Taking nature mysticism seriously: Marshall and the metaphysics of the self

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2011

Publication Source

Religious Studies

Volume Number

47

Issue Number

2

First Page

165

Last Page

183

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

ISSN

0034-4125

Abstract

Paul Marshall takes extrovertive mystical experience seriously by providing a metaphysical framework inspired by Plotinus and Leibniz that aims to interpret it non-reductively and to explain it persuasively. However praiseworthy Marshall's intentions, his account fails for a variety of reasons, among them an inability to establish convincingly why natural objects appear as transfigured and alive, characteristics frequently encountered in the reports of nature mystics. An alternative approach, rooted in contemporary pan-experientialist philosophy of mind, is able to take extrovertive mysticism equally seriously while accounting more successfully for its pre-eminent features at a less extravagant metaphysical cost.

Share

COinS