Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience

Exploring the first-person narratives of three figures from the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mystical traditions--St. Teresa of Avila, Rabbi Dov Baer, and Rūzbihān Baqlī--Anthony J. Steinbock provides a complete phenomenology of mysticism based in the Abrahamic religious traditions. He relates a broad range of religious experiences, or verticality, to philosophical problems of evidence, selfhood, and otherness. From this philosophical description of vertical experience, Steinbock develops a social and cultural critique in terms of idolatry--as pride, secularism, and fundamentalism--and suggests that contemporary understandings of human experience must come from a fuller, more open view of religious experience.

Author: Anthony J. Steinbock
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 12/22/2009
Pages: 328
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.00w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780253221810

About the Author

Anthony J. Steinbock is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He is author of Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology after Husserl and editor-in-chief of Continental Philosophy Review.