scholarly journals Religious Experience without an Experiencer: The ‘Not I’ in Sāṃkhya and Yoga

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Alfred Collins
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
William James ◽  
Steep Descent ◽  
Usual Sense ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
The Individual ◽  
European Thought ◽  
Individual Self

“Experience” is a category that seems to have developed new meaning in European thought after the Enlightenment when personal inwardness took on the weight of an absent God. The inner self (including, a little later, a sub- or unconscious mind) rose to prominence about 200–300 years ago, around the time of the “Counter-Enlightenment” and Romanticism, and enjoyed a rich and long life in philosophy (including Lebensphilosophie) and religious studies, but began a steep descent under fire around 1970. The critique of “essentialism” (the claim that experience is self-validating and impervious to historical and scientific explanation or challenge) was probably the main point of attack, but there were others. The Frankfurt School (Adorno, Benjamin, et al.) claimed that authentic experience was difficult or impossible in the modern capitalist era. The question of the reality of the individual self to which experience happens also threatened to undermine the concept. This paper argues that the religious experience characteristic of Sāṃkhya and Yoga, while in some ways paralleling Romanticism and Lebensphilosophies, differs from them in one essential way. Sāṃkhyan/Yogic experience is not something that happens to, or in, an individual person. It does not occur to or for oneself (in the usual sense) but rather puruṣārtha, “for the sake of [artha] an innermost consciousness/self”[puruṣa] which must be distinguished from the “solitude” of “individual men” (the recipient, for William James, of religious experience) which would be called ahaṃkāra, or “ego assertion” in the Indian perspectives. The distinction found in European Lebensphilosophie between two kinds of experience, Erlebnis (a present-focused lived moment) and Erfahrung (a constructed, time-binding thread of life, involving memory and often constituting a story) helps to understand what is happening in Sāṃkhya and Yoga. The concept closest to experience in Sāṃkhya/Yoga is named by the Sanskrit root dṛś-, “seeing,” which is a process actualized through long meditative practice and close philosophical reasoning. The Erfahrung “story” enacted in Sāṃkhya/Yoga practice is a sort of dance-drama in which psychomaterial Nature (prakṛti) reveals to her inner consciousness and possessor (puruṣa) that she “is not, has nothing of her own, and does not have the quality of being an ‘I’” (nāsmi na me nāham). This self exposure as “not I” apophatically reveals puruṣa, and lets him shine for them both, as pure consciousness. Prakṛti’s long quest for puruṣa, seeking him with the finest insight (jñāna), culminates in realization that she is not the seer in this process but the seen, and that her failure has been to assert aham (“I”) rather than realize nāham, “Not I.” Her meditation and insight have led to an experience which was always for an Other, though that was not recognized until the story’s end. Rather like McLuhan’s “the medium is the message,” the nature or structure of experience in Sāṃkhya and Yoga is also its content, what religious experience is about in these philosophies and practices. In Western terms, we have religious experience only when we recognize what (all) experience (already) is: the unfolding story of puruṣārtha. Experience deepens the more we see that it is not ours; the recognition of non-I, in fact, is what makes genuine experience possible at all.

scholarly journals Self-Assertion, ‘Ignorant Backwoodsmen’ and the Experience of ‘(Un) Safe Spaces’

2020 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 230-246
Author(s):  
David Torevell
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Safe Spaces ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Self

I want to suggest that contemporary notions of individuality and self-assertion have been, to some extent, significantly influenced by the thinking of the 18th-century Genevan political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Although a committed Christian, Rousseau nursed an understanding of the inner self which clearly resonates with the rise in the 21st century of secularized accounts of the person and the prevalence of ‘identity politics.’ I argue these are frequently contextualized within the demand for equality and have morphed into strategies of protection, witnessed most glaringly in the promotion of ‘safe spaces,’ especially in modern universities. While in some respects these developments are to be lauded, since they are located in moral strivings for justice, I argue that a too obsessive focus on the individual self can result in harmful consequences. Biblical writers, Desert Christians and contemporary ascetics know this and have something important to teach in this regard. Their emphasis on the formation of identity, based on scriptural reasoning and historical tradition, imbibed in the body, promotes collective subjectivity and saves the person from descending into introverted, aggrieved individualism, which, ironically, makes the fight for social justice less effective.

Josiah Royce's Philosophy of the Community: Danger of the Detached Individual

1985 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 153-176
Author(s):  
John J. McDermott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Royal Institute ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Religion And Psychology ◽  
American Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Josiah Royce ◽  
The Individual

The popular mind is deep and means a thousand times more than it knows.It is fitting that the Royal Institute of Philosophy series on American philosophy include a session on the thought of Josiah Royce, for his most formidable philosophical work, The World and the Individual, was a result of his Gifford lectures in the not too distant city of Aberdeen in 1899 and 1900. The invitation to offer the Gifford lectures was somewhat happenstance, for it was extended originally to William James, who pleaded, as he often did in his convenient neurasthenic way, to postpone for a year on behalf of his unsettled nerves. James repaired himself to the Swiss home of Theodore Flournoy, with its treasure of books in religion and psychology, so as to write his Gifford lectures, now famous as The Varieties of Religious Experience. In so doing, however, James was able to solicit an invitation for Royce to occupy the year of his postponement. Royce accepted with alacrity, although this generosity of James displeased his wife Alice, who ranted, ‘Royce!! He will not refuse, but over he will go with his Infinite under his arm, and he will not even do honour to William's recommendation.’ Alice was partially correct in that Royce, indeed, did carry the Infinite across the ocean to the home of his intellectual forebears, although on that occasion as on many others, he acknowledged the support of his personal and philosophical mentor, colleague and friend, William James.

Josiah Royce's Philosophy of the Community: Danger of the Detached Individual

1985 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 153-176
Author(s):  
John J. McDermott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Royal Institute ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Religion And Psychology ◽  
American Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Josiah Royce ◽  
The Individual

The popular mind is deep and means a thousand times more than it knows.It is fitting that the Royal Institute of Philosophy series on American philosophy include a session on the thought of Josiah Royce, for his most formidable philosophical work, The World and the Individual, was a result of his Gifford lectures in the not too distant city of Aberdeen in 1899 and 1900. The invitation to offer the Gifford lectures was somewhat happenstance, for it was extended originally to William James, who pleaded, as he often did in his convenient neurasthenic way, to postpone for a year on behalf of his unsettled nerves. James repaired himself to the Swiss home of Theodore Flournoy, with its treasure of books in religion and psychology, so as to write his Gifford lectures, now famous as The Varieties of Religious Experience. In so doing, however, James was able to solicit an invitation for Royce to occupy the year of his postponement. Royce accepted with alacrity, although this generosity of James displeased his wife Alice, who ranted, ‘Royce!! He will not refuse, but over he will go with his Infinite under his arm, and he will not even do honour to William's recommendation.’ Alice was partially correct in that Royce, indeed, did carry the Infinite across the ocean to the home of his intellectual forebears, although on that occasion as on many others, he acknowledged the support of his personal and philosophical mentor, colleague and friend, William James.

scholarly journals Effects Of Intrinsic And Extrinsic Religiosity On Attitudes Toward Products: Empirical Evidence Of Value-Expressive And Social-Adjustive Functions

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 1227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Pace
Keyword(s):  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Purchase Intentions ◽  
Intrinsic Religiosity ◽  
Social Approval ◽  
A Value ◽  
Extrinsic Religiosity ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
Advertising Context ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Self

Religiosity affects various aspects of consumer behavior. This research distinguishes two dimensions: Intrinsic religiosity is lived per se, as a personal and intimate value; extrinsic religiosity is an instrument to attain personal goals by connecting with other people. Intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity likely affect the functions of consumers attitudes toward products, both value-expressive (e.g., to express the individual self) and social-adjustive (e.g., to be accepted by social groups). Intrinsically religious consumers have an inner self defined by their religiosity, so they do not seek social approval. They should have less need for products to express their inner selves or manifest social ties, compared with extrinsically religious consumers. In contrast, extrinsic religiosity may increase both value-expressive and social-adjustive functions of products. Study 1 supports these hypotheses; intrinsic religiosity decreases the value-expressive and social-adjustive functions of consumer attitudes, whereas extrinsic religiosity increases both attitude functions. Study 2 applies these findings to an advertising context and reveals that the purchase intentions of intrinsically religious consumers increase when they view a value-expressive instead of a social-adjustive advertisement. Purchase intentions among extrinsically religious consumers are higher than those of intrinsically religious consumers when they view a social-adjustive advertisement.

scholarly journals The Fruits of the Unseen: A Jamesian Challenge to Explanatory Reductionism in Accounts of Religious Experience

Open Theology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-65
Author(s):  
Walter Scott Stepanenko
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
William James ◽  
Important Method ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Protective Strategy ◽  
Knowledge Practice

AbstractIn Religious Experience, Wayne Proudfoot argued that a tout court rejection of reductionism in accounts of religious experience was not viable. According to Proudfoot, it’s possible to distinguish between an illegitimate practice of descriptive reductionism and the legitimate practice of explanatory reductionism. The failure to distinguish between these two forms of reductionism resulted in a protective strategy, or an attempt to protect religious experience from the reach of scientific explanation. Among the theorists whom he accused of deploying this illegitimate strategy Proudfoot included William James and his work in The Varieties of Religious Experience. In this article, I argue that while James does occasionally deploy a protective strategy in Varieties, this is not the only nor most important method of treating religious experience James developed. Implicit in his rejection of medical materialism, James not only deploys the protective strategy Proudfoot criticizes, but the pragmatic method with which he treats all claims. I argue that James’s pragmatic method leads to what James called noetic pluralism, or the view that there is no privileged knowledge practice, but a plurality of knowledge practices, and that this method puts pressure on the explanatory reductionist, who is implicitly committed to noetic monism.

Two Arguments Against Some Critics of Religion Based on Feeling and Emotion Following William James

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-224
Author(s):  
Katja Thörner
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
William James ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Ludwig Feuerbach ◽  
Philosophical Interpretation ◽  
The Individual

In this paper I will show that you can distinguish two main types of argumentation in respect to feeling and emotions in the philosophy of religion of William James, which point to two different kind of criticism of religion. Especially in his early works, James argues that you may lawfully adopt religious beliefs on the basis of passional grounds. This argumentation points to a type of criticism of religion, which denies that beliefs based on such emotional grounds may be justified. In his famous study The Varieties of Religious Experience, James defines religious experience as an experience of inner conversion, where the individual gets in touch with a higher self. The philosophical interpretation of religious experience points not at least to a type of criticism of religion in the tradition of Ludwig Feuerbach, which is known as the theory of projection.

scholarly journals KIM EOK’S TRANSLATION AND HAN YONG-UN’S THE LOVER’S SILENCE – THE INTERIORITY IN THE 1920s’ LITERATURE

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
Soon-Mo Yang
Keyword(s):  
Transition Period ◽  
The Other ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Korean Literature ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
Identification Approach ◽  
The Individual

The article tries to examine and define the inner self of literature in the 1920s, now considered the birth of modern Korean literature. The interiority of 1920’s literature is widely accepted as the transition period between the birth (the 1910s, the Enlightenment) and maturation (1930s, Modernism), and as a reflection of the tragic situation after 1919. However, in the light of the symptom that determines the structure of desire, the inner self of 1920’s literature could be identified as a “person who denies loss”, a pervasive attitude. And it also could provide a critical reading along with some directivity, which is meaningful to concepts such as self-relation and the other relations that construct the individual. This paper examines this perspective of inner self within 1920’s literature of Kim Eok and Han Yong-un, so as to set an intrinsic standard that would enable scholars to evaluate the literary value of the 1920’s. Above all, through the Symptomatic Identification approach, this study will conduct archeological and genealogical research that could be helpful to today’s discourse.

Community

2019 ◽  
pp. 146-166
Author(s):  
Christina M. Gschwandtner
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Self

Chapter 6 considers the communal dimensions of liturgy, arguing that they are fundamental and provide a way to speak of communal religious experience (thereby criticizing the prevalent focus on the individual self in phenomenology). The chapter also focuses on the role imitation and identification play in liturgical experience.

Mysticism and Experience

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace M. Jantzen
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Julian Of Norwich ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Mystical Tradition ◽  
Objective Content ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Content Of Experience ◽  
Modern Thinking

The definition of mysticism has shifted, in modern thinking, from a patristic emphasis on the objective content of experience to the modern emphasis on the subjective psychological states or feelings of the individual. Post Kantian Idealism and Romanticism was involved in this shift to a far larger extent than is usually recognized. An important conductor of the subjectivist view of mysticism to modern philosophers of religion was William James, even though in other respects he repudiated Romantic and especially Idealist categories of thought. In this article I wish first to explore William James' understanding of mysticism and religious experience, and then to measure that understanding against the accounts of two actual mystics, Bernard of Clairvaux and Julian of Norwich, who, for all their differences, may be taken as paradigms of the Christian mystical tradition. I shall argue that judging from these two cases, James' position is misguided and inadequate. Since James' account has been of enormous influence in subsequent thinking about mysticism, it follows that if his understanding of mysticism is inadequate, so is much of the work that rests upon it.

THE SCIENCE OF JUDICIAL PSYCHOLOGY

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-87
Author(s):  
Petru TĂRCHILĂ
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Psychosocial Characteristics ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Behavioral Profile ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Determining Factor ◽  
Determinant Factor

Judicial psychology is the science that analyzes and tries to understand the criminal phenomenon in general and its determinant factor in particular, by the complexity of factors that generate it and by the diversity of its forms of manifestation. Although the determining factor of criminal behavior is always subjective being generated by the psychic of the offender, this aspect must be correlated with the context in which it manifests itself: social, economic, cultural context etc. Judicial psychology investigates the behavior of the individual in all its aspects, seeking a scientific explanation of the mechanisms and factors enhancing criminal favors, thus enabling the identification of the preventive measures to be taken to reduce the categories of offenses. It studies the psycho-behavioral profile of the offender, identifying the causes that determined its behavior in order to take preventive measures.The domain of judicial psychology is mainly deviance, conduct that departs from the moral or legal norms that are dominant in a given culture. The object of judicial psychology is the criminal act, correlated with the psychosocial characteristics of the participants in the judicial action (offender, victim, witness, investigator, magistrate, lawyer, civil party, educator, etc.). The science of judicial psychology also analyzes how these characteristics appear and manifest themselves in concrete and special conditions of their interaction in three phases of the criminal act: the pre-criminal phase, the actual criminal phase and the post-criminal phase.

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