ATLAS OF LANGUAGE

Contextual explanation · NAV-G05-031

Ineffability

This explanation addresses the term in its originating context. It is not an additional canonical Atlas profile.

Explanation

In the context of qualia, ineffability concerns an alleged limit on fully communicating an experience in language. Different claims must be separated: a person currently lacks words, a community has no compact label, or a theory posits an in-principle limit on every description. The first difficulty does not establish the last thesis. A description can also communicate relations and conditions of an experience without producing that experience in its recipient. The concept therefore opens an investigation of description, experience and communicability rather than proving that language necessarily fails.

Movement of thought

1. Separate experience from description. 2. Specify the alleged limit. 3. Try paraphrases. 4. Examine possibilities for comparison. 5. Distinguish practical from principled limits.

Example

Someone describes a fruit's taste through comparisons; whether the listener thereby experiences it as the speaker does is a separate question.

Counter-test

Lacking an adjective does not prove that the content cannot be communicated at all.

Scientific use case

Philosophical analysis can distinguish different claims about experiential knowledge.

Effect

The concept makes the reach and limits of description explicit.

Resonance

Not everything described is thereby experienced.

Distinction

Distinguish ineffability from difficulty finding words, a lexical gap and a demonstrated in-principle impossibility.

Sources