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Reading the mind of God (without Hebrew lessons): Alston, shared attention, and mystical experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2009

ADAM GREEN
ADAM GREEN*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Dept, Saint Louis University, 3800 Lindell Blvd, St Louis, MO 63108
*
e-mail: greenab@slu.edu
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Abstract

Alston's perceptual account of mystical experience fails to show how it is that the sort of predicates that are used to describe God in these experiences could be derived from perception, even though the ascription of matched predicates in the natural order are not derived in the manner Alston has in mind. In contrast, if one looks to research on shared attention between individuals as mediated by mirror neurons, then one can give a perceptual account of mystical experience which draws a tighter connection between what is reported in mystical reports and the most similar reports in the natural order.

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Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 455 - 470
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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