Pluralism and Ineffability

This essay therefore proposes a new account of ‘the Real’ as an experience of excess (the ‘transcategorial phenomenal’) that takes place in the midst of the event of inter-religious encounter. It is divided into two parts. The first part critiques the use of the concept of ineffability, or the transcategorial, by advocates of the pluralist view of religions. It argues that the upper-level of the oft-used noumenal phenomenal distinction (Hick) goes beyond the idea of the ‘ineffable’ as described in the world religions and renders ‘the Real’ paradoxically inoperative for interreligious spirituality. In the second part, the essay seeks to bring the analytic tradition into dialogue with the phenomenological tradition and particularly with the work of Jean-Luc Marion. Marion highlights the given-ness or excess of experiences (including non-religious) that do not rely on metaphysical grounds. The essay then proceeds to develop an concept of the ineffable (‘The Real’) as an experience within the phenomenal realm.