To seek fundamental truths, analytic metaphysicians generally start with observed phenomena. From here they typically move outwards, using discursive thought to posit scientifically informed theories about the ultimate reality behind appearances. Mystics, too, seek to uncover the reality behind appearances. However, their meditative methods typically start with experience and go inwards to a fundamental reality sometimes described as a pure conscious unity. Analytic metaphysicians may be tempted to dismiss the mystical approach as unworthy of investigation. In this paper I (...) will outline and address four challenges that sceptics are likely to advance, arguing that none is persuasive. I shall also attempt to clarify the role and scope of meditation in establishing the viability of mystical data in the construction of any potential metaphysic about fundamental reality. (shrink)

'This book is a model of philosophical and Heideggerian scholarship.

The aim of this book is to consider what reasonably follows from the hypothesis that the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ can be interpreted from a mystical point of view. Atkinson intends to elucidate Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the mystical in his early writings as they pertain to a number of topics such as, God, the meaning of life, reality, the eternal and the solipsistic self.

The aim of this book is to consider what reasonably follows from the hypothesis that the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ can be interpreted from a mystical point of view. Atkinson intends to elucidate Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the mystical in his early writings as they pertain to a number of topics such as, God, the meaning of life, reality, the eternal and the solipsistic self.

At the time when existentialism was a dominant intellectual and cultural force, a number of commentators observed that some of the language of existential philosophy, not least its interpretation of human existence in terms of nothingness, evoked the language of so-called mystical writers. This book takes on this observation and explores the evidence for the influence of mysticism on the philosophy of existentialism. It begins by delving into definitions of mysticism and existentialism and then traces the elements of mysticism (...) present in German and French thought during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book goes on to make original contributions to the study of figures including Kierkegaard, Buber, Heidegger, Beauvoir, Sartre, Marcel, Camus, Weil, Bataille, Berdyaev, and Tillich, linking their existentialist philosophy back to some of the key concerns of the mystical tradition. Providing a unique insight into how these two areas have overlapped and interacted, this study is vital reading for any academic with an interest in twentieth-century philosophy, theology, and religious studies. (shrink)

This paper looks to evolve a discourse about the body in medieval women's mystical experience via an understanding of the life and work of Saint Catherine of Genoa as écriture-féminine. Drawing upon Catherine's resolution of binarism through the articulation of sexuality and textuality, I argue that the female mystic's experience of the body as site of struggle helps move beyond analysis of a binary experience to a politics of speaking the body directly.

Mysticism and the mystical experience seemingly play little or no part in our Western tradition. Certainly there is no mystical tradition in the West such as Zen Buddhism, nor is there any great understanding of or influence from the writings of Heraclitus, Spinoza, or the mystical passages in the early work of Wittgenstein. Mysticism has been generally misunderstood in the West, and it has even evoked the attacks of philosophers and theologians. 1 Mysticism to many conjures up (...) images of monks meditating in caves; it is generally pictured as esoteric, otherworldly, irrational, and at best irrelevant to the daily lives of human beings. If what we say below is correct, it will be seen that mysticism is none of these but is rather a singular human experience that lies at the foundations of civilization. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1910 Edition.

Mysticism and the sciences have traditionally been theoretical enemies, and the closer that philosophy allies itself with the sciences, the greater the philosophical tendency has been to attack mysticism as a possible avenue towards the acquisition of knowledge and/or understanding. Science and modern philosophy generally aim for epistemic disclosure of their contents, and, conversely, mysticism either aims at the restriction of esoteric knowledge, or claims such knowledge to be non-transferable. Thus the mystic is typically seen by analytic philosophers as a (...) variety of 'private language' speaker, although the plausibility of such a position is seemingly foreclosed by Wittgenstein's work in the Philosophical Investigations. Yorke re-examines Wittgenstein's conclusion on the matter of private language, and argues that so-called 'ineffable' mystical experiences, far from being a 'beetle in a box', can play a viable role in our public language-games, via renewed efforts at articulation. (shrink)

For centuries, mystically inclined practitioners from various religious traditions have articulated anomalous and mystical experiences. One common aspect of these experiences is the feeling of the loss of the sense of self, referred to as “self-loss.” The occurrence of “self-loss” can be understood as the feeling of losing the subject/object distinction in one's phenomenal experience. In this article, the author attempts to incorporate these anomalous experiences into modern understandings of the mind and “self” from philosophy and psychology. Accounts of (...) self-loss from religious literature along with similar accounts from recent nonreligious writers, suggest that self-loss accounts are potentially legitimate descriptions and not simply the result of religious apologetics. Specifically, I examine self-loss through the lens of philosopher Daniel Dennett's theory of “self as the center of narrative gravity.” I argue that Dennett's understanding of the self, if correct, allows for the relegitimation of self-loss experiences rooted in current views from the psychological literature, rather than rooted in metaphysical religious claims. (shrink)

This paper will argue that the work of Slavoj Žižek can be fruitfully understood as a response to mystical theology as it has been received in two strands of 20th century French thought—psychoanalysis and phenomenology—and that Žižek's work in turn offers intriguing possibilities for the re-figuring of mystical theology by feminist philosophy of religion. Twentieth century French psychoanalysis is dominated by the work of Jacques Lacan and by his students Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. All three of these (...) figures engage in significant ways with mystical theology—particularly with the works and figures of female mystics—as a crucial resource for theorising gender and subjectivity. A second strand of the 20th century French reception of mystical theology is the phenomenological tradition, specifically the work of Jacques Derrida. This paper will argue that, drawing on and challenging both of these elements of recent French engagement with mystical theology, Žižek's work offers a materialist ontology which seeks to locate transcendence within immanence and materiality, offering to feminist philosophy of religion the resources for re-thinking the relationship of the mystical to the material. (shrink)

Scholars have often struggled with the notion of mysticism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus-logico-philosophicus (TLP). The paper develops a taxonomy of the multiple species of mysticism in TLP in order to show that its notion of the mystical actually has a complex hierarchial structure. A key notion in TLP’s account is its neglected notion of the “life-world” (5.621), specifically, that realm in which the “mystical” “shows itself [zeigt sich]”. A comparison is made with Heidegger’s notion in Being and Time of (...) the fundamental phenomena of phenomenology as that that sort of phenomena that “shows itself [sich zeit].” That is, TLP’s notion of the mystical is at the same time a sketch the phenomenological structure of the “life-world”. On this basis it is argued that TLP’s account of linguistic meaning is parasitic on its notion of the “mystical” dimension of the “life-world”, which has the consequence that one cannot separate the “safe” logical and scientific portion of TLP from its mysticism as Russell and the logical positivists tried to do. The “mysticism” and “phenomenology” must stay. Finally, the paper argues that TLP is not, as often thought, a proponent of Russell’s method of analysis into “logical atoms” but actually presents a powerful critique of the analytical method. (shrink)

As a result of the online publication of my article ‘The Mystical Dooyeweerd’ in Ars Disputandi, vol. 3 , I have obtained significant additional information. This information establishes that Abraham Kuyper had extensive knowledge of Franz von Baader’s writings, and that he greatly appreciated Baader’s ideas. The information is presented in this discussion note.

Gascoigne, Robert The sexual abuse crisis and the forthcoming plenary council of the Australian Catholic Church are both a provocation and an opportunity to reflect on the condition of the Catholic Church in Australia and to suggest how it might respond to new and challenging circumstances in ways that can inspire its future life and mission. In this article I want to consider some of the characteristics of the era of Australian Catholicism that is now in the recent past, as (...) well as some of the key features of what could be a new identity for the Catholic Church in Australia. After some historical reflections on the phenomenon of 'Catholicism' and its ambivalent legacy, I advocate a new crystallisation of Catholic identity based in the relationship between the mystical and political, specifically in terms of solidarity and hope in the face of human suffering. The broader political context of these reflections is the threat to humane international relationships posed by radical populism. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the history of the notion that to believe in religion is to believe in society by tracing instances in which, in the discourse of this current within nineteenth-century French republicanism, the term religion entered into the same semantic field as the notions of society and association. I analyze several groups and individuals who sought to define religion by invoking "association" and "society": the Saint-Simonians, P.-J.-B. Buchez, Pierre Leroux, Jean-Marie Guyau, and Emile Durkheim. I conclude by (...) suggesting that this way of thinking about religion not only illuminates the intellectual context in which Durkheim's religious sociology emerged, but also highlights a distinctly French social imaginary. (shrink)

In this article, I combine political philosophy and film to examine the problematic of the ‘mystical’ foundation of authority and democracy as represented in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Ford’s filmic vision is interpretable as a parable of the passage from the state of nature to the modern republic and the deconstruction of American democratic progressivism. To analyse it, I proceed in two steps: first, I defend a middle-way critical Enlightenment perspective between the democratic-progressivist and the deconstructive approach (...) to the question of foundations. Second, in dialogue with this critical Enlightenment perspective, I argue that Ford’s cinematic vision of the foundation remains ambivalent, given that its deconstruction of the mythology of American democratic progressivism is premised on the nostalgic mythologizing of the pre-democratic age. Moreover, I take issue with Robert Pippin’s interpretation of the movie as a cautionary tale against Enlightenment rationalism, and which poses at its center the key psychological role of myths in politics (2011). In contrast, I argue that Ford’s cinematic vision cautions against decoupling the socio-political and personal life from the vital connection to truth and acting upon truth. From this standpoint, a “politics of truth” is, against Pippin’s interpretation of Ford’s vision, compatible with taking into account the constitutive role of narratives in building political legitimacy and authority. (shrink)

The following key ideas of the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977) can already be found in the nineteenth century German philosopher, Franz von Baader (1765–1841): religious antithesis, the law idea (Wetsidee) contrasted with autonomy of thought, Ground Motives in history, the method of antinomy, the use of Kant’s ideas to criticize Kant’s own Critique, cosmic time, the supratemporal heart, the prism analogy, modalities, sphere sovereignty, sphere universality, analogies of time, anticipation and retrocipation, Christ as the Second Root, pre-theoretical experience, the (...) Subject-Object relation, the Gegenstand relation, theoretical synthesis, and cultural unfolding. A comparison with Baader helps to interpret Dooyeweerd. (shrink)

Though “mysticism” in not a Plotinian idiom, it has been frequently used by scholars to identify an aspect of his philosophy. Thus, Plotinus’ mysticism comprises those passages of the Enneads in which he describes different transcendent experiences or presents his interpretation of these. Upon these two elements, we believe, Plotinus structures a coherent doctrine about the relation between man and the higher degrees of reality closely dependant, as well, on his metaphysical theory. In the present work we intend to provide (...) an accurate account of Plotinus’ mystical doctrine for which we will also need to analyse the singularities of the different mystical discourses present in the Enneads and outline and discuss the main streams of interpretation that scholars have suggested for this subject. (shrink)

The intervention of the divine in human history, more precisely the transition from fiction to incarnation that is peculiar to the origins of Christianity, marks a turning-point in our understanding of the genealogical principle. With a Son of Man who is also Son of God and his Mother's Father, there is no paternity and, more generally, no genealogy that is not reversible. To this questioning of elementary kinship structures we should add the contesting of the hitherto accepted distribution of genders (...) and sexes. The superimposition of the Holy Family and the Trinity created an uncertain sex whose effect is to uncouple sex from its functions, in particular procreation. Hence a circulation and instability of sex. It is from this viewpoint that we should see the notion of an androgynous Christ and the Church Fathers' thinking on the resurrected body. (shrink)

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. Following Becker's lead, the mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations, from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia, and from the Ukrainian steppes to the highlands of Yemen. Publications in the (...) series draw on the philological groundwork generated by the literary tradition, but in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences, also utilize textual sources as well as archival, material, and archaeological evidence. Its editors are Stefan Heidemann (Universit t Hamburg, editor-in-chief), Gottfried Hagen (University of Michigan), Andreas Kaplony (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit t M nchen), and Rudi Matthee (University of Delaware). (shrink)

This article reviews and responds to various issues that have been raised in critical analysis of our work studying the relationship between religion and the brain. An adequate response necessitates a discussion about the origins of this research, the potential pitfalls of doing empirical research in this field, and the complex requirements of interpreting the implications of such an approach. Through inquiry such as this, the study of the brain and its relation to religion and religious experience will continue to (...) advance and uncover the many fascinating questions that await. (shrink)

The words 'hasid' and 'hasidism' have become so familiar to people interested in the Jewish world that little thought is given to understanding exactly what hasidism is or considering its spiritual and social consequences. What, for example, are the distinguishing features of hasidism? What innovations does it embody? How did its founders see it? Why did it arouse opposition? What is the essential nature of hasidic thought? What is its spiritual essence? What does its literature consist of? What typifies its (...) leadership? What is the secret of its persistence through the centuries? How have scholars explained its origins? Is hasidism an expression of mystical ideas, or a response to changing social circumstances? What is its connection to kabbalah? To Shabateanism? To messianism? What is its relationship to the traditional structures of authority in the Jewish world? This book aims to answer all these questions in a lucid and accessible manner. Rachel Elior focuses on the fundamental positions and the factors of primary importance: the substantial issues that recur in the hasidic texts, including how hasidim have seen themselves over the centuries, how they have constructed a new spiritual and social ideal, and how that ideal has stood the test of reality. The goal is to present the main characteristics of the hasidic movement and to examine the social implications of its mystical ideas. The text is fully supported by references to the relevant hasidic sources and academic literature. The book concludes with a list of the hasidic texts on which the discussion is based and a comprehensive bibliography of scholarly works on kabbalah and hasidism. (shrink)

Moral violation often takes the form of material harm, which might lead us to suppose that it consists essentially in the harm done. And yet we might suffer the same harm through nature or accident without feeling morally offended. If a hurricane destroys my property, I suffer harm but no offense. If another person deliberately damages my property, I am offended. But why? Wherein lies the difference? My essay employs Arthur Schopenhauer’s ethic of egoism and Paul Tillich’s theology of love (...) to explore the ontological basis of moral offense. I argue that moral offense has its roots, not in a concern for material well-being, but in a fundamental drive for Unity, unity with others and with our own ontological ground. This drive is both conditioned by, and frustrated by, our ontological separateness as individual beings. (shrink)