The linguistic subject and the conscious subject in mysticism studies

Abstract

The current discussion in philosophy of mysticism is heading down two divergent lines. Contextualist studies (notably Steven Katz) employ a linguistic model of the epistemic subject. Critics of contextualism (notably Robert Forman) have offered what this study calls a cognitionalist approach which draws attention to the performance of the conscious subject. The two approaches are combined by some members of the contextualist camp. This study argues that there is an as yet unrecognized complementarity between linguistic and cognitional approaches to mystical philosophy.