Experiments in Mystical Atheism
Godless Epiphanies from Daoism to Spinoza and Beyond
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Experiments in Mystical Atheism
Godless Epiphanies from Daoism to Spinoza and Beyond
A new approach to the theism-scientism divide rooted in a deeper form of atheism.
Western philosophy is stuck in an irresolvable conflict between two approaches to the spiritual malaise of our times: either we need more God (the “turn to religion”) or less religion (the New Atheism). In this book, Brook Ziporyn proposes an alternative that avoids both totalizing theomania and atomizing reductionism. What we need, he argues, is a deeper, more thoroughgoing, even religious rejection of God: an affirmative atheism without either a creator to provide meaning or finite creatures in need of it—a mystical atheism.
In the legacies of Daoism and Buddhism as well as Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Bataille, Ziporyn discovers a critique of theism that develops into a new, positive sensibility—at once deeply atheist and richly religious. Experiments in Mystical Atheism argues that these “godless epiphanies” hold the key to renewing philosophy today.
Western philosophy is stuck in an irresolvable conflict between two approaches to the spiritual malaise of our times: either we need more God (the “turn to religion”) or less religion (the New Atheism). In this book, Brook Ziporyn proposes an alternative that avoids both totalizing theomania and atomizing reductionism. What we need, he argues, is a deeper, more thoroughgoing, even religious rejection of God: an affirmative atheism without either a creator to provide meaning or finite creatures in need of it—a mystical atheism.
In the legacies of Daoism and Buddhism as well as Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Bataille, Ziporyn discovers a critique of theism that develops into a new, positive sensibility—at once deeply atheist and richly religious. Experiments in Mystical Atheism argues that these “godless epiphanies” hold the key to renewing philosophy today.
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416 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2024
Philosophy: General Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Religion: Comparative Studies and History of Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Theology, and Ethics, South and East Asian Religions
Reviews
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
The Weird Idea
God as Default?
Preaching to the Choir
Let’s Assume a Brain Tumor: Futile Attacks on Monotheistic Faith
Atheism Postmonotheist and Nonmonotheist: Against and after Nancy
Religious Innovation as Backfiring Detheology
Atheism as Uberpiety
Part I: The Sleeping Island
Chapter 1: Purposivity and Consciousness
Noûs as Arché: Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Design versus Infinity: Two Rival Explanations for the Intricacy of Existence
Intelligible Good/s versus Infinite W/hole/s in Plato’s Symposium
The Hypertrophy of Purposive Consciousness: Animism Gone Wild
Chapter 2: Purposivity and Dichotomy
The Purpose-Driven Life? No Thanks!
The Great Asymmetry: Purpose Obstructs Purposelessness, but Purposelessness Enables Purposes
The Great Asymmetry Redux, Mutatis Mutandis: Chaos as Enabler and Encompasser of Order
Daodejing: The Discovery of the Opposite of God
The Moral Hazard of Moral Ideals
Chapter 3: Purposivity and Personhood
What Is a “Person”? Control versus Necessity and the Dichotomization of Oneness and Difference
Rethinking Personhood as Nonultimate
Love contra the Ultimacy of Personhood
God beyond Personhood? No, Not Really
Chapter 4: Purposivity and Finitude
Tool, Control, Purpose, Thinghood: Bataille on God as Failed Religion
Schopenhauer on the Suspension of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: How the Halfway Measure of “God” Obstructs the Absolute (or, Three out of Four Ain’t Bad)
Toward the Synonymity of Conditionality and Unconditionality: Two Alternate Models of Omnipresence, Theistic and Atheistic
Recap and Gameplan
Part II: Varieties of Atheist Beatitude
Chapter 5: Spinoza, or Intoxicating Sobriety
The Theological Proof of God’s Nonexistence
Spinoza in Twelve Steps
The Nonthing, the Only Thing, Everywhere, Eternally
Truth as Adequacy as Moretoitivity
The Big Rethink: Body, Mind, Cause, and Purpose
Not Merely Parts of the Whole: How the Temporary Finite Mode I Am Is Also Eternal and Infinite
Finitude as the Intersection of Two Infinities
Beatific Vision, Spinoza Style
Spinoza and Schopenhauer on the Universal Will as Unreason, Reason, and Both
Chapter 6: Nietzsche, or the Divinely Vicious Circle
Why Nietzsche Thought So Highly of This Wacko Idea
Proof in the Pudding
The Same Life Again Makes No Difference If Truly the Same
The Absolute Affirmation of Anything Is the Affirmation of Absolutely Everything
Chapter 7: Bataille, or Fuckin’ Chaos
Godlessness as Liberation from Both Spirit and Matter and Several Versions of What Remains
Beyond Will to Power as Will to Control: Squandering through the Gordian Knot of Purpose
The Practice of Joy before Death
Conclusion: Meaningfulness Revisited: Styles of Suffering, Sublimity, and Beatific Vision, Theistic and Atheistic
Acknowledgments
Appendixes
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
The Weird Idea
God as Default?
Preaching to the Choir
Let’s Assume a Brain Tumor: Futile Attacks on Monotheistic Faith
Atheism Postmonotheist and Nonmonotheist: Against and after Nancy
Religious Innovation as Backfiring Detheology
Atheism as Uberpiety
Part I: The Sleeping Island
Chapter 1: Purposivity and Consciousness
Noûs as Arché: Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Design versus Infinity: Two Rival Explanations for the Intricacy of Existence
Intelligible Good/s versus Infinite W/hole/s in Plato’s Symposium
The Hypertrophy of Purposive Consciousness: Animism Gone Wild
Chapter 2: Purposivity and Dichotomy
The Purpose-Driven Life? No Thanks!
The Great Asymmetry: Purpose Obstructs Purposelessness, but Purposelessness Enables Purposes
The Great Asymmetry Redux, Mutatis Mutandis: Chaos as Enabler and Encompasser of Order
Daodejing: The Discovery of the Opposite of God
The Moral Hazard of Moral Ideals
Chapter 3: Purposivity and Personhood
What Is a “Person”? Control versus Necessity and the Dichotomization of Oneness and Difference
Rethinking Personhood as Nonultimate
Love contra the Ultimacy of Personhood
God beyond Personhood? No, Not Really
Chapter 4: Purposivity and Finitude
Tool, Control, Purpose, Thinghood: Bataille on God as Failed Religion
Schopenhauer on the Suspension of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: How the Halfway Measure of “God” Obstructs the Absolute (or, Three out of Four Ain’t Bad)
Toward the Synonymity of Conditionality and Unconditionality: Two Alternate Models of Omnipresence, Theistic and Atheistic
Recap and Gameplan
Part II: Varieties of Atheist Beatitude
Chapter 5: Spinoza, or Intoxicating Sobriety
The Theological Proof of God’s Nonexistence
Spinoza in Twelve Steps
The Nonthing, the Only Thing, Everywhere, Eternally
Truth as Adequacy as Moretoitivity
The Big Rethink: Body, Mind, Cause, and Purpose
Not Merely Parts of the Whole: How the Temporary Finite Mode I Am Is Also Eternal and Infinite
Finitude as the Intersection of Two Infinities
Beatific Vision, Spinoza Style
Spinoza and Schopenhauer on the Universal Will as Unreason, Reason, and Both
Chapter 6: Nietzsche, or the Divinely Vicious Circle
Why Nietzsche Thought So Highly of This Wacko Idea
Proof in the Pudding
The Same Life Again Makes No Difference If Truly the Same
The Absolute Affirmation of Anything Is the Affirmation of Absolutely Everything
Chapter 7: Bataille, or Fuckin’ Chaos
Godlessness as Liberation from Both Spirit and Matter and Several Versions of What Remains
Beyond Will to Power as Will to Control: Squandering through the Gordian Knot of Purpose
The Practice of Joy before Death
Conclusion: Meaningfulness Revisited: Styles of Suffering, Sublimity, and Beatific Vision, Theistic and Atheistic
Acknowledgments
Appendixes
Notes
Bibliography
Index