CFP Religions| Experience and Non-Objects
Olga Louchakova-SchwartzCalls for Papers Experience and Non-Objects: Towards a Phenomenology of Indiscernibility Religions Special Issue https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/CCSF2PW3U0 1 Downloadable flyer https://sophere.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Flyer.pdf Dear Colleagues, For a long time, the objectlessness of religious experience has been treated as grounds for the denial of its existence. Yet, studies in phenomenology show that these forms of experience exist and are characterized by the intuition of the invisible. If such forms of experience are actual, the possibility of objectless perception and corresponding judgment can be extended toward experience in sciences. Specifically, this concerns the unobservable or indiscernible in quantum mechanics or quantum chemistry, as well as, to a lesser degree, the sciences of the brain. In this Special Issue, we discuss relationships between the phenomenology of ordinary object-based everyday experience and interesting, often religious experiences that create a possibility for judgment (knowledge) of the invisible. There are many accounts of the role of such experiences that can be drawn upon by researchers. For example, under the influence of LSD, Carlo Rovelli had an experience that led him to formulate relational quantum mechanics. Another example, the dream experience of Mendeleev, provided insight that led him to develop the Periodical Table of Elements. Einstein was known to let his mind meander into the realm of imagination to crystallize his concepts. The recent Nobel Prize Winner, Anton Zielinger, has stressed the role of imagination in quantum theorizing. True to Husserl’s view of metaphysics as the future task of phenomenology and drawing on both phenomenological and post-phenomenological perspectives, and in dialogue with other contemporary philosophical approaches, this Special Issue will provide a perspective on how (to put it much too briefly) we can imagine the idea of reality containing both objects and non-objects, without reducing one to the other. Finally, we will also discuss how and if the concept of unified reality, which is theistic in origin, participates in the objectless intuitions. Our area of interest is related to the question of if and how the ego can “appresent” non-objects. Disruptions of the everyday during meditation or the religious–spiritual practices of embodied inwardness (e.g., in Tantra, Vedanta, the Prayer of the Heart, or other systems of religious experience) give us repetitive, predictable experiences, but what presents itself in these experiences? And are these intuitions, presentations, or appresentations of the invisible? If there is symmetry between the eidetics of embodied inwardness and quantum concepts, what are conditions for this symmetry? Do the opposing arrows of time, the multidimensionality of space, and other non-ordinary relationships, which manifest in these experiences, genuinely exist? Do such experiences encompass the notion of non-objects? How can they be connected with eidetic intuition of quantum indiscernables (in a Leibnitzian sense)? What are the limits of mereology or logic in these analyses? “In the experience of embodied inwardness, how does the ego choose which aspect of passivity, the objects or non-objects, to bring into awareness? And, ultimately, what is the sphere of validity for the theory of objects in confrontation with the invisible or indiscernible? We seek solutions from phenomenology of consciousness in its different forms: descriptive, eidetic, formal ontological, genetic, transcendental, or, lately, realistic, referring to its mereology, topology, and apophansis, as well as its provinces of meaning, insofar as they contribute to our conceptual picture of the world. Prof. Dr. Olga Louchakova-Schwartz email: [email protected] Prof. Dr. Michael D. Barber email: [email protected] Guest Editors 1 For members of SoPheRE, publication fees will be waived