Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T14:52:14.964Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Mysticism without the Mustikos? Some Reflections on Stephen Palmquist’s Mystical Kant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2020

Swami Medhananda (Ayon Maharaj)*
Affiliation:
Program in Philosophy, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, West Bengal, India

Abstract

This article critically examines some of the main arguments of Stephen Palmquist’s Kant and Mysticism. While I agree with Palmquist that Kant admits the possibility of certain indirect forms of mystical experience, I argue that Palmquist makes Kant out to be more of a mystic than he actually was. In particular, I contend that Palmquist fails to provide convincing justification of two of his main claims: (1) that Kant was a mystic or at least had strong mystical tendencies and (2) that some of the experiences that are central to Kant’s philosophy are best understood as mystical experiences.

Type
Author Meets Critic
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Johnson, Gregory (1999) ‘Kant’s Early Metaphysics and the Origins of the Critical Philosophy’. Studia Swedenborgiana, 11 (http://ss.psr.edu/studia/index.asp?article_id=174).Google Scholar
Johnson, Gregory (2001) ‘A Commentary on Kant’s Dreams of a Spirit-Seer’, Ph.D. dissertation, Catholic University of America.Google Scholar
Laywine, Alison (1993) Kant’s Early Metaphysics and the Origins of the Critical Philosophy. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview.Google Scholar
Maharaj, Ayon (2017) ‘Kant on the Epistemology of Indirect Mystical Experience’. Sophia, 56, 311–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmquist, Stephen (2019) Kant and Mysticism: Critique as the Experience of Baring All in Reason’s Light. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Thorpe, Lucas (2010) ‘The Realm of Ends as a Community of Spirits: Kant and Swedenborg on the Kingdom of Heaven and the Cleansing of the Doors of Perception’, Heythrop Journal, 52, 5275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaihinger, Hans (1892) Commentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, vol. 2. Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft.Google Scholar