The Science of Consciousness and Mystical Experience
An Argument for Radical Empiricism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8207475 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jason N Blum (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 82 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 150-173 |
| Publication date | 2014-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jaarel/lft073 |
| OpenAlex | W2333077464 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 10 |
Recent evidence in neuroscience and psychology militates against the dominant theory of consciousness that has typically been used in explaining mystical experience—a neo-Kantian model that emphasizes concepts and language as the necessary foundations of consciousness. Findings in neuroanatomy, psychology, and evolutionary biology indi-cate that emotion is more fundamental to consciousness than previously suspected, and that language does not play as foundational a role in human consciousness as has been widely believed. These developments suggest that radical empiricism—in acknowledging the possibility of nonlinguistic experience and in construing emotional/qualitative aspects of experience as nonreducible to discursive foundations—represents a more accurate understanding of the nature of human consciousness, and therefore offers a better explanation for the character of mystical experience. This perspective also has implications for the possibility of cross-cultural similarities in mystical experience and the question of the veridicality of mystical experience. SINCE THE LATE 1970S, the majority of scholars studying mystical experience have adopted a neo-Kantian epistemology which assumes that consciousness is fundamentally linguistic and conceptual in nature, and
Argument (complex analysis) · Consciousness · Empiricism · Epistemology · Mysticism · Theology · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Medicine · Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science
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Some contributions of a psychological approach to the study of the sacred
Methodology and Mysticism
Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness
Affective consciousness
Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism
Rudolf Otto and the Limits of Religious Description
Critical Notice Ecumenicalism and Perennialism Revisited
Sharing the joke
William James on a phenomenological psychology of immediate experience
Radical empiricism and the new science of consciousness
Radical Empiricism and the Unremarkable Nature of Mystic Ineffability
The Autonomy of Affect
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2024 (8) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |