different between apophatic vs apophasis

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ?????????? (apophatikós, “negative”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ap?(?)?fat?k/

Adjective

apophatic (comparative more apophatic, superlative most apophatic)

1. (theology) Pertaining to knowledge of God obtained through negation rather than positive assertions.
   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 488:

     For him, the assertions of Palamas ran counter to the apophatic insistence in Pseudo-Dionysius that God was unknowable in his essence.

   • 2009, Karen Armstrong, The Case for God, Vintage 2010, p. 123:

     Augustine had absorbed the underlying spirit of Greek apophatic theology, but the West did not develop a fully fledged spirituality of silence until the ninth century, when the writings of an unknown Greek author were translated into Latin and achieved near-canonical status in Europe.

2. (by extension) That which passively defines a thing by describing what it is not characteristic thereof.

Antonyms

• cataphatic

Derived terms

• apophatically

Related terms

• apophatism

Translations

English

Etymology

Via Late Latin apophasis from Ancient Greek ???????? (apóphasis, “denial, negation”) from ???- (apo-, “away, from, off”) +? ????? (phásis, “statement, proposition”) from ???? (ph?mí, “to speak”) from Proto-Hellenic *p???m? from Proto-Indo-European *b?eh?; whence Latin f?r?, cognate to fame, fable.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??p?f?s?s/

Noun

apophasis (plural apophases)

1. (rhetoric) An allusion to something by denying that it will be mentioned.

   Synonyms: paralipsis, parasiopesis, praeteritio, preterition

   Hyponyms: proslepsis, assumptio

   Hypernym: irony

   Coordinate terms: antiphrasis, concessio, epitrope, mycterism, sarcasm

2. (Christianity, philosophy, theology) A process of arriving at knowledge by statements of denial; particularly, developing a concept of God through negative assertions about his nature.

   Synonyms: apophatic theology, via negativa

   Antonyms: cataphasis, via affirmativa

Related terms

• apo-
• -phasis
• apophatic
• apophatically

Translations

See also

• not to mention
• to say nothing of

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ???????? (apóphasis, “denial, negation”), ???- (apo-, “away, from, off”) +? ????? (phásis, “statement, proposition”) from ??????? (apóph?mi, “speak out; say no, refuse, deny”) from Attic Greek ???? (ph?mí), Doric Greek ???? (ph?mí) from Proto-Hellenic *p???m? from Proto-Indo-European *b?eh?; whence via Proto-Italic *f??r, *f?m? compare f?r?, f?bula, f?ma, hence English fable, fame.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /a?po.p?a.sis/, [ä?p?p?äs??s?]
• (Vulgar) IPA^(key): /a?po?.fa.sis/, [a?p??fas?s]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /a?po.fa.sis/, [??p??f?s?is]

Noun

apophasis f (genitive apophasis); third declension

1. denial, negation, repudiation
2. (Late Latin, logic, rhetoric) apophasis; ironically alluding to a subject matter by denying that the subject will be mentioned, embedded within a statement or rhetorical question whereby one, as it were, answers himself
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin, Christianity, philosophy, theology) apprehending knowledge of what is true about an unknowable, such as the essence of a divine being like God, by a negative process of denying propositions that are knowably untrue

   Synonyms: abnuentia, negatio, (New Latin) via negativa

   Antonyms: affirmatio, aientia, cataphasis, (New Latin) via affirmativa

Declension

Third-declension noun (i-stem).

Descendants

Noun

apophas?s f

1. accusative plural of apophasis

References

• apophasis in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• apophasis in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• apophasis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette, page 142
• apophasis in Georges, Karl Ernst; Georges (1913–1918) Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, Hahnsche Buchhandlung, page 499