Egocentricity and Mysticism

An Anthropological Study

Ernst Tugendhat author Mario Wenning translator Alexei Procyshyn translator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Columbia University Press

Published:28th Oct '16

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Egocentricity and Mysticism cover

In Egocentricity and Mysticism, Ernst Tugendhat casts mysticism as an innate facet of what it means to be human-a response to an existential need for peace of mind. This need is created by our discursive practices, which serve to differentiate us from one another and privilege our respective first-person standpoints. Emphasizing the first person fuels a desire for mysticism, which builds knowledge of what binds us together and connects us to the world. Any intellectual pursuit that prompts us to "step back" from our egocentric concerns harbors a mystic kernel that manifests as a sense of awe, wonder, and gratitude. Philosophy, the natural sciences, and mathematics all engender forms of mystical experience as profound as any produced by meditation and asceticism. One of the most widely discussed books by a German philosopher in decades, Egocentricity and Mysticism is a philosophical milestone that clarifies in groundbreaking ways our relationship to language, social interaction, and mortality.

Ernst Tugendhat's groundbreaking essay in philosophical anthropology explores with analytical lucidity and existential depth our twofold disposition to speak and act in the first person while going beyond egocentricity, relativizing our singular senses of selfhood in 'mystical' apperceptions of what it means to possess agency, to pursue the good, to ponder mortality, to achieve peace of mind, and to be responsible for others and to life itself-in sum, to be human. -- Michael Jackson, author of As Wide as the World is Wise: New Directions in Philosophical Anthropology This is an engaging and thoughtful philosophical reflection that packs much into its relatively short span. It admirably ranges from what is involved in our ability to say 'I,' through what counts as important in our moral lives, to the large and recurrent questions dealing with life and death, mysticism, religion, and wonder at the existence of the world. Its lucid style of philosophizing joins the precision of analysis with a finessed feel for the larger picture. In its own way, it impressively spans the so-called divide between the analytic and continental approaches to philosophical questions. Warmly recommended. -- William Desmond, author of God and the Between Ernst Tugendhat demonstrates how a sense of mysticism, that is, the capacity for 'stepping back,' is not only necessary for a more humane anthropology but also for philosophy's own theoretical practice. -- Santiago Zabala, author of The Remains of Being: Hermeneutic Ontology After Metaphysics Egocentricity and Mysticism is a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary work. In addition to straddling the so-called continental/analytic divide in contemporary philosophy, it also makes significant and original contributions to the fields of philosophical anthropology, existential phenomenology, and theology-not to mention semantics and even ethics as well. -- Martin Woessner, author of Heidegger in America

ISBN: 9780231169127

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

200 pages