What is meditation good for?
March 14, 2022 DOI: 10.4324/9781003127253-27 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that phenomenological reduction and contemplative reduction can be productively compared, but that the comparison has limits and should not be drawn too closely; the chapter analyzes both forms philosophically to demonstrate an analytic "philosophy of meditation." |
Abstract
This chapter argues that phenomenological reduction, on the one hand, and the sort of contemplative reduction that constitutes meditation practice, on the other hand, have tremendous potential for comparative analysis, but that there are limits to conceiving them too closely along similar lines. In identifying many of the commonalities and differences between phenomenological and contemplative forms of reduction, this chapter draws not only on Mind & Life Institute research into both topics, but also significantly on observations of and from students in a meditation course taught for many years. This chapter parses the pros and cons of comparing phenomenological and contemplative forms of reduction, applying in-depth philosophical analyses to both forms of reduction, thereby instantiating an analytic form of the “philosophy of meditation” that is the focus of this Handbook.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |