Reading the mind of God (without Hebrew lessons): Alston, shared attention, and mystical experience
Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion October 23, 2009 DOI: 10.1017/s0034412509990175 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Key points | Argues that Alston's perceptual account of mystical experience is inadequate because it cannot show how God-predicates derive from perception. Proposes that mirror-neuron-mediated shared attention provides a perceptual account that more tightly connects mystical reports to similar natural-order reports. |
Abstract
Abstract Alston's perceptual account of mystical experience fails to show how it is that the sort of predicates that are used to describe God in these experiences could be derived from perception, even though the ascription of matched predicates in the natural order are not derived in the manner Alston has in mind. In contrast, if one looks to research on shared attention between individuals as mediated by mirror neurons, then one can give a perceptual account of mystical experience which draws a tighter connection between what is reported in mystical reports and the most similar reports in the natural order.