Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis

Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis PDF Author: Steven T. Katz
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 9780195200119
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Mystical and religious experience are subjects which are constantly under investigation by both the religiously sensitive and, in a more general way, by those interested in the phenomenon. This comprehensive study by a group of distinguished American and British scholars sympathetically and objectively deals with mystical experience in Christianity, Judaism, and Eastern religions.

Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis

Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis PDF Author: Steven T. Katz
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 9780195200119
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mystical and religious experience are subjects which are constantly under investigation by both the religiously sensitive and, in a more general way, by those interested in the phenomenon. This comprehensive study by a group of distinguished American and British scholars sympathetically and objectively deals with mystical experience in Christianity, Judaism, and Eastern religions.

Mysticism and Religious Traditions

Mysticism and Religious Traditions PDF Author: Steven T. Katz
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description


Mysticism and Language

Mysticism and Language PDF Author: Steven T. Katz
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Taken collectively, the original essays in this new collection make up the most important exploration of mysticism and language to appear in many years. Written from diverse perspectives on a wide variety of religious and mystical traditions, ranging from Judaism and Christianity to Zen Buddhism and Hinduism, all the essays exhibit great erudition, a mastery of the original mystical sources, and philosophical and hermeneutical sophistication. Further, all recognize the inadequacy of treating the questions surrounding this subject a-contextually - outside of their historic, intellectual, and sociological circumstances. As such, these studies deepen the on-going revisionist, contextualist study of mysticism so powerfully and influentially inaugurated by two previous collections also edited by Steven Katz, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis and Mysticism and Religious Traditions. Like its predecessors, the present collection includes work by some of the world's leading authorities on mysticism, including Moshe Idel, William Alston, Bernard McGinn, Ewert Cousins, Bimal Matilal, Carl Ernst, and Steven Katz. It is sure to become essential reading for everyone interested in mysticism, as well as those who study religion, comparative religion, philosophy, and history.

Mysticism and Meaning: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Mysticism and Meaning: Multidisciplinary Perspectives PDF Author: Alex S. Kohav
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 193148340X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
The volume investigates the question of meaning of mystical phenomena and, conversely, queries the concept of "meaning" itself, via insights afforded by mystical experiences. The collection brings together researchers from such disparate fields as philosophy, psychology, history of religion, cognitive poetics, and semiotics, in an effort to ascertain the question of mysticism's meaning through pertinent, up-to-date multidisciplinarity. The discussion commences with Editor's Introduction that probes persistent questions of complexity as well as perplexity of mysticism and the reasons why problematizing mysticism leads to even greater enigmas. One thread within the volume provides the contextual framework for continuing fascination of mysticism that includes a consideration of several historical traditions as well as personal accounts of mystical experiences: Two contributions showcase ancient Egyptian and ancient Israelite involvements with mystical alterations of consciousness and Christianity's origins being steeped in mystical praxis; and four essays highlight mysticism's formative presence in Chinese traditions and Tibetan Buddhism as well as medieval Judaism and Kabbalah mysticism. A second, more overarching strand within the volume is concerned with multidisciplinary investigations of the phenomenon of mysticism, including philosophical, psychological, cognitive, and semiotic analyses. To this effect, the volume explores the question of philosophy's relation to mysticism and vice versa, together with a Wittgensteinian nexus between mysticism, facticity, and truth; language mysticism and "supernormal meaning" engendered by certain mystical states; cognitive-poetic analysis of mystical poetry; and a semiotic scrutiny of some mystical experiences and their ineffability. Finally, the volume includes an assessment of the so-called New Age authors' contention of the convergence of scientific and mystical claims about reality. The above two tracks are appended with personal, contemporary accounts of mystical experiences, in the Prologue; and a futuristic envisioning, as a fictitious chronicle from the time-to-come, of life without things mystical, in the Postscript. The volume contains fourteen chapters; its international contributors are based in Canada, Israel, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Philosophy of Mysticism

Philosophy of Mysticism PDF Author: Richard H. Jones
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438461208
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This work is a comprehensive study of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. Mystics claim to experience reality in a way not available in normal life, a claim which makes this phenomenon interesting from a philosophical perspective. Richard H. Jones's inquiry focuses on the skeleton of beliefs and values of mysticism: knowledge claims made about the nature of reality and of human beings; value claims about what is significant and what is ethical; and mystical goals and ways of life. Jones engages language, epistemology, metaphysics, science, and the philosophy of mind. Methodological issues in the study of mysticism are also addressed. Examples of mystical experience are drawn chiefly from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, but also from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Daoism.

Egocentricity and Mysticism

Egocentricity and Mysticism PDF Author: Ernst Tugendhat
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542933
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
In Egocentricity and Mysticism, Ernst Tugendhat casts mysticism as an innate facet of what it means to be human—a response to an existential need for peace of mind. This need is created by our discursive practices, which serve to differentiate us from one another and privilege our respective first-person standpoints. Emphasizing the first person fuels a desire for mysticism, which builds knowledge of what binds us together and connects us to the world. Any intellectual pursuit that prompts us to "step back" from our egocentric concerns harbors a mystic kernel that manifests as a sense of awe, wonder, and gratitude. Philosophy, the natural sciences, and mathematics all engender forms of mystical experience as profound as any produced by meditation and asceticism. One of the most widely discussed books by a German philosopher in decades, Egocentricity and Mysticism is a philosophical milestone that clarifies in groundbreaking ways our relationship to language, social interaction, and mortality.

Yoga, Meditation, and Mysticism

Yoga, Meditation, and Mysticism PDF Author: Kenneth Rose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472571703
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Contemplative experience is central to Hindu yoga traditions, Buddhist meditation practices, and Catholic mystical theology, and, despite doctrinal differences, it expresses itself in suggestively similar meditative landmarks in each of these three meditative systems. In Yoga, Meditation and Mysticism, Kenneth Rose shifts the dominant focus of contemporary religious studies away from tradition-specific studies of individual religious traditions, communities, and practices to examine the 'contemplative universals' that arise globally in meditative experience. Through a comparative exploration of the itineraries detailed in the contemplative manuals of Theravada Buddhism, Patañjalian Yoga, and Catholic mystical theology, Rose identifies in each tradition a moment of sharply focused awareness that marks the threshold between immersion in mundane consciousness and contemplative insight. As concentration deepens, the meditator steps through this threshold onto a globally shared contemplative itinerary, which leads through a series of virtually identical stages to mental stillness and insight. Rose argues that these contemplative universals, familiar to experienced contemplatives in multiple traditions, point to a common spiritual, mental, and biological heritage. Pioneering the exploration of contemplative practice and experience with a comparative perspective that ranges over multiple religious traditions, religious studies, philosophy, neuroscience, and the cognitive science of religion, this book is a landmark contribution to the fields of contemplative practice and religious studies.

Mysticism East and West

Mysticism East and West PDF Author: Rudolf Otto
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mysticism
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology, and Ethics

Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology, and Ethics PDF Author: David J. Yount
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474298443
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
This book argues against the common view that there are no essential differences between Plato and the Neoplatonist philosopher, Plotinus, on the issues of mysticism, epistemology, and ethics. Beginning by examining the ways in which Plato and Plotinus claim that it is possible to have an ultimate experience that answers the most significant philosophical questions, David J. Yount provides an extended analysis of why we should interpret both philosophers as mystics. The book then moves on to demonstrate that both philosophers share a belief in non-discursive knowledge and the methods to attain it, including dialectic and recollection, and shows that they do not essentially differ on any significant views on ethics. Making extensive use of primary and secondary sources, Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology and Ethics shows the similarities between the thought of these two philosophers on a variety of philosophical questions, such as meditation, divination, wisdom, knowledge, truth, happiness and love.

The Mystic Experience

The Mystic Experience PDF Author: Jordan Paper
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791484289
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
The mystic, zero, or void experience—the ecstatic disappearance of self along with everything else—is considered by those who have had it to be the most beautiful, blissful, positive, profound, and significant experience of their lives. Offering both a descriptive and a comparative perspective, this book explores the mystic experience across cultures as both a human and cultural event. The book begins and ends with descriptions of the author's own mystical experiences, and looks at self-reported experiences by individuals who do not link their experiences to a religious tradition, to determine characteristics of this universal human experience. These characteristics are compared to statements of acknowledged mystics in diverse religious traditions. The mystic experience is also situated within other ecstatic religious experiences to distinguish it from similar, but distinct, experiences such as lucid dreams, shamanism, and mediumism. Jordan Paper goes on to look at how the mystic experience has been considered in various fields, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, biology, and comparative religious studies.