “the numinous” (numinosum). This apprehension of the holy is prior to language, and, according to Douglas Hedley’s fine study, “attempts to convey or evoke the prelinguistic experience of the holy that he proposes as a generic and transcultural feature of humanity” (Hedley 2017: 35). The implicit critique of Otto’s location of holiness in experience from the politics view of Agamben (Agamben 1995: 86) highlights the cultural and political relevance of the category of the sacred
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