The Numinous, the Ethical, and the Body. Rudolf Otto’s “The Idea of the Holy” Revisited
October 26, 2017 Henning Nörenberg
The paper reinterprets Rudolf Otto's concept of the numinous—the non-rational, affective core of religious experience—as an atmospheric quality that impacts the subject's feeling body. Drawing on phenomenology and pragmatism, the author defends Otto's claims about the relation between this affective dimension and reason against accusations of unscientific mysticism. The argument then demonstrates that the numinous plays an irreducible role in the ethical thought of Kant and Levinas, showing the concept's unexhausted potential for philosophical reflection.