Mystical Consciousness

Western Perspectives and Dialogue with Japanese Thinkers

By Louis Roy, O.P.

Subjects: Theology
Paperback : 9780791456446, 251 pages, January 2003
Hardcover : 9780791456439, 251 pages, January 2003

Alternative formats available from:

Table of contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I. Western Philosophies of Consciousness

1. Major Contributions

 

Brentano
Husserl
Sartre
Lonergan
Concluding Remarks

 

2. Complementary Contributions

 

From Intentionality to Consciousness: Searle
Degrees of Consciousness: Crosby
Further Clarifications: Helminiak
The Affective Side: Morelli
Concluding Remarks

 

3. Accounts of Mystical Consciousness

 

Forman on Pure Consciousness Events
The Realm of Transcendence According to Lonergan
Moore on the "How" of Consciousness
Price on Bare Consciousness
Granfield on the Mystical Difference
Concluding Remarks

 

Part II. Three Classics

4. Plotinus: Consciousness beyond Consciousness

 

A Grand Worldview
Intellect's Share in the Good
Ordinary Consciousness
What Happens beyond Consciousness?
No Blackout and Yet No Self-Consciousness
Ecstasy, or Enstasy?
Concluding Remarks

 

5. Eckhart: When Human Consciousness Becomes Divine Consciousness

 

The Emptiness of the Human Intellect
No Awareness
Nothingness
A Detached Love without a Why
Is the Soul Equated with God?
The Soul's Breakthrough to the Godhead
Concluding Remarks

 

6. Schleiermacher: Consciousness as Feeling

 

Feeling
Prereflective and Reflective Consciousness
Absolute Dependence
Three Kinds of Consciousness
Concluding Remarks

 

Part III. A Dialogue with Zen Philosophy

7. Western Views of the Self

 

Arguing against the Self
Arguing for the Self
Transcending the Self
Concluding Remarks

 

8. Japanese Views of the Self

 

Suzuki
Nishitani
Concluding Remarks

 

9. Some Western Views of Nothingness

 

Plotinus and Eckhart
Heidegger
Nishitani Interpreter of Plotinus, Eckhart, and Heidegger
Concluding Remarks

 

10. Japanese Views of Nothingness

 

Nishitani's Approach to Nihilism
Nishitani's Characterization of "Absolute Nothingness"
Hisamatsu's Characterization of "Oriental Nothingness"
Concluding Remarks

 

Conclusion

Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Provides a philosophical account of everyday consciousness as a way of understanding mystical consciousness, drawing on the work of many Western and some Japanese thinkers.

Description

This book offers a philosophical account of ordinary consciousness as a step toward understanding mystical consciousness. Presupposing a living interaction between meditation and thinking, the work draws on Western and Japanese thinkers to develop a philosophy of religion that is friendly to the experience of meditators and that can explore such themes as emptiness, nothingness, and the self. Western thinkers considered include Plotinus, Eckhart, Schleiermacher, Heidegger, Brentano, Husserl, Sartre, and Lonergan; and Japanese thinkers referenced include Nishitani, Hisamatsu, and Suzuki. All employed centering prayer, Zen, or other forms of mental concentration. Particular emphasis is placed on the work of twentieth-century Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan, whose writings on consciousness can inform an understanding of mysticism.

Louis Roy, O. P. is Professor of Theology at Boston College. He is the author of Self-Actualization and the Radical Gospel and Transcendent Experiences: Phenomenology and Critique.