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Glite Dictionary
🌌 Beyond reason 🔮 Higher reality
suprarational

suprarational

9.9
Beyond what the mind can fully understand
  • adjective
  • /ˌsuːprəˈræʃənl/
  • Formal
translation icon : suprarracional
  • Otto describes a third category, the suprarational, and suggests that spiritual understanding lies within that domain.

Examples

  • First, we can teach the languages of the spirit, and these will be nondiscursive languages, the language of the suprarational rather than the language of the rational.

    Academic text (2011)

  • And interestingly, this ultimate concern or seriousness is not something we can develop for ourselves through active, reflective, voluntary processes, but something that comes to us and grasps us, suggesting its conclusions do not come about by diligent reasoning and the application of rational procedures, but from somewhere beyond that, from the suprarational.

    Academic text (2011)

  • The artist's work often explores suprarational themes that challenge the viewer's understanding of reality.

  • In her lecture, she emphasized that love can often be a suprarational experience that transcends logical explanation.

  • The philosopher argued that some truths are suprarational, existing beyond what we can rationally comprehend.

Synonyms

transcendent
vssuprarational
31 8.8

Far beyond normal limits in experience, knowledge, or quality

goes beyond what reason alone can understand rather than beyond ordinary limits

Surface Forms

suprarational positive

Morphology

suprarational = rational (semi-transparent) = supra + rational

Meaning is compositionally 'beyond' + 'rational', but the Latinate prefix 'supra-' is less familiar to average learners.

Etymology

The word suprarational comes from the Latin parts supra- meaning 'above' and rational meaning 'reason'. So, to call something suprarational is to say it is 'above reason', beyond what logic or science can fully explain.