Abstract According to “hinge epistemology”, our worldviews are shaped by “hinges”: certainties, assumptions, or commitments that have a “framework” function and are therefore beyond epistemic evaluation. Recently, some scholars have suggested that religious hinges are unique kinds of hinges, or that there is something distinct about the application of hinge epistemology to religious contexts....
This essay presents an overview and analysis of Sam Woolfe's Altered Perspectives: Critical Essays on Psychedelic Consciousness. My critical remarks focus on the naturalistic "explaining away" of stranger psychedelic experiences, such as entity encounters. I conclude that Altered Perspectives is a must-have for anyone interested in the philosophy of altered states of consciousness.
I take “neo-perennialists” to share the following, minimal claim: there exists a cross-cultural category of experiences that can be defined as “mystical”. I first clarify the neo-perennialist project and defend its overall feasibility. I then criticize the narrow focus on mystical experiences that has characterized much neo-perennialist research, and research based on the above-mentioned core...