altarity

altarity

English

Etymology

Coined by Mark C. Taylor in Altarity (1987), from altar and alterity.

Noun

altarity (uncountable)

1. (philosophy) Otherness exalted as if a religious concept.
   • 2001, Victor E. Taylor, Charles E. Winquist, Encyclopedia of postmodernism:

     In his deconstruction of the modern subject via the thought of altarity, Taylor relies on the critique of Hegel developed in twentieth-century France...

   • 2005, Henry L. Ruf, Postmodern rationality, social criticism, and religion:

     Sacred altarity is the indescribable other that makes the describable possible...

   • 2010, Jason Schwager,

     altarity is the sense rising from the altar of separation insulating a culture, religion, people, from those defined as outside due to their otherness.