Murray on mystical states

Murry has a paper called "Mystical claims and embodied knowledge in a post-metaphysical age," apparently presented at the '13 ITC conference. He is critical of the metaphysical claims and language used by kennilinguists. And that such claims and language do not take account of the indeterministic factors he discusses. And he states that "in the postmetaphysical milieu we can no longer allow for the possibility of direct contact with 'reality' or 'true knowledge' by some privileged few" (18).


Yet we must nonetheless allow for the validity of one's feelings and perceptions of mystical states, which may not be amenable to rational or scientific analysis. While he argues for postmetaphysical notions of fallibility of belief on the one hand he seems to want to allow it on the other, with no way to adjudicate false from valid claims. And that is the postmetaphysical project, to indeed judge claims to direct experience of ultimate reality as metaphysical and thereby false. We need better ways to discern what exactly these mystical experiences are as yes, fallible best guesses for now open to revision. But they are better guesses than the metaphysical claims in a progression of worldview development.

Along that line see the thread on states, whichs attempt such a postmetaphysical recontexualization that honors the experiences but not the metaphysical interpretations. Also my thread on states and stages is another such attempt.