Interpretation, Description, and Mystical Consciousness

Abstract

Part I examines Walter Stace's classification of mystical experience, R. C. Zahner's criticism of that classification, and Ninian Smart's response to Zaehner. Zaehner rightly faults Stace for distorting theistic mysticism and for ignoring the Hindu tradition of love mysticism. Smart's criticisms of Zaehner are to the point, though inconclusive. However, his own thesis is incoherent. If (as he admits) the experiences of monistic and theistic mystics actually have different “flavours,” they cannot be phenomenologically identical. That they are similar in most respects is compatible with its being the case that monistic and theistic mystics have different experiences. Part II examines an argument of Bruce Garside. It is conceded that a mystical experience may incorporate noetic convictions which reflect the conceptual structures which one brings to that experience. It does not follow that we are unable to distinguish between descriptions and interpretations of mystical experience. In particular, it does not follow that we are unable to distinguish between accounts which describe the constituents of a mystical experience whatever the origin of those constituents may be, and accounts which explain the experience. Part III investigates criteria which might be used to distingush the description of an experience from its interpretation. Special attention is devoted to Smart's contention that accounts which are secondhand and/or which employ “highly ramified” concepts should be regarded as interpretations. Smart appears to think that a highly ramified concept is one whose use either to commits us to the existence of problematic entities or relates the experience to other things which are supposed to explain it. This won't do. The statement, “It seemed to Teresa that she experienced God,” employs a highly ramified concept, viz., God, but neither commits the one who makes it to the existence of God nor explains her experience. Furthermore, the statement “the experience appears to involve a conscious and loving union with something which is somehow personal but cannot be seen, heard, smelled, touched or tasted” does not employ highly ramified concepts and would be accepted by theistic mystics as a minimal description of their experience. If Smart is correct, it is therefore a description and not an interpretation. Since it is theistic in its implications, there is (pace Smart) some reason to believe that theistic mysticism is not simply an interpretation of introvertive experience. Several other criteria are examined. While these criteria suffer from various defects, it is argued that their application does suggest that theistic mysticism differs from monistic mysticism.