Metaphysical Experience Research Articles

Being-understanding as the basis for the possibility of human essence in the modern environment

The article analyzes the understanding of being in the metaphysical experience of man. It is shown that having in us being-understanding is a fundamental experience in comprehension of the possibility of human essence, for it turns us to the origins of the rootedness of man in his own foundational content. It is argued that the understanding of being and the question of the essence of time constitute together the questioning about man, about the basis of his essence. In this respect the specificity of comprehension of man as a being present in the world is revealed. The position of human existence in the contemporary world is revealed, where the humanitas of man, that is being fulfilled, deprives him of any essence. The being of all things existent is understood as nothingness that man has to fill up with his knowledge, and the unity of human essence with the being of all things existent is rejected. This actualizes and makes urgent the targeted problem.

Sex, The Prerequisite Foundation of Human-Subject Construction

Sexual behavior and sex-based love are the earliest metaphysical experiences of mankind, and they have played an important role in the human subject construction. First, sexual evolution and sexual selection have participated in the construction of human biological development, enabling human beings to be born and continued as an independent natural species. Secondly, sex and love participate in the construction and development of the human psychological world and are one of the deep sources of human consciousness. Finally, sex and love are important construction and driving factors for the development of human society since the matriarchal clan society. It is not only the basic unit of human society-the fundamental support of the family, but also the basic principle of the operation of the entire social rights and economic mechanism.

A filosofia de Matias Aires: uma ciência do tempo?

Neste artigo, defendemos que a coerência da obra de Matias Aires (São Paulo, 1705-Agualva, 1763) decorre do modo como entendeu a experiência metafísica do tempo. Numa primeira parte, estabelecemos uma espécie de regime de contrariedade entre o percurso biográfico e a sequência das vaidades criticadas para deduzirmos esse fundo experiencial. Num segundo momento, mostramos como este opera nas Reflexões sobre a Vaidade dos Homens, sua obra prima. Por fim, concluímos, identificando a presença dessa mesma inquietude na relativa indecisão sobre as alternativas ao império da vaidade.

The flesh made word: critical realism, psychoanalysis, and the ontology of love

ABSTRACT This essay considers the two-way relation between critical realism and psychoanalysis. Critical realism vindicates and deepens our understanding of ontology by drawing on the sciences for which it underlabours. From its original through its dialectical and metaReal forms, critical realist ontology develops its relation to psychoanalysis. (1) In its original form, it relates depth ontology to the psychoanalytic discovery of the unconscious, ideas of mental mechanism and unconscious motivation. (2) Dialectical critical realism develops the general ontology/ particular science relation to psychoanalysis by focusing on complexity and interelationality through concepts such as the compromise formation, entity relationism, dispositional identity and holistic causality. (3) There is further convergence around an ontology of love, where critical realism in its metaReal form may draw on Freud’s later structural metapsychology. This strand in Freudian metapsychology considers love central to the human animal who feels and thinks. These capacities ground the possibility of deep metaphysical (metaReal) experience.

Investigation of the phenomenology, physiology and impact of spiritually transformative experiences – kundalini awakening

There is a paucity of research examining the phenomenology and energetic effects of spiritually transformative experiences with an energetic component, often referred to as kundalini awakenings (KAs). This limits our ability to understand and support individuals who have these often unexpected and powerful experiences. This study aimed to explore not only the nature of these experiences but also their subsequent behavioral and physiological transformative effects. Methods: An interview questionnaire was used to collect detailed descriptions of both the physical and metaphysical experiences of persons having a spiritually transformative experience (STE) (e.g., spontaneous energetic awakenings, awakenings occurring through near-death experiences, and through spiritual practices). Results: Subjects reported that the entire energetic awakening experience was mystical, involving feelings of expansion (including conscious awareness leaving the body), and a sense of being enveloped in light or love. Of 18 descriptors of experiences of energy, 85% of participants reported unusual flows of energy through or around the body. Principle triggers for these experiences included concentrating on spiritual matters, the presence of a spiritually developed person, and intense meditation or prayer. Transformational changes in participants included, e.g., increased sensory sensitivity, creativity, and changes in beliefs, including a desire to serve others, a sense of unity with all, and the immortality of the spirit. Most participants reported a lack of understanding of the STE phenomenon by healthcare professionals, resulting in their inability to address the needs of experiencers when they came to clinicians for help.

Схемы ментальной трансформации образа в символическом пространстве драмы-сказки (на материале пьес «Потонувший колокол» Г. Гауптмана и «Ариана и Синяя Борода» М. Метерлинка)

The paper aims to identify archetypal models of image transformation (mental schemes) by the material of a symbolist drama-tale. The article provides a cognitive analysis of space and its interaction with personages in the plays “The Sunken Bell” by G. Hauptmann and “Ariane and Bluebeard” by M. Maeterlinck. Scientific originality of the study lies in the fact that the accent is shifted from the analysis of the personages’ discrete functions in the story structure to the comprehensive study of the image cyclic development. The findings indicate that mental models of the image transformation represent the dramatists’ metaphysical experience and promote deeper understanding of human soul with the help of art.

People like to say, "it's not your fault," but my father left a list of reasons, and: Finger Gun

The two poems address the suicide of the author's father. "people like to say..." is from a series that pairs long narrative titles with relatively short lyric poems. In this way, the poems acknowledge both the narratives we create to process loss and the subconscious, metaphysical experience of grief.

“Ledwosz, where is the key?”, or people and animals in Iwona Siekierzyńska’s short student film “Missy”

Iwona Siekierzyńska school film Missy takes up the theme of a girl’s unfulfilled love for a priest. Her dog named Ledwosz not only accompanies her in the experience of encountering the man in cassock, while his anointing of a sick neighbor, but also triggers the situation that caused her infatuation. This brief and accidental contact with the priest turns out to be a breakthrough experience for the teenage girl looking for love and attention. It means her entering the adult world in which it is easy to miss a crucial moment, or hurt somebody’s feelings quite unconsciously. The young girl’s experience of the brief encounter will remain in her forever. The relation between the female character and her dog from the short film was the inspiration to consider the similarities between Missy and Three Colors: Red, by Krzysztof Kieślowski, who was the artistic supervisor of Siekierzyńska’s film. In both films it is a dog that initiates the process resulting in metaphysical experience for the main characters.

Antinomies of Metaphysical Experience between Theodor Adorno and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe

Abstract This article is an inquiry into the concept of metaphysical experience through a joint discussion of two authors and philosophers with different approaches that nevertheless converge in the reclamation of the concept and rely both on the experience of death as an example. In both cases, the authors are guided by the central problem of how not to relinquish metaphysical experience to unscrutinized immediacy or a powerful conversion which enjoins subjection, putting it in contact with aesthetics and ethics at once. Theodor Adorno situates metaphysical experience as a problem of philosophy of history and devotes attention to the contemporary possibility of experiences that evoke transcendence. The transformations he identifies in the concept also lead him to propose art as a domain where metaphysical experience is alive. The implicit personal investment Adorno makes is much more clear in Lacoue-Labarthe who, in a dialogue with Maurice Blanchot, shows the experience as deeply bound up with literature and its links to subjectivity. The article argues that the main difference between the two approaches is modal and temporal from the side of the object, aside from the different modes of interrogation recognized with the labels deconstruction and critical theory.

С.Л. Франк: размышления о религиозном опыте

The article deals with to the reflections of the outstanding Russian philosopher S.L. Frank about religious experience. The expression “religious experience” became widespread as a generally accepted religious theory concept due to W. James, although long before it this expression was used by F. Schleiermacher and S. Kierkegaard. However, James limited himself to the epistemological aspect of the concept. Later, religious experience was the subject of attention of R. Otto, P. Tillich, M. Buber, M. Thompson and other researchers of religion, each of which contributed to his research. A special place in this series is occupied by the reflections of S.L. Frank. Unfortunately, his achievements in developing the theme of religious experience are often forgotten to be mentioned. Meanwhile, the Russian philosopher proposed his own original concept, based on a solid philosophical foundation. Frank not only did not limit himself to a phenomenological description of religious experience, but, approaching him as a kind of supersensible experience, made an attempt to comprehend his existential nature on the basis of his own ontological teaching – antinomic monodualism. In addition, he analyzed the relationship between “positive religion” and personal religious experience, revealed its significance as the basis of religious faith, and also considered the possibility of its philosophical research, justifying its connection with metaphysical experience and remaining even in his religious quest primarily a philosopher, although his reflections on religious experience, based on personal experiences, are an example of a surprisingly organic mix of religious attitudes and philosophical thinking.

Metaphysics of the Self, the Selfie as a Splinter of Modern Culture

Leszek Kołakowski once wrote such a sentence: “Metaphysics pushed out the door returns through the window”. These words of the Polish philosopher are still valid. Metaphysics did not die, although it went through intricate paths of criticism. It cannot be practised any more as Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas or Hegel did. Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Merleau-Ponty introduced it to new paths. One thought seems obvious: metaphysics cannot be practised outside cultural, sociological and psychological contexts. In this paper, we seek metaphysical experience in contemporary culture. It is impossible to mention all the paths followed by culture and metaphysics related to it. Obviously, not every cultural phenomenon “generates metaphysics”, but the scale of the changes and redefinitions requires us to seek metaphysics in places where it has not been expected before. One of them is the omnipresent phenomenon of the so-called selfie. A photograph, taken with a smartphone, which documents both the person taking the photo and a trace of the environment they are in, is an attempt to create a new reality. “Creation” and reproduction are complicated cognitive processes. One may ask: is it not an attempt to formulate a “new metaphysics”? Can we provide its definition? Yes, we can. It is the metaphysics of oneself. An important inspiration for the presented reflections is a film by a renowned Polish director, Krzysztof Kieślowski – “Amator”. Descartes and Merleau-Ponty cannot be overlooked either. The conclusion I aim to reach is the following: a selfie is a rendering of a person, who is running away from himself and at the same time wants to find himself; who wants to notice, but does not notice; who wants to see, but does not see. This “pursuit” means both an escape from reason, concealed under a hastily conjured smile or seriousness.

The Iranian Metaphysicals

Anthropologist Alireza Doostdar’s first book, The Iranian Metaphysicals, is a well-written and theoretically sophisticated contribution to scholarship on modern Iranian history and society. Combining vividly portrayed ethnography with archival research and textual analysis, he offers an unprecedented account of Iranians’ experiences with and beliefs about the supernatural. The term ‘metaphysical’ emerges directly from his Iranian interlocutors, who use the Persian equivalents metafiziki or mavara’i to describe paranormal practices and phenomena ranging from sorcery and traditional occult sciences, to spirit possession and séances, to clairvoyance and teleportation. Although many elite Iranians, secularist and orthodox Shi‘i alike, have condemned interest in the occult as superstitious and irrational, Doostdar’s primary contention is that such interest actually undergirds modern notions of rational thought and scientific empiricism. This premise is convincingly supported by his detailed analyses of how Iranians, past and present, have attempted to render observations of the supernatural in rational terms. The men and women whom Doostdar designates “metaphysical experimenters” are well read and well educated, including university students and professors, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and journalists. He builds on the psychoanalytic concept of the “uncanny” to explain how Iranians from these social and professional backgrounds reconcile their metaphysical experiences with their expressed commitments to science and reason. As shown in Doostdar’s interviews, the uncanny affect appears as the surprise, dread, disorientation, and even pleasure produced by encounters that seem to defy rational expectations. Doostdar argues that this uncanny sensibility drives intellectual wonder and curiosity, resulting in the development of avant-garde practices of rational inquiry that have driven Iranian intellectual and religious movements since the late nineteenth century.

Primum ethicum et primum anthropologicum et primum metaphysicum conventuntur

The aims and scopes of this paper are expressed in its title, namely the phrase: Primum ethicum et primum anthropologicum et primum metaphysicum conventuntur. The author of the text argues that in the act of cognition we are given a full, complex and rich reality. That spontaneous, common and broad contact with the reality may be divided into experiences which are narrower in their scopes and stand at the cores of different philosophical disciplines. The latter is done to allow capturing the specificities of different aspects of this rich reality. The paper proves that the unity of these experiences along with the resulting unity of philosophical disciplines is based on the fact that the ethical-experience or anthropological-experience-based description of what something is like, turns out to be insufficient, because it is implied by a question of metaphysical experience: why is this like it is. From the perspective of anthropology the description in ethics of moral obligations requires answering the question: why should I do what I should do. In the sphere of metaphysics the latter requires answering another question: why in the end should I do what I should do. In this way, the process of cognition, which is separated into different experiences at the starting points of the mentioned philosophical disciplines, integrates in the end into one unified concept. The latter takes place through the explanation of the facts described in these experiences.

Cormac McCarthy’s Aesthet(h)ics

This essay interprets Suttree’s (1979) obsessional themes of vagrancy and in-betweenness, and their aesthetic inscription in the text by resorting to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s motif of the “canal-rhizome” as developed in Mille plateaux (1980). Close textual analysis reveals that, in parallel to his hero’s embracing of social liminality in rebellion to his father’s conservative value system based on law and order, McCarthy makes the ethical choice of “pass-words” over “order-words,” of transforming “compositions of order” into “components of passage,” a militant act of literary commitment. Moreover, the essay contends that the text’s aesthetic choice of liminal forms is also meant to enable the reader to share the hero’s metaphysical experience of the mysteries of death-in-life.

Tempo(e)rality

Tempo(e)rality

Dissenting voices within political theory Voegelin’s quest for symbols and Strauss’s search for the philosopher

The paper summarizes the nature of Eric Voegelin’s and Leo Strauss’s methodological approaches to the study of the history of political thought, in particular, the Western political thought. The paper concludes that in both cases the thinkers stray away from the mainstream, which is currently represented by contextualism. However, in their dissenting voices both authors take very different routes. Voegelin focuses on political symbols which are grounded in the metaphysical experience of their creators, and Strauss focuses on the perennial question of philosophy and classical, discursive rationality as the criterion of philosophical inquiry. They also differ in their opinions on the role of the political philosopher. For Voegelin, the philosopher is a defender or a co-creator of political creeds. For Strauss s/he is mainly the educator of politically savvy youths and, above all, the defender of philosophy as the most noble pursuit of the mind. The paper concludes by pointing out the importance and prominence of both thinkers.

Metafizyczne enklawy w prozie Stefana Żeromskiego

The articles presents an interpretation of selected topics from the Stefan Żeromski’s novel which form an articulation of the nineteenth century changes taking place within the metaphysics. The scene in which the protagonists from Żeromski’s novels experienced communication with the dead and lived through the inner enlightenment have been analyzed. The article also describes the poetics of articulation of metaphysical experience in the prose of Żeromski paying particular attention to the theme of light equivalentizing the internal initiation of heroes, leading them mainly to cross the barriers of death. From this perspective, the articles interprets such motives as birch, earth and kiss as functionalizing metaphysical experience of the heroes described in the novels. The analysis of these metaphysical enclaves in the prose of Żeromski allowed to put forward the thesis that the metaphysics of the writer is not inspired by philosophy or theology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but by faith in the strength of family and native ties and by the power of human community which leads man into another dimension of reality.

Myth as metaphor

Modern Christianity has failed to update its myths and has even eliminated them, thus, excluding the metaphysical experience indispensable to religion (Jung). Myths should be interpreted, not eliminated. Answering the question about how to interpret myths without eliminating them or their intended effect is the object of this paper. The study investigates the possibility of interpreting myths as metaphors, thus, in a non-literal way. Various definitions of metaphor and myth, and theories for their interpretation are discussed, with focus on their relationship to symbolic universes. Finally, a non-mythical symbolic universe structured by root-metaphors is suggested as a framework for the existential interpretation of mythical concepts in the New Testament.Keywords: myth; metaphor; conceptual metaphor; root metaphor; hermeneutics; existential interpretation; demythologising

DIALÉTICA, EXPERIÊNCIA E INTUIÇÃO: ENTRE HERMENÊUTICA FILOSÓFICA E FILOSOFIA BUDISTA

RESUMO Hans-Georg Gadamer retomou e elevou a atividade hermenêutica ao status de filosofia. Uma das suas idiossincrasias consiste em entrelaçar, no seu discurso, experiências de ordem ética, política, metafísica e estética. A hermenêutica filosófica pauta-se pela prática do diálogo sobre questões relativas ao pensar e à conduta humana. O presente artigo tem por meta realizar um exercício dialógico entre o projeto filosófico de Gadamer e o pensamento oriental - mais especificamente, o budismo zen da tradição da escola de Kyoto, representada pelo pensamento de Nishida Kitarō. Nossa reflexão será articulada sobre quatro momentos distintos, mas que devem ser tomados dialeticamente: inicialmente, apresentaremos um quadro geral, indicando o estado da questão da hermenêutica gadameriana relativo ao pensamento oriental; a seguir, sustentaremos as semelhanças sobre o modo de proceder de ambas, sua metodologia dialética; posteriormente, aprofundaremos a noção fundamental de experiência e as proximidades que permeiam as perspectivas de ambas as tradições; enfim, como implicação das reflexões precedentes, sustentaremos a hipótese de um saber intuitivo enquanto experiência e ação intuitivas. Ao final, apontaremos algumas conclusões instauradas a partir desse exercício dialógico para a prática filosófica.

On “Amorbach”

In 1966 Theodor W. Adorno devoted an affectionate essay to his recollections of the provincial Frankish village of Amorbach, where he spent summers as a child and to which he returned in later life. Literally and figuratively, the essay centers on the experience and concept of utopia. Adorno's recollection of childhood moments of self-absorbed play preserves the lived experience in a way that forever links present and past and that also holds open a space for the experience of utopia: u-topia, no-place—a realm of imagined borderless freedom. Resonances with Amorbach in Adorno's letters reveal subterranean links to the equally utopic experience of romantic love. The landscape near Amorbach appears again in Negative Dialectics, where its visualization is invoked as the nearest analogue to metaphysical experience. Translated into language, these lived experiences serve as images of memory, happiness, and philosophical need while retaining the ungraspable remainder that, the commentary argues, is a necessary and desirable aspect of every translation. The essay “Amorbach” exemplifies the kind of thinking that Adorno, in the last paragraph of Negative Dialectics, refers to as “in solidarity with metaphysics at the instant of its overthrow.”