Based on the concept of community, Kant's conception of religion may be connected, on my view, to the question of which mental attitude is suitable for the collective life of human society. It is possible to imagine a successful community, even if such a community does not exist in the empirical world, and to be oriented toward this ideal without ever being able to realize it. According to Kant, human moral self-understanding is developed by human reason, and this explains the (...) structural similarity between the secular republic and the Kingdom of God under the specific conditions of the enlightened consciousness of a person who thinks for herself. Thus the anthropological "fact": the self-understanding of the human being characterised by his faculty of reason. (shrink)

Uniting analytic philosophy with Buddhist, Indian, and Chinese traditions, this collection marks the first systematic cross-cultural examination of one of philosophy of mind's most fascinating questions : can consciousness be conceived as metaphysically fundamental? Engaging in debates concerning consciousness and ultimate reality, emergence and mental causation, realism, idealism, panpsychism, and illusionism, it understands problems through the philosophies of East and South-East Asia, in particular Buddhism and Vedanta. Each section focuses on a specific aspect or theory of consciousness, (...) and examines a particular subject from different disciplinary perspectives including philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. These different angles allows readers to gain insight into the intellectual challenges and problems of the study of consciousness and its place in the thought traditions of both Eastern and Western philosophy. Raising new questions, it provides a more global and holistic understanding of consciousness, presenting a stimulating and original contribution to contemporary consciousness studies and the metaphysics of mind. (shrink)

Are mystical experiences primarily formed by the mystic's cultural background and concepts, as modern day "constructivists" maintain, or do mystics in some way transcend language, belief, and culturally conditioned expectations? Do mystical experiences differ in the different religious traditions, as "pluralists" contend, or are they identical across cultures? Twelve contributors here attempt to answer these questions through close examination of a particular form of mystical experience, "Pure Consciousness"--the experience of being awake but devoid of intentional content for (...) class='Hi'>consciousness. The contributors analyze pure consciousness and other mystical experiences from historical Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish sources, as well as from modern mystics. They demonstrate that pure consciousness poses serious conceptual problems for a contructivist understanding of mysticism. Revealing the inconsistencies and inadequacies of current models, they make significant strides towards developing new models for the phenomenon of mysticism, breaking new ground for our understanding of mysticism and of human experience in general. (shrink)

The thesis addresses the question of human consciousness in its oscillation between conditioning and transcendence: the impact of cultural worldviews on the individual's lifeworld and their gradual transcendence as a form of spiritual practice. At the centre of attention is a group of individuals and their unfolding life-stories as they move through a journey of transformation, seeking to explore and understand the complexity of their own consciousness. The emphasis is on the embodiment of belief systems and the individuals' (...) inherent existential power to transcend cultural precepts. Methodologically, the study is based in phenomenological anthropology. It thus employs the first-person perspective and includes subjective personal experience as primary data. (shrink)

The efforts to prove God's existence in the history of thought have been one of the fundamental problems of philosophy and theology, and even the most important one. The evidences put furword to prove the existence of God constitute the center of philosophy of religion’s problems not only philosophy of religion, but also the disciplines such as theology-kalam and Islamic philosophy are also seriously concerned. When we look at the history of philosophy, it is clear that almost all philosophers are (...) interested in the evidence in favour of and against the existence of God. Especially in recent times, religious experience has often been regarded as evidence of the existence of God. Studies in the field of religious and mystical experience have put forward many arguments concerning the use of religious experience as evidence. However, this study has been limited to experience of sense and pure consciousness claims rather than examining all of these arguments. In this study firstly, the analogy between experience of sense and religious experience will be deal with, and then claims that conciousness can be emptied by a number of methods which are defended by mystics. In addition, it will be tried to defend the opinion that the mystical experiences which are the common point of the two approaches are valid. The main emphasis of the article will be that these arguments can be used as evidence for the existence of God.Summary: Religious experience - which has not been considered as one of the classical evidences regarding the existence of God before being popular by recent studies – is started to be called one of the arguments. The most important reason for not arguing religious experience among the evidences of God’s existence is that it is a personal experience and therefore contains subjective perspectives. However, many researchers, who refuse to accept the criticism raised against religious experience with restricting to subjectivity, emphasized the importance of religious experience by highlighting the objective aspects of such experiences. This emphasis was not only on its significance, but also on the fact that it had a cognitive feature and thus it could provide evidence for the existence of God. The argument of religious experience is generally defined as an effort for demonstrating to existence of God with reference to several feelings such as spiritual experiences of human in face of creator and sacred Being, encounter with God, uniting, and annihilating selfness in Him. The emergence of such efforts, especially after the XVIIIth century, indicates that the history of the evidence does not go back much earlier. However, even if notas evidence, it is possible to extend the traces of religious and mystical experience to the history of religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Considering a great amount of the previous literature focused on religious experience in the West, It is easily seen that such research is still new. The main purpose in addressing such a controversial issue is to make the argument on the religious experience more current and to show whether the religious experience would be able to use as evidence for the existence of God.First title of this study comprises many different claims such as Walter T. Stace’s The Argument from Unanimity Richard Swinburne’s The Principle of Credulity, William P. Alston’s Perceiving God, John Hick’s Experience-as. However, instead of briefly giving out very different claims, the study chooses to focus on two arguments which are less discussed and can be given in more detail. The first is the argument based on the analogy between the religious experience and the sense experience. The fundamental point of this argument is sense experience. With reference to the similarities between the sense experience and the religious experience, it can be argued that religious experience is also cognitive and may function as an evidence for the existence of God. In other words, being perceptual and noetic, namely cognitive, of sense experience is addressed as a similar side of religious experience. Whether it is imaginary or real, eventually, it is necessary for an experience to have an object and being experience of something. Therefore, the religious experience includes the perception of a Transcendent Being that is beyond and in excess of the individual who experiences. Perception of the sense experience will definitely be different from the perception of religious experience. Researchers who think that the five sense organs do not run the perception of Sacred Beings, identified broader and various meanings for the perception. Thereby, in this approach, where the semantic field of perception is expanded, it was contended that human beings were able to perceive the transcendent, eternal, and unlimited God, and this can be explained in the epistemological sense. In order to use religious experiences as an evidence for the existence of God, it is necessary to determine whether such experiences are caused by God rather than something else. This raises the issue of the validity of religious experience. The researchers in this area have propounded various criteria to identify whether religious experience is existed or not. Experiences, which do not meet the criteria, are not considered existed even if they claim to be religious experience.The second is the argument that discusses whether it is possible to suggest an evidence for the existence of God by utilizing pure consciousness events. In general, this argument claims that the consciousness gets clear, and thus, mystic or Sufi experiences the Divine One with pure consciousness by discharging consciousness from all sensual contents and removing it from secular desire and wishes. The argument, which claims the experience of Divine One is direct, therefore uninterpretable, and experienced by pure consciousness, believes clearing the consciousness of mystics from sensual qualities such as seeing, hearing, and tasting. It is stated that it is possible for mystics to empty their sensory images and get rid of them, and thus, their desires and wishes could be lost. Especially, the thinkers who are connected with the philosophy of perennialism and defend this approach, thought that people, who have distinct religion, culture, and beliefs in different parts of the world and in various time periods, had the same experience and considered such experiences were universal by suggesting that this similarity could be called as common essence.Even though the claim which offers that the events of pure consciousness are the same everywhere have been criticized in many respects, the advocates of this approach have argued that the experience has the common essence, but the interpretation is different. This relationship, which was tried to be established between experience and commentary, caused a lot of work for both the thinkers who put forward the claims of pure consciousness and the researchers who opposed it. However, examining the relationship between experience and interpretation requires serious studies in socio-psychological, cultural and religious fields. Therefore, in order not to exceed the limits of the article, the relationship between experience and interpretation is briefly mentioned.While discussing two arguments, the main claims of the arguments were addressed, and the criticisms directed to this argument were not discussed as much as possible. However, some fundamental criticisms have been mentioned shortly for a better understanding of the discussion. Since such western-oriented claims mostly were deployed in a western context, the study excluded the comparison of the claims across different cultures. (shrink)

out a visitation and a thorough assessment of his diocese. His predecessor (or rather his friend Benson, the bishop of Gloucester, who during Edward Chandler's decline had managed Durham's affairs) had kept the deanery records in good ...

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the peculiarities of language functioning in the structure of a person's religious consciousness. The article is an attempt to actualize and rethink some of the scientific methods of contemporary religious discipline in the light of new research in psychology and linguistics. Much has been done along the way. The most notable specialized work of recent years on this topic can be considered "Language and religion" by N.B. Mechkovskaya, (...) which was released in 1998. There are enough works relevant to our topic that should be addressed; in the field of psychology these are the works of Luria, Rubinstein, Leontiev, Vygotsky, Fromm, etc., ethnology and linguistics - Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Potebna, and others. (shrink)

The problem of human religious consciousness can be attributed to the category of "eternal" philosophical problems, which have never been removed and cannot be removed from the agenda of humanity. The world outlook of a person is updated throughout history as the person, conditions and content of his life, his goals, ideals and perspectives are constantly changing. In each era, this problem retains its fundamental importance, and, being part of all significant philosophical systems, means not a simple continuation (...) of a particular tradition, but the identification of the changing aspects and historical perspectives of human existence. The question of what consciousness, which is its nature and essence, is of great ideological, ideological and practical importance, since it touches upon the foundations of human existence, content and purpose of life. (shrink)

A central claim of this book is that the emergence of humanity involves a splitting of consciousness—the ability of consciousness to become reflectively aware of itself. But the splitting of consciousness is simultaneously the development of the possibility of fragmentation and alienation. Thus, through the growth of reflective consciousness, separation comes to permeate the whole of human experience. So understood, it creates the need for integration, and Rossman’s discussion ultimately centers on its attainment. Within this perspective, (...) various aspects of consciousness, including perception, organic sensation, desire, and belief, are explored. There is also extensive discussion of personal identity or the experience of being a self. Finally, the above analyses provide the ground for discussions of freedom, morality, and being religious. (shrink)

The essence of religion was once widely thought to be a unique form of experience that could not be explained in neurological, psychological, or sociological terms. In recent decades scholars have questioned the privileging of the idea of religious experience in the study of religion, an approach that effectively isolated the study of religion from the social and natural sciences. Religious Experience Reconsidered lays out a framework for research into religious phenomena that reclaims experience as a central (...) concept while bridging the divide between religious studies and the sciences. Ann Taves shifts the focus from "religious experience," conceived as a fixed and stable thing, to an examination of the processes by which people attribute meaning to their experiences. She proposes a new approach that unites the study of religion with fields as diverse as neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, and psychology to better understand how these processes are incorporated into the broader cultural formations we think of as religious or spiritual. Taves addresses a series of key questions: how can we set up studies without obscuring contestations over meaning and value? What is the relationship between experience and consciousness? How can research into consciousness help us access and interpret the experiences of others? Why do people individually or collectively explain their experiences in religious terms? How can we set up studies that allow us to compare experiences across times and cultures? Religious Experience Reconsidered demonstrates how methods from the sciences can be combined with those from the humanities to advance a naturalistic understanding of the experiences that people deem religious. (shrink)

Nehrer's unique viewpoint reveals hidden meaning within common questions on life, ideas and consciousness.

This chapter contains sections titled: Having an Experience Religion Describability Phenomenology Criteria for Kinds: Content Criteria for Kinds: Structure Object Claims Aspect Claims Relevance Conditions Content, Structure, and Evidence A Modest Typology Explanations The Doctrines of the Traditions The Appropriateness of Asking about Evidence A Principle of Experiential Evidence Recommended readings.

In 1968, the Harvard criteria equated irreversible coma and apnea with human death and later, the Uniform Determination of Death Act was enacted permitting organ procurement from heart-beating donors. Since then, clinical studies have defined a spectrum of states of impaired consciousness in human beings: coma, akinetic mutism, minimally conscious state, vegetative state and brain death. In this article, we argue against the validity of the Harvard criteria for equating brain death with human death. Brain death does not disrupt (...) somatic integrative unity and coordinated biological functioning of a living organism. Neurological criteria of human death fail to determine the precise moment of an organism’s death when death is established by circulatory criterion in other states of impaired consciousness for organ procurement with non-heart-beating donation protocols. The criterion of circulatory arrest 75 s to 5 min is too short for irreversible cessation of whole brain functions and respiration controlled by the brain stem. Brain -based criteria for determining death with a beating heart exclude relevant anthropologic, psychosocial, cultural, and religious aspects of death and dying in society. Clinical guidelines for determining brain death are not consistently validated by the presence of irreversible brain stem ischemic injury or necrosis on autopsy; therefore, they do not completely exclude reversible loss of integrated neurological functions in donors. The questionable reliability and varying compliance with these guidelines among institutions amplify the risk of determining reversible states of impaired consciousness as irreversible brain death. The scientific uncertainty of defining and determining states of impaired consciousness including brain death have been neither disclosed to the general public nor broadly debated by the medical community or by legal and religious scholars. Heart-beating or non-heart-beating organ procurement from patients with impaired consciousness is de facto a concealed practice of physician-assisted death, and therefore, violates both criminal law and the central tenet of medicine not to do harm to patients. Society must decide if physician-assisted death is permissible and desirable to resolve the conflict about procuring organs from patients with impaired consciousness within the context of the perceived need to enhance the supply of transplantable organs. (shrink)

This book explores the concept of consciousness when defined in the terms mind, spirit, soul and awareness. It consists of the edited proceedings of a colloquium held in Cordoba, at which experts in physics, neuro- and psycho-physiology, analytical psychology, philosophy and religious knowledge discussed aspects of their work related to this main theme. The following areas are covered: quantum mechanics and the role of consciousness, neurophysiology and states of consciousness, the manifestation of the psyche in (...) consciousness, the odyssey of consciousness, and science and consciousness. The discussions which follow give a multi-disciplinary perspective on the questions involved. (shrink)

The study addresses some aspects of Suprematist theory of perception, allowing to investigate the structure of Suprematist phenomenon in the context of ontology, socio-political and religious-mystical works of K. Malevich. The aim of the paper is to present Malevich’s theory of perception in the framework of enactivism. Namely, the article focuses on the theory of social affordances, which today is widely used in design, game development and other everyday practices. The author refers to Malevich’s theoretical and sociopolitical essays, (...) as well as to the commentary literature. Although Suprematism represents a well-researched tradition in art theory, the author stress the need for a follow-up study of Malevich’s theoretical essays in the contemporary context of philosophy of consciousness. The author also emphasizes the relevance of Suprematist philosophy for today’s way of thinking. For the most authentic presentation of Malevich’s ideas I use the phenomenological and hermeneutical method on a par with elements of the ecological approach in psychology and enactivism in the philosophy of consciousness. Consequently, the theory of affordances an effective and natural unification of all the aspects discussed above. The study shows the affinity of Malevich’s ideas to this theory. The author focused on the thesis of feeling as the goal of the expressive act of art. As one could see, Kazemir Malevich always emphasized the bodily-affective dimension of art, and in this sense he participated in a global cultural-historical shift in our conception of the essence of art. Since then, art has ceased to be elitist, but has instead inherited everyday practices. Thus, Malevich speaks of a new art that suits the man of the new world, the Soviet citizen. In this context, I relate the idea of affordance, which means the creation of a feeling-opportunity for subjective action (agency), to the artistic act whose goal, according to Malevich, is the creation of an emotional body-affective feeling. I defend the theory of social affordances, explaining the mechanism of social interaction, as the most adequate model for explaining Suprematism. As a result, based on the already developed concept of bodily-affective dynamics, I show how visionary and creative Malevich was, and how his ideas contribute to the development of a theory of social, emotional affordances. (shrink)

English summary: This book deals with the early philosophical development of Hegel.

Religious naturalism and three scientific revolutions: Introduction -- The cosmological revolution -- The evolutionary revolution -- The ecological revolution -- Inwardness and awareness in nature: Introduction -- Inwardness of life and inwardness of mind -- Mind and consciousness in nature -- The range of conscious awareness on earth -- Presumptive rights and conflicts of rights: Introduction -- Rs of the thou of nature -- A scheme of presumptive natural rights -- A fourth R of the thou of nature (...) -- Conflicts of rights -- Hunting and fishing : Introduction -- Hunting -- Fishing -- Responses to the charge of impractical idealism -- Eating and wearing: Introduction -- Using animals for food -- The vegetarian response -- Using animals for apparel and other purposes -- Other areas of responsibility and concern: Introduction -- Experimenting on animals -- Rodeos, circuses, zoos, and aquariums -- Endangered species and despoliations of natural environments -- The human population explosion -- The threat of global climate change -- A new moral and religious consciousness: Introduction -- Empowerment in religion of nature -- Objections and replies -- Principles and prescriptions. (shrink)

Argues that mystical consciousness is attainable through a process of intellectual, cognitive activity, and analyzes the nature of that consciousness as well as the philosophical theories underlying it.

The present article looks at mind and consciousness from the perspective of the eminent Indian philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti. He believed in total awareness as being essential for a free mind. Human beings always learned from their past, and it was important that they looked inwards and freed themselves from self-perpetuated torment. It was also necessary that they avoided repression. The society in which we live should be organic, where, although individuals had no choice but to dwell in that society, (...) it was one where the interests of the individual and society were the same. He also maintained that religion was always the result of past conditioning. A mind should be investigative and scientific. One could not get pleasure without difficulty, for which living in totality, not in segments, was a must. We often dwell on one part of the consciousness and miss its holistic aspect. One must uncover the mind layer by layer to achieve complete growth. Deeper delving into it and a study of J. Krishnamurti's philosophy is a must for the understanding of human consciousness, in a manner that is simple, yet abstract and deep. (shrink)

This book introduces concepts in philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy. Inside, three scholars offer approaches to the problems of identity, consciousness, and the mind. In the process, they open new vistas for thought and raise fresh controversies to some of the oldest problems in philosophy. The first chapter focuses on the identity problem. The author employs an explanatory model he christened sense-phenomenalism to defend the thesis that personal identity is something or a phenomenon that pertains to the observable/perceptible aspect (...) of the human person. The next chapter explores the problem of consciousness. It deploys the new concept equiphenomenalism as a model to show that mental properties are not by-products but necessary products of consciousness. Herein, the notion of qualia is a fundamental and necessary product that must be experienced simultaneously with neural activities for consciousness to be possible. The last chapter addresses the mind/body problem. It adopts the new concept proto-phenomenalism as an alternative explanatory model. This model eliminates the idea of a mind. As such, it approaches the mind-body problem from a materialistic point of view with many implications such as, the meaning of our existence, the possibility of thought engineering as well as religious implications. (shrink)

Essays discuss the division of household labor, anti-semitism, violence against women, reproductive freedom, parenting, friendship between women, and feminist theology.

This book has two main tasks: (1) to call attention to the special challenges presented by our experience of affect—all varieties of pleasure and pain—and (2) to show how these challenges can be overcome by an “enrichment approach” that understands affect as the enrichment or deterioration of conscious activity as a whole. This “enrichment approach” draws from Alfred North Whitehead as well as the pragmatists John Dewey and William James, all of whom thought of affect as a fundamental aspect of (...) experience rather than a special class of feelings. It also draws from recent scientific research that suggests that the dynamic repertoire of consciousness can change, effectively expanding and contracting our capacity to feel. Weaving these perspectives together, the book develops a theory that accounts for the peculiar phenomenology of affect and sheds new light on a diverse range of experiences, from everyday pleasures and pains to the special satisfactions of the arts and religious festivity. At the same time, it presents a fresh and distinctively affect-centered perspective on the nature of consciousness. (shrink)

The Origin of Human Nature offers an original and fertile way to integrate spiritual and scientific views of human evolution. It offers a new and refreshing alternative to the way we think about our origins - random mutation (mechanistic neo-Darwinism), Genesis (God did it all personally), and Intelligent Design (God personally does what we can't otherwise account for). The result is an invigorating perspective on how our best qualities - our capacity for love, our appreciation of beauty, our altruistic capability, (...) our creativity and our intelligence - have come into being and evolved. By showing evolution as a creative and intelligent process with its own inherent logic, The Origin of Human Nature resolves the dilemma of how to have both truth and ethics at the same time. Instead of starting in an imagined remote and uncertain past and moving to the present, this book starts at the certain and immediate present and works back. That consciousness, creativity, and intelligence exist is certain. The question is, how can these have evolved? Dr. Albert Low has made a study of human nature throughout his life. In writing this book, he draws on his prolonged meditations on creativity and the human condition, his years of providing psychological and spiritual counseling, and a wide-ranging knowledge of Western psychology, philosophy, and science. He takes issue with Richard Dawkins' published texts, and provides a point-by-point rebuttal of the neo-Darwinist argument. (shrink)

How do humans ‘register’ God: attain knowledge or revelation of God? Analysis is familiar in terms of explanatory hypothesis, necessity, authority and commitment. However individuals speak also of ‘experience’ or ‘consciousness’ of God/Christ/grace – received widely, not just by an esoteric few. But may we properly hold that people can be cognitively aware of God?Undoubtedly such speech has problematic aspects. Not only do psychosis, self‐deception, gullibility recur. Commentators are liable to enlist what may be termed the A‐conceptual Lucidity (...) picture, which critically fails.Various positions urged by thinkers rule out by definition the very possibility of cognitive awareness of God. Some analysts assert: a person’s experiencing x is constituted throughout by the person’s use of concepts in toto reached previously and independently. But, why adopt any a priori dismissiveness?We should favour a portrayal of people’s epistemic situation respecting God called the Consciousness Portrayal. Phrases therein include: ‘God’s gracious, guiding activity’; ‘a person’s access to God’; ‘attentive consciousness/conceptualization/knowledge of God’; ‘diverse levels or modes of consciousness’; ‘God’s guidance in a person’s creatively picking out concepts’; and ‘“cognition” which, as regards meaning, is not just a function of calculative reasoning’. Alertness to usage in non‐religious contexts aids our finding the religious phrasing intelligible. The Portrayal is approachable from an internal and external angle.Opponents’ challenges to the Portrayal invoke some broad epistemological theses, often pronounced intrinsic to ‘rationality’. But we fittingly espouse certain contrasting epistemological views. And these prove to fortify the Consciousness Portrayal. (shrink)

This paper summarizes the main features of the microgenetic account of consciousness, of the transition from self to image, act and object, the epochal nature of this transition, and its relation to introspection, imagination, and agency. The affinities of microgenetic theory to many aspects of process thought should be evident to readers of this journal, but the theory, which was developed in pathological case study, rests on a wealth of clinical detail that is beyond the scope of this (...) article. In brief, the micro-temporal transition from archaic to recent formations (distributed systems) in the phyletic history of forebrain constitutes the absolute mental state, with consciousness the relation of self to image and/or object. The discussion touches on the overlap of states, the continuity of the core over successive states, and subjective time experience. (shrink)

The book offers a new insight into the political, social, and religious conduct of religious-Zionism, whose consequences are evident in Israeli society today. Before the Six-Day War, religious-Zionism had limited its concern to the protection of specific religious interests, with its representatives having little share in the determination of Israel's national agenda. Fifty years after it, religious-Zionism has turned into one of Israeli society's dominant elements. The presence of this group in all aspects of (...) Israel's life and its members' determination to set Israel's social, cultural, and international agenda is indisputable. Delving into this dramatic transformation, the book depicts the Six-Day War as a constitutive event that indelibly changed the political and religious consciousness of religious-Zionists. The perception of real history that had guided this movement from its dawn was replaced by a "sacred history" approach that became an actual program of political activity. As part of a process that has unfolded over the last thirty years, the body and sexuality have also become a central concern in the movement's practice, reflection, and discourse. The how and why of this shift in religious-Zionism--from passivity and a consciousness of marginality to the front lines of public life--is this book's central concern. The book will be of interest to readers and scholars concerned with changing dynamic societies and with the study of religion and particularly with the relationship between religion and politics. (shrink)

The present article looks at mind and consciousness from the perspective of the eminent Indian philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti. He believed in total awareness as being essential for a free mind. Human beings always learned from their past, and it was important that they looked inwards and freed themselves from self-perpetuated torment. It was also necessary that they avoided repression. The society in which we live should be organic, where, although individuals had no choice but to dwell in that society, (...) it was one where the interests of the individual and society were the same. He also maintained that religion was always the result of past conditioning. A mind should be investigative and scientific. One could not get pleasure without difficulty, for which living in totality, not in segments, was a must. We often dwell on one part of the consciousness and miss its holistic aspect. One must uncover the mind layer by layer to achieve complete growth. Deeper delving into it and a study of J. Krishnamurti's philosophy is a must for the understanding of human consciousness, in a manner that is simple, yet abstract and deep. (shrink)

To date, there have been few attempts to compare the thought of Confucius and Kierkegaard, and these few attempts have focused on the contrast between Kierkegaard’s stress on the individual and Confucius’s emphasis on the social aspect of human existence. In this article, I point instead to substantial agreement between the analyses of ethical existence offered by Confucius and two of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous figures, Judge William of Either/Or and Johannes Climacus of The Concluding Unscientific Postscript . I seek to use (...) this parallelism to better discern the specific character of Confucius’s religious consciousness. (shrink)

One of the most exciting aspects of this journal, of which I am proud to be an executive editor, is that it has become a venue in which so many distinct fields can interact on a single question, that of consciousness. I know of no other question, or journal, which has brought together so many voices, from so many fields, to swirl around a single topic. It is exciting both to provide a forum and to be a part (...) of this debate. In this article I would like to bring the findings of my somewhat unusual but increasingly accepted field -- mysticism-- to the discussion, for I think they may offer some helpful insights about consciousness. Why? When a biologist seeks to understand a complex phenomenon, one key strategy is to look to at it in its simplest form. Probably the most famous is the humble bacterium E. coli. Its simple gene structure has allowed us to understand much of the gene functioning of complex species. Similarly many biologists have turned to the `memory' of the simple sea slug to understand our own more kaleidoscopic memory. Freud and Durkheim both used totemism, which they construed as the simplest form of religion, to understand the complexities of religious life. The methodological principle is: to understand something complex turn to its simple forms. (shrink)

What does it mean to be human? Philosopher Joshua Rasmussen offers a step-by-step examination into the fundamental nature and ultimate origin of persons. Using accessible language and clear logic, he argues that understanding what it means to be a person sheds light not only on our own nature but also on the existence of the one who gave us life.

I have come to believe that the whole framework of our current thought is about to begin a long and radical transformation, based on what I shall call a new science of pure consciousness. The content of most of the matters to be considered by this science have hitherto been the concern of some areas of religion, particularly what in our culture we call ‘mysticism’; but the treatment of it would legitimately be called scientific. Thus one aspect of the (...) transformation would be to overcome that apparent conflict between ‘science’ and ‘religion’, which has been so characteristic of our culture over the last few centuries. (shrink)

The Soul is considered, both for religions and philosophy, to be the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, conferring individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. For most theologies, the Soul is further defined as that part of the individual, which partakes of divinity and transcends the body in different explanations. But, regardless of the philosophical background in which a specific theology gives the transcendence of the soul as the source of (...) its everlasting essence – often considered to survive the death of the body –, it is always appraised as a higher existence for which all should fight for. In this regard, all religious beliefs assert that there are many unseen battles aiming to take hold of the human soul, either between divinity and evil, or between worlds, or even between the body and the soul itself. These unseen battles over the human soul raging in the whole world made it the central item of the entire universe, both for the visible and the unseen worlds, an item of which whoever takes possession will also become the ruler of the universe. Through this philosophy, the value of the soul became abysmal, incommensurable, and without resemblance. The point for making such a broad overview of the soul in religious beliefs is the question of whether we can build an interfaith discourse based on the religions’ most debated and valuable issue, soul? Regardless of the variety of religious beliefs on what seems to be the soul, there is always a residual consideration in them that makes the soul more important than the body. This universal impression is due to another belief or instead need of believing that above and beyond this seen, palpable, finite life and the world should exist another one, infinite, transcendent, and available all the same after here. This variety stretches from the minimum impact that soul has on the body, as being the superior essence that inhabitants and enlivens the matter, to the highest impact in which soul has nothing to do with matter[1] and is only ephemeral linked to it, but its existence is not at all limited, defined or depended on the matter [2], or even placed to the extreme, as the very life of the matter thus this seen universe is merely a thought in the soul/mind [3]. In this extensive variety of soul overviews, the emphasis of the soul’s importance gives an inverse significance to the body/matter, from being everything that matters to a thin, dwindle item that has no existence at all outside consciousness. (shrink)

Slavdom in general, and Ukrainians in particular, their researchers refer to the "religious tribe". This means that religiousness has become an inalienable feature of Ukrainian spirituality, which, in its turn, is one of the main sources of Ukrainian religiosity. Therefore, in order to study the traditional religiosity of Ukrainians and to study the modern mass religious consciousness of the Ukrainian people, it is necessary to take into account the features of Ukrainian ethnopsychology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 263-283 [Access article in PDF] Contesting Metaphors and the Discourse of Consciousness in William James Jill M. Kress Ah, not to be cut off,not by such slight partitionto be excluded from the stars' measure.What is inwardness?What if not sky intensified,flung through with birds and deepwith winds of homecoming? --Rainer Maria Rilke William James's lifelong attention to questions about human mental (...) experience elucidates the development of the concept of consciousness through its realization in fields as disparate as natural science, radical empiricism, and religious mysticism. 1 Over the course of a career that both establishes and traverses disciplinary boundaries, James's work embodies tensions between scientific explanations for mental phenomena and the inescapability of metaphysical arguments. Jamesian psychology thus alternates between materialist and spiritualist assumptions of scientists and philosophers at the turn of the century, joining their compulsive investigations into the nature of consciousness. 2 Most readers [End Page 263] of James puzzle over the theoretical contradictions within his work, debating central philosophical dilemmas concerning the status of the conscious self. Perhaps the most paradoxical aspect of James's theories, his response to dualism, emerges as he attempts to negotiate ethereal explanations for consciousness with bodily processes. 3 The mind-body problem disrupts James's more delicately balanced theories, a disruption registered explicitly through the metaphors in his texts.Reading The Principles of Psychology (1890) alongside "Does 'Consciousness' Exist" (1904), this essay demonstrates how figurative language directs James's study of consciousness. I argue that metaphor does more than describe consciousness; metaphor constructs James's arguments, governs his conflicting theories of mind through a series of rhetorical configurations and provokes the continual reconstruction of his ideas of human subjectivity. Furthermore, while it is impossible for James to explain and to study consciousness without metaphor, he experiences great anxiety about using language, figurative or otherwise, to represent his object of study. The language becomes more powerful than his intentions or designs and, indeed, raises implications that James cannot control. James possesses a heightened awareness of what he crafts with words; he also, perhaps more penetratingly, acknowledges the inadequacy of any linguistic system to realize concepts thoroughly. 4 Struggling over appropriate "names" and "terms" for consciousness, James presupposes some clearly delineated concept around which we might wrap a verbal expression; yet he also seems painfully aware that every new metaphor launches an entirely new theory. Fluid and unpredictable, consciousness becomes like language itself, yielding its power precisely because it can be so many things at once. The ultimate principle of Jamesian consciousness seems to be its creative capacity; still, once James admits that the problem of consciousness is a problem of language, his carefully constructed designs begin to unravel. Though consciousness will be translated into James's notion of "pure experience" by the time he writes the radical empiricism [End Page 264] essays, James remains simultaneously committed to his figures (especially of the "stream of consciousness") and ambivalent about the account of consciousness that they provide. James helps create the modern self with its enhanced individuality, though his metaphors at once direct us inward to a centered, private self and propel us outward to find consciousness materializing in the fluxional cycle of the natural world.In presenting his initial theory of the stream of our thoughts, James argues for its coherence. His most famous metaphor of the "stream" of consciousness appears to saturate the varied material of the mind, its water washing over and through any distinctions or separations which the mind might present: Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as "chain" or "train" do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A "river" or a "stream" are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. 5James's desire to find words that are more "natural... (shrink)

Within The Varieties of Religious Experience lies the germ of a truly radical idea. It is that religious experience has something important and basic to contribute to the science of psychology. Yet now, a hundred years after the publication of James's monumental work, the mainstream academic fields of psychology are no closer to considering, let alone implementing, this idea than they were in James's day. Why? Surely one aspect of this is the way in which the categories and (...) imagery of our society envisage an otherworldly religion and a naturalistic psychology which are on different planes of existence and cannot communicate with one other. I believe that the Eastern meditation traditions can bridge this divide and that had William James been as familiar with Eastern religions as he was with Christianity, he would have had a great deal more specifically to say about what religion had to offer science. The purpose of this paper is to look again at James's material through the lens of Eastern, particularly Buddhist, thought and meditation. Ideally this will serve not only to provide a new perspective on James's classic work but to show a new direction in which the study of religious experience can impact research in psychology and in the emerging cognitive sciences. (shrink)

This metaphysical and personal exploration of the nature of life provides a rare guide to living and dying fearlessly and with grace. Using the wisdom obtained over a lifetime of spiritual seeking, study, and practice, along with insights gained from the death of her significant other, Clare Goldsberry explores the fundamental nature of life and death, as well as their meaning and purpose. Sharing the wisdom and knowledge of the ancient sages, spiritual teachers like the Buddha, philosophers like Plato and (...) Seneca, and modern-day quantum physicists, Goldsberry walks us through the mystery of death and dying-and explores the meaning and purpose of life. Drawing from Buddhism, Hinduism, and her partner's cancer journey, she provides a profound view of living and dying as seen through the ages by those who have sought answers regarding the most mysterious aspect of life-this thing we call death. Clare Goldsberry has experienced Protestant Christianity, Mormonism, the Ageless Wisdom Teachings, Gnosticism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. She writes about religion and spiritual traditions for Quest magazine and other publications, and her book A Stranger in Zion: A Christian's Journey through the Heart of Utah Mormonism won the Arizona Book Publishers Association's Glyph Award for Best Religion Book in 2003. Goldsberry has also published six books on marketing and sales strategies for small- to mid-sized manufacturing companies, and she founded her own marketing and public relations business in 1989. She lives and works in Arizona. (shrink)

Today we face the consequences of ‗God's death‘, or falling out of heaven, and with him the collapse of many ideologies and values. We witness the disintegration of the Other, the dissolution of prohibition, and the confusion and angst it creates. Also we witness a growing movement back to dogmatic religion and the emergence of persecuting fathers or small Gods: like the rise of totalitarianism of the laws of the market and rating, and the compulsion to enjoy. Is there another (...) alternative? Can psychoanalysis deal with these changes in new ways? This paper addresses these issues through clinical observations which show the tangent points of psychoanalysis, and spiritual and religious concepts. Examples include two cases of orthodox Jews, a man and a woman who obeyed the ceremonial aspects of religion to the letter; but there was no presence of god or spiritual experience whatsoever in their discourse. Therefore, they were struggling with broken identity, suffering and cynicism, and lost their defined place in the world. Two others: secular, atheistic man and woman discovered god and its representatives and found a new "name of the father". (shrink)

Unknown to most Western psychologists, ancient Indian scriptures contain very rich, empirically derived psychological theories that are, however, intertwined with religious and philosophical content. This article represents our attempt to extract the psychological theory of cognition and consciousness from a prominent ancient Indian thought system: Samkhya-Yoga. We derive rather broad hypotheses from this approach that may complement and extend Western mainstream theorizing. These hypotheses address an ancient personality theory, the effects of practicing the applied part of Samkhya-Yoga on (...) normal and extraordinary cognition, as well as different ways of perceiving reality. We summarize empirical evidence collected in diverse fields of research that allows for making judgments about the hypotheses, and suggest more specific hypotheses to be examined in future research. We conclude that the existing evidence for the hypotheses is substantial but that there are still considerable gaps in theory and research to be filled. Theories of cognition contained in the ancient Indian systems have the potential to modify and complement existing Western mainstream accounts of cognition. In particular, they might serve as a basis for arriving at more comprehensive theories for several research areas that, so far, lack strong theoretical grounding, such as meditation research or research on aspects of consciousness. (shrink)

In the context of changing paradigms of human thinking, secularization of social consciousness, scientific and technological and information revolution, social and environmental cataclysms, Christian preaching seeks to answer the "challenge of time", seeking and offering man such spiritual foundations of life that will help him to "find himself" in the changing in the modern world.

Purpose of this article is to study the phenomenon of desire in Ancient Chinese and ancient Indian society, to reveal a material basis for the appearance and formation of the specific ethical attitude towards desire in the philosophical reflection of ancient thinkers. To fulfil this purpose, we should study and analyse methodology of desire studies in philosophical and psychological literature, analyse the ethical attitude towards desire in religious and philosophical texts of Chinese and Indian thinkers, understand social and economic (...) basis of such an ethical attitude, that is to establish material basis of desire as the specific form of psychic activity and to recreate the logic of its development. Theoretical basis. Culturological and economic studies of orientalists and dialectical logic. Originality. The paper presents the analysis of the perspectives and drawbacks of different approaches in desire studies. Research of ethical attitude towards the desire in Ancient China and India allowed us to recreate the logic of social relations and the level of productive forces in that society. The ideological foundation of conservation and recreation of power and property relations was found in the religious doctrine of suppression of individual desires. The connection between desire formation and division of labour and its preservation in the religious, political and legal forms of social consciousness was shown. Methodological perspectives of dialectical logic were defined in the study of logical and historical coincidence in the further development of the phenomenon and the notion of desire. Conclusions. Analysis of modern philosophical and psychological literature has revealed methodological drawbacks in desire studies, as they are focused on studying desire’s notion, its representation or separate aspects of desire in individual psyche disregarding its inner logic and material basis of its becoming. Studies of the ethical attitude towards desire in Eastern culture have shown the consensus in desire suppression of individuals and similarities between Ancient Chinese and Indian cultures. There is shown significance and material basis of the transcendental law suppressing the desires even of the higher classes of the oriental society. The methodological approach stated in this article can be applied for further desire studies of Ancient Greece culture, Christian ethics and modern society. (shrink)

This book invites readers to explore their own inner core through the stories of ordinary people, political activists, artists, spiritual teachers from a variety of traditions. These are people who have faced themselves, their warts and weaknesses. They have stood by the courage of their convictions in all kinds of moments, great and small. The book is divided into three sections--finding our inner core, standing by our inner core, and sustaining the practice of living from that place.

The Homo naledi discovery introduced questions that had not been previously posed regarding fossil finds. This is because, apart from their fascinating physiology, they seemingly deliberately disposed of their dead in a ritualised way. Although this theory may still be disproved in future, the present article provisionally accepts it. This evokes religious questions because it suggests the possibility of causal thinking, wilful and cooperative behaviour, and the possibility that this behaviour entails traces of proto-religious ideas. This poses the (...) challenge to develop a hominin hermeneutics that endeavours to reconstruct the possible motivation behind this action. The relatively larger brain with its enlarged Broca's area suggests the possibility of a sophisticated communication system and an enhanced way of dealing with emotion. We know that almost all life forms have some form of awareness and that more sophisticated degrees of consciousness may be present in the higher primates. Various 'clues' are investigated to try and understand the H. naledi phenomenon: lessons from chimpanzee studies, the implications of tool making for hominin development, the possibility of a proto-language and the role symbol formation may have played. The H. naledi case also indicates on a theological level that religion is natural. Some attention is given to this thesis. Biological and environmental factors come into play to illuminate biological factors like emotion and higher cognition without which religion would not be possible. Sophisticated cognition is coloured by affect and this makes some form of reflection on the fate of loved ones who have died a strong possibility. (shrink)

Royce's Argument for the Absolute w.j. MANDER IN 188 5 IN THE PENULTIMATE CHAPTER of his first book, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, Josiah Royce put forward an argument for Absolute Idealism based on the possibility of error. He considered the argument a most important one and returned to it on numerous occasions after that, slightly recasting it each time,' but never, he later claimed, really leaving it behind. Nor was he alone in his opinion of it; well received (...) by his contemporaries, such as William James, the argument did much to establish the young Royce's reputation. 9 Like the Absolute Idealism which it was designed to support, Royce's once- famous argument is now largely forgotten, yet there is no real justification for this save fashion, for it deals in a fresh and imaginative way with a subject matter still very much discussed in the literature. The purpose of this study is to recon- sider Royce's argument and to assess its validity. I shall examine it in some detail below, but first let me give a very brief summary of Royce's case keeping as close as possible to his own original presentation of it. The argument occurs in the following places, references to which will be abbreviated by the letters in brackets: The Religious Aspect of Philosophy , Chap. XI; The spirit of Modern Philosophy , Ch. XI; "The Implications of self-Consciousness," reprinted in his Studies.. (shrink)

The article analyzes the structure and manifestations of everyday life as the sphere of the empirical life of the individual believer and the religious community. Patterns of everyday life are not confined to certain universal conceptual or value systems, as there is no ready-made standards and rules of their formation. Everyday life is intersubjective space of social relations in which religious individuals, communities, institutions self-identified based on form of reproduction of sociality. Religious everyday life determined by ordinary (...) consciousness, practices, social aspects of life in the religious community, which are constituted by communication. The main religious structures of everyday life is mental cut ordinary religious consciousness, religious practice, religious experience, religious communication, religious stereotypes. Everyday life is the sphere of interaction between the social and the transcendental worlds, in which religious practices are an integral social relationships and the objectification of religious experience through the prism of individual membership to a specific religion, a means of inclusion of transcendence in the context of everyday life. Religious practices reflect understanding of a religious individual objects of the supernatural world, which is achieved through social experience, intersubjective interaction, experience of transcendental reality. The everyday life of the believing personality is formed in the dynamics of tradition and innovation, the mechanism of interaction of which affects the space of social existence. It exists within the private and public space and time, differing openness within the life-world. Continuous modification of everyday life, change its fundamental structures is determined by the process of modern social and technical transformation of society. (shrink)

Includes emotional and affective feelings. Mood builds on the human organism's body, but you must turn to the development of affective experience of the body. I did not last for more than the physical body Zhumo, this article from the mood in the body discussed the rise of the body, to significant problems of the body by the body to experience over the body, as well as the physical body plays in the emotional life of role, will be particularly focused (...) on the discussion of the role of the brain. Basically, the emotional mood of the rise in the body surface of the body, but the emotion does not stop the body. Since the emergence of human consciousness with the intention of the role, so there are feelings of the development. Affective refers to the so-called intentional sexual feelings, especially those that point to the meaning and value of high-level emotions, such as aesthetic, moral feelings and religious sentiments. This paper illustrates how the human experience from the development of the aesthetic experience of the body, powered by the desire to develop a sense of beauty and art have meaning in the world. Furthermore, affective development also has its ethical dimension. This paper by discussing Aristotle's "practical wisdom", as well as Confucianism, Taoism-related ideas, show affection broad sense of the ethical dimension. Finally, to discuss the religious aspects of affective life, and do a little due. Human affectivity includes emotions and feelings. Emotions have their physiological foundation on human body as organism, whereas intertional feelings refer to body as lived. The present author has in his previous writings put emphasis on body as lived, but few words have touched upon body as organism. This paper makes a remedy on this point and attempts to deal with problems such as how emotions arises from body as organism so as to make clear the transition from body as organism to body as lived, and the role organic body played in our emotional life, focus being put on the functions of the brain. Basically speaking, the emotional aspect of human affectivity is originated from, but not limited to, organic body. I see our body as the locus of human desire, defined as a dynamic energy towards the meaningfulness of life. Because of the emergence of consciousness and its intentionality, we have a further development of life of our intentional feelings. "Intentional feeling" denotes those feelings with intentionality that directs iself towards meaningulness and values, especially those intending higher levels of mental activities such as aesthetic feeling, moral feeling and religious sentiment. We will discuss first how aesthetic feelings emerge from body as lived, in the way that desire as dynamism of meaning develops into a world of aesthetic values. Intentional feeling has its ethical dimensional, in the sense determined by Aristotle's idea of ​​phronesis, Confucian idea of ​​moral praxis and Daoist idea of ​​life praxis. In the end, this paper will try to shematize the religious dimension of intentional feeling. (shrink)