Apophatic identity -- the negative approach

Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? (Part #3)

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The challenge for some is whether they identify adequately with the array of attributes by which they are defined to the satisfaction of many in society. To some degree at least, there is a sense of "I am not that". Curiously this echoes the simplest statement of apophatic theology, the Vedic: Neti Neti (Not this, Not that). Or, in urban jargon, "None of the above". Or, perhaps "All of the above -- and more". The key question is the extent to which individuals identify with the identities through which others prefer to know them.

Apophasis was originally and more broadly a method of logical reasoning or argument by denial, a way of telling what something is by telling what it is not, a way of talking about something by talking about what it is not. This sense is frequently overlooked, other than in negative theology. But if it is appropriate through apophatic theology to understand divinity as ineffable and beyond description, is there not a case for recognizing the extent to which individual identity -- especially if held to be a reflection of the divine -- transcends the immanence implied by kataphatic description.

Denys Turner (The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism, 1995) suggests that there is a difference between an apophasis that presupposes the inadequacy of language and one that discovers the failure of language, where language exhausts itself. Apophasis is not a "naïve pre-critical ignorance", but "a strategy and practice of unknowing".

Beyond the theological focus, Michael Sells (Mystical Languages of Unsaying, 1994) highlights the manner in which apophatic discourse embraces the impossibility of naming something that is ineffable by continually turning back upon its own propositions and names. He reviews its use in Greek, Christian, Jewish and Islamic texts, providing a critical account of how apophatic language works, the conventions, logic, and paradoxes it employs, and the dilemmas encountered in any attempt to analyze it. The study establishes the relevance of classical apophasis to contemporary languages of the unsayable. It notably challenges characterizations of apophasis among deconstructionists.

Gentlemen - and the texts they live by -- are straightforward guides. They educate through cataphasis: positive statements about the Good and the True. Jesters, by contrast, educate through apophasis, literally un-saying. Instead of statements, riddles; instead of commandments, questions. The gentleman supplies positive content, exemplary behaviour, a stable landing place for the student's understanding, whereas the jester actively undermines the student's ability to stabilise herself, providing content that is framed by an explicit or implicit negation: a raised eyebrow, a snicker, a punchline. If the preferred rhetorical form of the gentleman is the example, the preferred rhetorical form of the jester is the mystery, or perhaps the practical joke. (Alan Jay Levinovitz, Zhuang Zhi: a funhouse mirror for the soul, Aeon)

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