Speechless Meaning or Meaningless Speech: The Science of Ineffability

Abstract

Jason Blum argues that philosophers who use a neo-Kantian epistemological framework to argue that all human experience is reductively linguistic, and so ineffable experience of the type claimed by mystics is either insincere or mistaken, are wedded to an ideology that is being superseded by contemporary neuroscience. Blum argues that contemporary psychology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience all point to states of consciousness that operate independently of the linguistic functions of humans. Antonio Damasio, for example, points out that emotional states of consciousness occur independently of linguistic functions, and evolutionary biologists are pointing out our continuities with other animals, who have considerable ranges of goal-oriented knowledge states, without any linguistic abilities. Blum argues that there are, thus, even ordinary states of consciousness which are ineffable. He further notes that reports of mystical experiences cross-culturally are better understood in light of the new sciences than in light of neo-Kantian epistemological presumptions.