Mysticism without concepts

Sebastian Gäb

doi:10.1007/s11153-021-09799-7

Abstract

It has often been claimed, e.g. by William James or Aldous Huxley, that mystical experiences across times and cultures exhibit a striking similarity. Even though the words and images we use to describe them are different, underneath the surface we find a common experiential core. Others have rejected this claim and argued that all experiences are intrinsically shaped by the mystics’ pre-existing religious concepts. Against these constructivist objections, I defend the idea of a common core by arguing that even if all experience is interpreted through concepts, there could still be a common core. Those who reject the common core thesis usually argue that no distinction between experience and interpretation can be made since all experience is per se already interpreted. The notion of an uninterpreted experience is self-defeating. Drawing on current research on nonconceptual mental content, I argue (a) that experiences can have nonconceptual content; (b) that interpretation must be understood as conceptualization and (c) that conceptualization presupposes a raw mental content that is not conceptualized. This raw content is not experienced as nonconceptual. Rather, the nonconceptual, uninterpreted common core is an abstraction which shows itself only through reflection. Thus, the existence of a common core is compatible with the fact that all experiences are interpreted.

Highlights

It has often been claimed that mystical experiences across times and cultures appear to be strikingly similar
In Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring note, so that there is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity which ought to make a critic stop and think, and which brings it about that the mystical classics have, as has been said, neither birthday nor native land
There is no consensus in the scholarly literature on what ‘mysticism’ exactly means, and the term is commonly used for a large variety of phenomena

Summary

Mystical experience

Just a word about what I mean by ‘mystical experiences’. The term ‘mystical’ is notoriously tricky and tends to evoke a lot of mixed associations, not all of them favorable. Not all mystical experiences are objectless (meaning that the mystic loses all awareness of external objects); so-called extrovertive mystical experiences are characterized by a sense of union with the natural world, and these experiences involve external objects. The mystics are washed over with feelings of love and awe, peace, bliss, and joy Note that this description is purely phenomenological, i.e. the mystical experience is identified merely by what it feels like. Whether these experiences are veridical or not, is a wholly different question. Alston 1991, use the term differently to mean precisely some kind of quasi-perceptive experience of divine entities, not unlike sense experience of ordinary objects. There is no point in arguing which meaning is the ‘correct’ one; I note that he and I aren’t talking about the same thing

Why it matters

The empirical case for the common core thesis

The constructivist argument

The nonconceptual content of mystical experience