Religious Experience

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amber L. Griffioen
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Common Core ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Perceptual Model ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theistic Belief

This Element looks at religious experience and the role it has played in philosophy of religion. It critically explores the history of the intertwined discourses on mysticism and religious experience, before turning to a few specific discussions within contemporary philosophy of religion. One debate concerns the question of perennialism vs. constructivism and whether there is a 'common core' to all religious or mystical experience independent of interpretation or socio-historical background. Another central discussion concerns the epistemology of purportedly theophanic experience and whether a perceptual model of religious experience can provide evidence or justification for theistic belief. The Element concludes with a discussion of how philosophy of religion can productively widen its treatment of religious experience in the service of creating a more inclusive and welcoming discipline.

Beyond Perennialism and Constructivism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayon Maharaj
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Common Core ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Conditioning ◽  
Mystical Experiences

This chapter draws upon Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings and mystical testimony in order to develop a new conceptual framework for understanding the nature of mystical experience. In recent analytic philosophy of religion, two approaches to mystical experience have been especially influential: perennialism and constructivism. While perennialists maintain that there is a common core of all mystical experiences across various cultures, constructivists claim that a mystic’s cultural conditioning plays a major role in shaping his or her mystical experiences. After identifying the strengths and limitations of these two positions, Maharaj argues that Sri Ramakrishna champions a “manifestationist” approach to mystical experience that provides a powerful dialectical alternative to both perennialism and constructivism. According to Sri Ramakrishna, mystics in various traditions experience different real manifestations of one and the same impersonal-personal Infinite Reality. Sri Ramakrishna’s manifestationist paradigm shares the advantages of both perennialism and constructivism but avoids their respective weaknesses and limitations.

scholarly journals The History Of Psychotherapy. Lecture 2. Historical Background Of Psychotherapy (Part IV)

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-145
Author(s):  
I.B. Grinshpun
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
American Psychologist ◽  
History Of Psychotherapy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

The paper continues the cycle of lectures by Igor Borisovitch Grinshpun on history of psychotherapy. The current part of the lecture recounts the work of American psychologist and philosopher William James. His main works “The Principles of Psychology” and “The Varieties of Religious Experience” are discussed, his ideas on consciousness and personality are considered, and their influence on psychology and psychotherapy is traced. This lecture takes stock of the historical background of psychotherapy and makes a summary of the main events of the 19th century, which either influenced psychotherapy directly or proved significant to the development of psychotherapy. Students and colleagues of I.B. Grinshpun prepared the text for publication: Yana Bovbas, Ekaterina Mazaeva, Maria Marchenkova.

Editor’s Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Sinclair
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Statistical Approach ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Modal Metaphysics ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of

This chapter introduces the historical approach of the volume in the context of modal doctrines in contemporary philosophy, and offers a broad survey of the history of modal metaphysics. It discusses how a statistical approach to modality in ancient Greek philosophy was overtaken by a notion of possible worlds admitting unrealized possibilities, a notion that would receive its clearest expression in the philosophy of Leibniz. I discuss how Leibniz’s ideas form the historical background to twentieth-century possible worlds theories of modality, and how those theories have been challenged recently by more Aristotelian approaches. The chapter summarizes and contextualizes the following chapters of the book.

Understanding Theism

1981 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Millar
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Theistic Belief

Much contemporary philosophy of religion is preoccupied with highly general problems about the nature of religious belief and of religious language, rather than with how to interpret, in detail, specific religious beliefs or forms of religious discourse. Among the matters of dispute there seem to be two of overriding importance. The first concerns the relation between religious beliefs and experience and centres on the question, what sorts of experience are relevant to the acceptance or rejection of religious beliefs. The second concerns whether or not religious beliefs have an explanatory function. Discussion of both these themes in relation to theistic belief is still largely dominated by conceptions of God and of his relation to the world which have been developed by natural theologians, particularly, though not exclusively, those who have worked within traditions significantly influenced by Thomas Aquinas. Thus the idea that religious beliefs have an explanatory function is commonly associated with the view that they present answers to questions raised by those alleged traits or features of the world which have been the concern of natural theologians and which have been described by means of concepts of ‘contingency’, ‘purposiveness’, ‘order’, and ‘design’. Consequently, the sort of experience often held to be relevant to the acceptance or rejection of theistic belief is that which is relevant to the application of these problematic concepts.

scholarly journals Praising as bodily practice: the neocharismatic culture of celebration

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 129-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuija Hovi
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Field Experiences ◽  
Spiritual Experience ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Bodily Practice ◽  
Bodily Movements

Rhythmic body movements and dancing, as well as singing, have been used as a means and inspiration for both individual and communal spiritual experience throughout the history of religions. This article takes a tentative look at the contemporary neocharismatic culture of celebration as a means of aiming at religious experience through collective bodily practice; namely praising, which is generally understood to take the form of singing but is, in fact, expressed also in bodily movements such as dancing. In the neocharismatic context, a celebration means a certain type of a meeting with a special focus on contemplative worship and prayer, accompanied with lively music of praise. First, the historical background of the neo­charismatic branch is outlined shortly. Secondly, the tradition of praise itself within this context is described – what are the insider definitions and what kinds of forms praise in the culture of celebration actually includes, especially in Finland. The description is basically based on internet material and the author's previous field experiences in the Word of Life congregational meetings and other charismatic Christian events. In conclusion, acts of praise as a source of religious experience are discussed.

Philosophy of Religious Experience and the Nag Hammadi Texts

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-22
Author(s):  
Stephen Bush
Keyword(s):  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Experiential Knowledge ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Nag Hammadi ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Theoretical Issues

This essay, in response to Michael Kaler and Philip Tite, examines several theoretical issues about mystical experience in the Nag Hammadi texts. First is the problem of whether experiences can be an object of study at all, and I argue that they can, so long as we attend to the causes of the experiences. Attending to the causes of experiences, however, means that neo-perennialists must articulate and defend an account of the cause(s) of the cross-culturally universal experiences that they suppose occur. As for the attempt to apply contemporary psychologists' attachment theory to the experiential knowledge described in the Nag Hammadi texts, questions remain about the relation between attachment to the divine figure purportedly experienced and the experiencer's attachment to his or her religious community.

Locke on Personal Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Strawson ◽  
Galen Strawson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Fundamental Point ◽  
Legal Term ◽  
Word Consciousness ◽  
History Of

John Locke's theory of personal identity underlies all modern discussion of the nature of persons and selves—yet it is widely thought to be wrong. This book argues that in fact it is Locke's critics who are wrong, and that the famous objections to his theory are invalid. Indeed, far from refuting Locke, they illustrate his fundamental point. The book argues that the root error is to take Locke's use of the word “person” as merely a term for a standard persisting thing, like “human being.” In actuality, Locke uses “person” primarily as a forensic or legal term geared specifically to questions about praise and blame, punishment and reward. This point is familiar to some philosophers, but its full consequences have not been worked out, partly because of a further error about what Locke means by the word “consciousness.” When Locke claims that your personal identity is a matter of the actions that you are conscious of, he means the actions that you experience as your own in some fundamental and immediate manner. Clearly and vigorously argued, this is an important contribution both to the history of philosophy and to the contemporary philosophy of personal identity.

Inverse Correlation: Comparative Philosophy in an Upside Down World

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-116
Author(s):  
Mark T. Unno
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Inverse Correlation ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Religious Worldview ◽  
Human Limitation ◽  
Final Work

Kitarō Nishida introduces the concept of “inverse correlation” (Jp. gyakutaiō 逆対応) in his final work, The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview, which he uses to illuminate the relation between finite and infinite, human and divine/buddha, such that the greater the realization of human limitation and finitude, the greater that of the limitless, infinite divine or buddhahood. This essay explores the applicability of the logic and rhetoric of inverse correlation in the cases of the early Daoist Zhuangzi, medieval Japanese Buddhist Shinran, and modern Protestant Christian Kierkegaard, as well as broader ramifications for contemporary philosophy of religion.

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