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INTRODUCTION

Paradox Without Piety

F
rom the very inception of the naturalistic study of religion
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, students of reli-
gion have remarked on the prevalence of contradiction and
paradox in religious discourse. Hobbes, for instance, wryly ob-
serves, “That which taketh away the reputation of Wisdome, in
him that formeth a Religion, or addeth to it when it is already
formed, is the enjoyning of a belief of contradictories.” A century
later Hume, giving the topic more attention, claims in The Natural
History of Religion that “all popular theology” [i.e., all theology ex-
cept philosophical deism] exhibits “a kind of appetite for absurdity
and contradiction.” Both Hobbes and Hume have specific contra-
dictions in mind, of course; their comments have polemical intent
directed at Christian scholasticism. Nevertheless, both believed
that Christian history instances a more universal generalization,
and both (to different degrees) sought to explain the causes and
describe the effects of religion’s predilection for what in more re-
cent parlance we call paradox.
Robin Horton has argued conversely that religious discourse is
generally no more paradoxical than scientific discourse, and that
the pronounced glorification of paradox in Christianity represents
a local exception. Scholars since Hobbes and Hume, however,
have amply documented the prominence of paradox in much non-
Western religious reflection. They also concur that, unlike scien-
tific thought which always regards paradox as a weakness of a the-

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 #2 introduction: par adox without piet y

ory, religious thought often revels or rejoices in paradox. Two

hundred and fifty years’ growth in scholarly understanding has not
entirely invalidated Hume’s facetious remarks about religion’s sin-
gular propensity for paradox:

When a [theological] controversy is started, some people always

pretend with certainty to foretell the issue. Whichever opinion,
they say, is most contrary to plain sense is sure to prevail; even
where the general interest of the system requires not that decision.
Though the reproach of heresy may, for some time, be bandied
about among the disputants, it always rests at last on the side of
reason.

That non-Western religious discourse often exploits paradox re-

deems the task attempted by Hobbes and Hume: a general expla-
nation of the prevalence of theological paradox.
When paradox entered the English language sometime in the
sixteenth century, it simply meant an eccentric opinion. John
Bullokar’s English Expositor (1616) defines paradox as “an Opin-
ion maintained contrary to the commonly allowed Opinion,
as if one affirms that the Earth doth move round and the Heavens
stand still.” In contemporary English the word refers to a more
curious kind of doxastic anomaly. When one describes a statement
as paradoxical, one generally perceives it as in some respect self-
contradictory or self-refuting, but to some extent compelling
nonetheless. My use of paradox in this book conforms to the con-
temporary usage.
Anglo-American philosophers have analyzed paradox in a vari-
ety of ways: as the puzzling (because seemingly unacceptable) con-
clusion of a (seemingly acceptable) argument, as a (seemingly ac-
ceptable) argument with a puzzling (because seemingly
unacceptable) conclusion, as a set of individually plausible but
jointly inconsistent propositions, as a statement that is formally
incompatible with a conceptual truth, and as a riddle with too
many good answers. Precising definitions like these that seek to
discipline or improve on ordinary usage can only find their justifi-

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 introduction: par adox without piet y #3

cation in a theoretical or practical project to which their defini-

tional delimitations contribute. The point of precising definitions,
in other words, is to facilitate theory or formulate policy. In the ab-
sence of any explicit theoretical or practical purpose guiding these
analyses of paradox, they can seem utterly arbitrary. To define par-
adox as a riddle, for instance, broadens the definition to include
many conundra that other, narrower analyses (as well as ordinary
usage) do not classify as paradoxes. To then defend this definition
on the grounds that the other analyses are too narrow is simply to
beg the question against the other analyses.
Many of these analyses also exhibit a philosopher’s bias. They
give argument too prominent a place in the definition of paradox.
The influential twentieth-century American philosopher Willard
van Orman Quine, for example, famously defines paradox as “just
any conclusion that at first sounds absurd but that has an argument
to sustain it.” This definition laudably recognizes that what distin-
guishes paradoxical statements from unambiguously absurd state-
ments is that paradoxical statements enjoy epistemic support
and so make some appeal to credence, but it assumes that the epis-
temic support must take the form of an argument. As the history of
religious paradox evinces, however, some paradoxes are sustained
not by argument but by other forms of epistemic authority. The
nineteenth-century Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard, as if re-
sponding to Quine, even goes so far as to insist that there is no argu-
ment which could assuage the absurdity of Christian paradox.
For my theoretical purposes, therefore, I stipulatively define
paradox as an apparently absurd claim, i.e., a claim that apparently
entails a self-contradiction (either formally, materially, or perfor-
matively), to which one feels at least some inclination to assent be-
cause it is supported by at least one form of epistemic authority that
one recognizes. This definition retains the common notion that
paradoxes involve some sort of seeming self-contradiction, but
distinguishes three ways a claim can produce a self-contradiction.
Unlike a claim that formally entails a self-contradiction, a claim
that materially entails a self-contradiction does not entail the self-
contradiction merely by virtue of its form. To recognize that a claim

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materially entails a self-contradiction, one must have some knowl-

edge of the objects and properties named in the assertion. A rudi-
mentary knowledge of chemistry, for instance, is necessary to rec-
ognize that “Electrolyte solutions do not conduct electricity” entails
“Solutions that conduct electricity do not conduct electricity.” Be-
cause claims that materially entail a self-contradiction cannot be
sharply distinguished from mere materially erroneous claims—Is
“The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States sits at
the head of the Executive Branch” a claim that materially entails a
self-contradiction or simply a claim that contradicts what one
knows?—this definition of paradox cannot sharply distinguish
between paradox proper (a claim that apparently entails a self-
contradiction, to which one feels some inclination to assent) and a
claim that appears incompatible with one’s other beliefs, to which
one feels some inclination to assent. Borderline cases of paradox
notwithstanding, the paradigm cases will involve a claim that seems
self-contradictory to the one entertaining it, and not merely puz-
zling in light of his or her other beliefs. Finally, a claim that perfor-
matively entails a self-contradiction involves an inconsistency be-
tween one’s claim and the very act of asserting it (e.g., “I am dead”).
This definition also preserves the etymological emphasis on be-
lief. Epistemic authority is the power selectively to privilege candi-
dates for belief. In other words, epistemic authority lends (at least
some) credibility to a claim. Reason, of course, is one form of epis-
temic authority, but testimony, tradition, the verdicts of recognized
specialists or masters, revelation, and divination also have the
power to render claims credible. Epistemic authority is relative; the
catalogue of accepted epistemic authorities and their order of pre-
cedence differ widely from person to person and epistemic context
to epistemic context. A paradox as I define it is an apparently ab-
surd claim supported by at least one of these forms of authority.
Paradoxes are not mere wordplay. Neither are they primarily exer-
cises in logic. They only remain paradoxes so long as they tempt
our assent. A paradox that has been conclusively resolved or dis-
armed can only continue to be called a paradox in recognition of
its potential to snare the uninstructed.

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 introduction: par adox without piet y #5

The two elements of my definition—the apparent self-

contradiction and the epistemic authority—point to the two con-
ventional ways that a paradox can be resolved, so as to eliminate it.
Either: one eliminates a paradox by concluding that the appear-
ance of self-contradiction is deceiving, that the apparent self-
contradiction is not, in fact, an actual self-contradiction. In the
case of a paradox that materially entails a self-contradiction, this
resolution can result from revising one’s beliefs and/or adopting
new beliefs bearing on the objects or properties at issue. The early
Christian convert, for instance, resolved the paradox that true
marriage consists in remaining a virgin by adopting certain beliefs
about human nature, Christ, and God’s plan. Or: one eliminates a
paradox by subverting the epistemic authority that supports what
one now views as a straightforward self-contradiction. In this case,
one finds the flaw in the argument, rejects the testimony, repudi-
ates tradition, concludes the master made a mistake, determines
the revelation has been corrupted, and so on. The early apostate
resolved the paradox of virgin marriage by denying the authority of
scripture and the Church Fathers.
Apropos of logical paradox Anatol Rapoport once observed,
“Faced with a contradiction that seems fundamentally irreconcil-
able, one can ignore it or deny it, worship it or try to remove it.”
To say that one can venerate a paradox sounds less arch than to say
one can “worship” it. Nevertheless, Rapoport correctly reports that
in religious contexts paradox can assume a holy or sacred mien.
Religious thinkers seem rarely to ignore or deny contradictions,
often try to remove them, but frequently venerate them. In this
book I explain and evaluate two relatively distinct types of religious
response to paradox, both of which can in a very loose sense be
described as veneration.
Unlike Hobbes and Hume, who think the veneration of contra-
diction requires explanation, many scholars of religion indulge in
special pleading on behalf of religious paradox. Some adopt an es-
sentially religious attitude regarding the purported limits of lan-
guage and reason. They affect humility or reverence in the face of
the allegedly inexpressible or inconceivable. Herbert Spencer and

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Max Müller both considered such beliefs and attitudes central to

religion. Spencer argued that the “most abstract belief . . . common
to all religions” is “the omnipresence of something which passes
comprehension,” and Müller viewed religion as a mental faculty
that “yearns for something that neither sense nor reason can sup-
ply” and struggles “to conceive the inconceivable, to utter the un-
utterable.” Without going so far as to define religion in terms of
such beliefs and attitudes (which is to say that Spencer and Müller
go too far), it is nevertheless safe to label them religious beliefs and
attitudes.
Other scholars propose a variety of ad hoc strategies for distin-
guishing properly religious paradox from mere logical contradic-
tion. Yet others, in the name of elucidating the “logic” of religious
discourse, devise torturous hermeneutics designed to soften the
paradoxes and make them appear less peculiar—this attempt de-
spite the fact that the religious texts themselves often try to heighten
the paradoxes’ peculiarity. Adhering to the non-apologetic tradi-
tion of Hobbes and Hume, by contrast, one can simply inquire
why and how religious thinkers venerate contradictions.
Why do religious thinkers venerate paradoxes? In standard cases
they venerate paradoxes, rather than ignoring or removing them,
when a metaphysical doctrine that generates paradox is constitu-
tive of religious beliefs or practices in which the thinkers are heav-
ily invested. Jon Elster has claimed that for the social scientist the
“vastly more interesting” cases of paradox concern contradictions
deduced from a single belief or desire because, “When the contra-
diction or inconsistency follows from a single unitary project, it
may be constitutive of the personality as a whole and far from eas-
ily given up.” Paradox-generating religious doctrines are often too
important either to escape scrutiny or to undergo revision or elim-
ination. Hobbes’s remark proves astute. Unless a religion is well es-
tablished or “already formed,” paradox will generally be avoided. If
it is well established, paradox will be accorded respect.
The veneration of paradox, moreover, serves religious purposes.
It has religious uses. Paradox functions as a means of worship—
not the object of worship as Rapoport’s quip suggests—when it

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 introduction: par adox without piet y #7

comes to inform various sorts of (what I call) cognitive practice.

Cognitive practices are techniques of self-transformation. Al-
though not all cognitive practices promote a religious end (indeed,
in chapter 5 I discuss a nonreligious cognitive practice), religious
cognitive practices effect religiously motivated self-transformation.
They work to alter the individual’s volitional complex—his or her
beliefs, emotions, attitudes, perspective, and desires—in accord
with a religious end. Specifically cognitive practices, as distinct from
other practices that effect self-transformation, do not receive their
due in the literature on self-management.
Elster, who has written as much and as perceptively on these
subjects as anyone, presents a case in point. In his widely influen-
tial Ulysses and the Sirens he analyzes strategies for combating
weakness of the will. Although overcoming weakness of the will
need not require full-scale self-transformation, Elster discusses
techniques of self-manipulation pertinent to the latter. He focuses
on what he calls “pre-commitment” strategies. Illustrated by
Ulysses, who bound himself to the mast to ensure that he could
not succumb to the Sirens’ singing, pre-commitment strategies
bind one through causal mechanisms one sets up in the world. El-
ster provides an extensive catalogue of pre-commitment strate-
gies. Some raise the stakes for failure (e.g., wagering with a room-
mate that one will exercise every morning before work, or risking
derision by publicly predicting easy adherence to a diet). Others
restrict one’s exposure to temptation (e. g., avoiding one’s old
drinking buddies) or opportunities for failure (e.g., hiking where
one will not have access to cigarettes). Yet others work directly to
change one’s volitional complex (e.g., taking cold showers to
strengthen the will, working to develop habits, or, like Pascal’s ex-
ample of taking holy water to foster belief, committing to behav-
ioral patterns in the hopes of bringing one’s beliefs into line). Elster
contrasts these pre-commitment strategies with strategies that re-
arrange the person’s inner space without benefit of causal mecha-
nisms in the external world. He mentions mentally raising the
stakes of failure (telling oneself, “If I succumb to temptation now,
I’ll likewise fail whenever tempted and where would that leave

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me?”) and adopting a new descriptive vocabulary in an act of self-

redefinition (“saying makes it so”). Elster accords varying degrees
of efficacy to the different types of pre-commitment, but neverthe-
less concludes that pre-commitment is the “privileged” technique
of self-manipulation because self-manipulation through a rear-
rangement of inner space has narrow limits of effectiveness.
A survey of religious literature indicates that Elster has both
overlooked prominent strategies for rearranging inner space and
underestimated their effectiveness. Manuals of spiritual discipline
advocate all the pre-commitment techniques Elster enumerates,
but also recommend a rich variety of techniques for rearranging
inner space. To the extent that these latter techniques require dedi-
cation over time and aim at self-transformation, I call them cogni-
tive practices. The most obvious cognitive practices are meditation
regimens. Meditation takes many forms. Some types of meditation
exploit the intellect. The Buddhist monk engaged in “mental cul-
ture” (bhāvanā) aims to appropriate the truth of Buddhist doctrine
subjectively. Through vipassanā or “insight” meditation he dis-
cerns the real by applying Buddhist doctrine to his own personal
experience. In this way he gradually comes to adhere to the “right
view” in the deepest sense, the sense in which Buddhist doctrine
has fundamentally transformed his volitional complex. Other
types of meditation exploit the imagination. Teresa of Avila con-
tinually implores her nuns to meditate on the humanity of Christ,
to gaze at his beautiful face, to witness his suffering for their sakes,
to see the love for them in his eyes. Such a practice counters selfish
reluctance to do his will. Shantideva similarly harnesses the imagi-
nation when he counsels that one plagued by lust should imagine
the object of one’s lust as a sack of excrement. Some of the cogni-
tive practices I describe in this book involve some manner of med-
itation, but what they all share is the purposeful cultivation of par-
adox or contradiction in the service of self-transformation.
Alluding to Hadot‘s catchphrase, one might say they regard para-
dox “as a way of life.”
What I call “religiously motivated self-transformation” religious
texts sometimes describe in a different argot: the idiom of detach-

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 introduction: par adox without piet y #9

ment and union. That paradox can foster detachment from disfa-
vored affections and judgments, and/or promote identification
with a wider perspective, explains why religious texts sometimes
seem to revel in paradox, rather than simply tolerating it as a theo-
retical physicist might. In this book I aim to examine critically the
material grounds for some prominent religious paradoxes (i.e., “the
reasons why the two [apparently contradictory] arms of a paradox
are jointly asserted”), distinguish, explain, and illustrate two types
of religious use of paradox, contrast them with a well-known non-
religious use of contradiction, and venture a social psychological
hypothesis about the circumstances in which one or another of
these cognitive practices is likely to appear.
I begin my typology in chapter 2, where I describe what I call
cognitive asceticism. Cognitive ascetics harness the discomfort of
cognitive dissonance and hitch it to an ascetic regimen. Their cog-
nitive practice consists in cultivating cognitive dissonance and em-
ploying it ascetically. Presumably, cognitive ascetics can exploit
cognitive dissonance deriving from sources other than paradox,
but I will focus on cognitive ascetics who capitalize on the ascetic
potential of paradox. In their hands paradox becomes a tool of as-
cetic self-transformation. Søren Kierkegaard is the cognitive as-
cetic I discuss in greatest detail. He takes cognitive self-torment to
heights rarely found elsewhere.
In chapter 3 I contrast cognitive asceticism to my second type of
religious response to paradox: mysticism. During the last two or
three centuries we have come to think of mysticism in terms of ex-
traordinary experiences or altered states of consciousness. When I
use the term mysticism to denote a kind of response to paradox, I
use the term more broadly. I take inspiration from the premodern,
Christian concept of mystical theology, which concerns ineffable,
suprarational cognition beyond the paradoxes to which rational
reflection on God leads. In my usage a mystic purports to attain
ineffable superknowledge on the far side of paradox. For a mystic,
paradox does not mark the limit of human cognition; rather, para-
dox opens out onto a plane of exceptional cognition. Under this
definition a mystic may, but need not, experience extraordinary

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states of consciousness. As a cognitive practice mystical apprehen-

sion serves to refashion the perspective and attitudes composing
the self. It promotes identification with a wider perspective. I offer
extremely brief accounts of Pseudo-Dionysius and Nicholas of Cu-
sa’s mystical theologies and contrast them to John of the Cross,
who uses paradox ascetically.
The prevalence of mysticism and cognitive asceticism as re-
sponses to the paradoxes that arise in religious discourse bears out
Hume’s remark about religion’s “appetite for absurdity and contra-
diction,” but their distinctiveness indicates that paradox satisfies
different cravings in different circumstances. In this same chapter
I try to explain this distinctiveness. Averil Cameron has argued
that late-fourth-century Christian writers cultivate paradox to re-
sist the assimilation of Christian discourse to traditional public
rhetoric. I too see a relationship between paradox and boundary
management, but offer a theory both more general and more at-
tuned to different attitudes toward boundaries. Tailoring Mary
Douglas’s sociological theory about taxonomic anomalies, I argue
that a religious thinker’s attitude toward paradox reflects his or her
attitude toward the external boundary of whatever social group
most preoccupies him or her. Concern about the threat posed by
outsiders produces a view that the outer limits of the understand-
ing are impermeable. The greater the emphasis on excluding out-
siders, the more rigid and impregnable become the bounds of rea-
son. To a thinker apprehensive about the integrity of the external
social boundary, paradox will appear irreconcilably dissonant,
suitable for an ascetic use. Conversely, the greater the value seen in
incorporating outsiders, the more rich become the possibilities for
cognition beyond the bounds of reason.
My variation on Douglas’s theory helps explain, furthermore,
how cognitive asceticism and mysticism effect self-transforma-
tion. Reactions to paradox gain emotional force from their basis in
attitudes toward social relations. To a thinker who feels his group
threatened by outsiders, paradox will offend and horrify. If this
thinker uses cognitive dissonance ascetically, these affects exacer-
bate the discomfort. To a thinker invested in bringing outsiders

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 introduction: par adox without piet y # 11 

across the external boundary of the group, paradox will evoke awe
and reverence. The mystic’s belief that he has attained ineffable su-
perknowledge dispels the cognitive dissonance attendant on para-
dox, while these strong affects lend the doctrine that begets para-
dox the vivacity to impel a change in his volitional complex.
Although my account of the causal relationships between mysti-
cism, emotion, and volition ranges over the same terrain as Wil-
liam James’s influential theory in The Varieties of Religious Experi-
ence, it contrasts sharply with James’s position. James includes in
his catalogue of the saintly emotions a feeling that he sometimes
calls “mystical emotion”: an “immense elation and freedom, as the
outlines of the confining selfhood melt down.” The “practical con-
sequence” of this excitement is charity. James here describes the
emotional arousal and identification with a wider perspective that
I have argued results from mysticism as a cognitive practice. Em-
phatically, James insists that the saintly emotions etiologically pre-
cede theologies. In fact he specifically makes a point of arguing
that one cannot derive the state of mind “in which the sand and
grit of the selfhood incline to disappear” from belief or cosmologi-
cal reflection (225). Elsewhere in the Varieties, he describes “philo-
sophic and theological formulas” as “secondary products” building
on religious feeling (337–38). “The fact is,” he writes in yet another
passage, “that the mystical feeling of enlargement, union, and
emancipation has no special intellectual content whatever of its
own. It is capable of forming matrimonial alliances with material
furnished by the most diverse philosophies and theologies, pro-
vided only they can find a place in their framework for its peculiar
emotional mood” (333–34). Likewise, James views the saintly emo-
tions as “more fundamental” than “ecclesiasticism” (42).
Others have conclusively argued that emotions are thoroughly
(in fact essentially) cognitive and that James, therefore, is mistaken
to distinguish religious emotions and feelings so sharply from the-
ology and beliefs. Attending to cognitive practices supplements
this criticism of James by explaining how theological doctrines can
come to bear the emotional intensity capable of transforming the
self. The emotional arousal and transformed volitional complex

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that James describes depend, despite James’s assertion to the con-

trary, on metaphysical reflection and ecclesiasticism. Theological
doctrines that generate paradox will, given the right ecclesiastical
attitudes, produce strongly felt awe and reverence that effect
self-transformation.
In chapter 4 I examine the concept of transcendence, a notion at
the heart of so much mysticism. I try to show that transcendence
frequently has cosmogonic inspiration. The very posing of the cos-
mogonic question—Why is there something, rather than noth-
ing?—promotes an emphasis on absolute transcendence. Any lim-
ited something capable of description fails to answer the question.
Only that which transcends all limitation and description as a
something satisfies the demands of the question. The very concept
of absolute transcendence, however, generates paradox. To charac-
terize the transcendent as beyond all limited and describable things
is to limit it and describe it as a something in relation to all other
limited things. The absolutely transcendent must, therefore, para-
doxically be within all things as well as beyond them. This paradox
of immanence and transcendence appears repeatedly in the world’s
religious literature, and helps account for the conjunction of mysti-
cism, as I use the term, and extraordinary states of consciousness.
If the transcendent paradoxically subsists within all things, the
transcendent must subsist within humans as well. Some mystics
and mystical traditions come to view altered states of conscious-
ness as the experiential vehicle for ineffable cognition of the im-
manent transcendent.
In this chapter I also attempt to take some air out from under
the wings on which much mystical speculation soars. If the cosmo-
gonic question generates the concept of absolute transcendence,
then mysticism predicated on the paradoxes of transcendence
loses its compellingness when one perceives the flaw at work in the
cosmogonic question. Although it is well formed both syntacti-
cally and semantically, the cosmogonic question fails to satisfy the
necessary pragmatic conditions for a successful request for an ex-
planation. This fact enables one to turn the tables on the mystic.
Whereas the mystic takes flight because the idea of an absolutely

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 introduction: par adox without piet y # 13 

transcendent cause produces paradox, the cosmogonic question’s

failure with respect to the pragmatics of explanation enables one
simply to reject the idea of an absolutely transcendent cause on the
very grounds that such an idea breeds paradox.
In chapter 5 I consider ancient Greek Skepticism, a cognitive
practice that, strictly speaking, is neither religious nor exploits
paradox. The skeptics can be described as religious only under the
most liberal construal of the term, and although they did pursue a
cognitive practice based on contradiction, they did not traffic in
paradoxes per se. For two reasons I, nonetheless, traverse this ter-
rain. First, a study of Skepticism reveals a general limit or con-
straint on what cognitive practices can achieve. Second, a compar-
ison of Skepticism to the cognitive practices of some mystics
clarifies mysticism and sets it in higher relief.
In pursuit of tranquility, at least some of the Pyrrhonian Skeptics
attempted to live a life devoid of belief. Their discipline cultivated
the appearance of contradiction. By adducing contradictory evi-
dences, they sought to force themselves to suspend judgment on
all questions of fact and value. Adapting the pragmatism of C. S.
Peirce’s early essays, I argue that the skeptic misrepresents the cul-
mination of his discipline when he describes it as a life without be-
liefs. My analysis of the skeptic’s cognitive practice indicates that
thoroughgoing cognitive detachment is not an option. As a rule,
cognitive detachment is parasitic on belief. In the second and third
sections of this chapter, respectively, I compare Greek Skepticism
to Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakārikā and the Chuang-tzu. Both
Nāgārjuna and Chuang-tzu have been described as skeptics be-
cause, among other reasons, they, like the Skeptics, emphasize the
shortcomings of reason. I claim that, despite similarities to the
Skeptics in strategy and argument, Chuang-tzu and Nāgārjuna are
mystics, not skeptics. They deploy skeptical arguments to promote
extraordinary, mystical insight.
Although I am, of course, solicitous about the various compo-
nents of my argument, my paramount concern in this book is to il-
lustrate how leaving piety to one side pays dividends for an investi-
gation into religious paradox. Too often in the study of religion

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 # 14  introduction: par adox without piet y

paradox functions as the final preserve for pious attitudes that

block the path of inquiry. I try here to demonstrate that naturalistic
inquiry of a sort that fully integrates philosophy of religion and so-
cial scientific theory proves well suited to explaining the peculiar
exaltation of paradox in religious discourse. Even if my substantive
conclusions fail to convince, I hope my general methodological
orientation persuades.

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