Apophaticism

Discussion

William FRANKE’S APOPHATICISM

John O'Neill:

"Apophaticism, says Franke is “a discourse which is explicitly and deliberately about what cannot be said”. Franke traces the history of apophaticism through Western philosophy, art and literature, an undercurrent which has often ignored and neglected through the dominance of thought and word. Franke shows the ambiguities through the history of Western apophatic discourse over whether it entails an experience of total union in the indistinctness of the One or rather the shock of absolute alterity.

Both unity and alterity show up in divergent strains of apophatic experience and reflection. However, they cannot be absolutelyd istinguished from each other and both configurations are inadequate for what cannot be said. They have links with negative theology. Eg Marion. Both forms of apophaticism have led to vast currents of discourse. In apophasis, absolute difference cannot be positively distinguished from absolute unity, even though they generate apparently opposite discourses of difference and unity. The undercurrents of apophasis re-surface during times, such as our contemporary one, of crisis, scepticism and philosophical uncertainty, and weakening faith in the Logos and in articulable reality."

(https://www.academia.edu/27518275/TOWARDS_A_FULLER_COSMOTHEANDRIC_VISION)