The Numinous, the Ethical, and the Body. Rudolf Otto’s “The Idea of the Holy” Revisited
October 26, 2017 Henning Nörenberg
Abstract In this paper, I investigate the non-rational, affective dimension of religious experience that Rudolf Otto attempted to address with his notion of the numinous. I argue that this notion is best understood in terms of an atmospheric quality impacting on the subject’s feeling body. Therefore, I draw on discussions in phenomenology and pragmatism, despite the fact that Otto’s own...