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Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation
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Book Description
This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of the state of the field of the philosophy of meditation and engages primarily in the philosophical assessment of the merits of meditation practices.
This Handbook unites novel and original scholarship from 28 leading Asian and Western philosophers, scientists, theologians, and other scholars on the philosophical assessment of meditation. It critically assesses the conceptual and empirical validity of meditation, its philosophical implications, its legitimacy as a phenomenological research tool, its potential value as an aid to neuroscience research, its many practical benefits, and, among other considerations, its possibly misleading interpretations, applications, and consequences.
Following the introduction by the editor, the Handbook’s chapters are organized in six parts:
• Meditation and philosophy
• Meditation and epistemology
• Meditation and metaphysics
• Meditation and values
• Meditation and phenomenology
• Meditation in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions
A distinctive, timely, and invaluable reference work, it marks the emergence of a new discipline therein, the philosophy of meditation. The book will be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience in the fields of philosophy, meditation, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, theology, and Asian and Western philosophy. It will serve as the textbook in any philosophy course on meditation, and as secondary reading in courses in philosophy of mind, consciousness, selfhood/personhood, metaphysics, or phenomenology, thereby helping to restore philosophy as a way of life.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Owen Flanagan
Introduction: Is meditation philosophy?
Rick Repetti
PART I: Meditation and philosophy
1 Skeptical doubts about meditation as philosophy
Richard Legum
2 The philosophy of meditation: The spoken Tao
Rick Repetti
3 Meditation and the paradox of self-consciousness
Ben Abelson
4 The relation between meditation and analytic philosophy
Marie Friquegnon
5 Engaging metacognitive practices: On the uses (and possible abuse) of meditation in philosophy
Sonam Kachru
6 Differences and interaction between meditative cultivation and philosophical thought/insight in early and Theravāda Buddhism
Peter Harvey
7 The necessity of meditation in Upaniṣadic turīya and Yogācāra amala vijñana
Charu Thapliyal
PART II: Meditation and epistemology
8 Meditation, nonconceptuality, and the reflexive structure of consciousness
John Spackman
9 The experience of presence: Meditation and the nature of consciousness
Wolfgang Fasching
10 Meditation as cultivating knowledge-how
Christopher W. Gowans
11 How meditation changes the brain: A neurophilosophical and pragmatic account
David R. Vago
12 How a philosophy of meditation can explore the deep connections between mindfulness and contemplative wisdom
John Vervaeke
13 Psychedelics and meditation: A neurophilosophical perspective
Chris Letheby
PART III: Meditation and metaphysics
14 Philosophy without a philosopher: Anātman as a special case of dependent arising
Lou Marinoff
15 Meditative experience and the plasticity of self-experience
Matthew MacKenzie
16 The self: What does mindfulness meditation reveal about it?
Karsten J. Struhl
17 Control, anxiety, and the progressive detachment from the self
Bryce Huebner and Genevieve Hayman
PART IV: Meditation and values
18 Is there a global norm in favor of global attentiveness?
Jake H. Davis
19 Meditation in the context of a naturalized eudaimonic Buddhism
Seth Zuihō Segall
PART V: Meditation and phenomenology
20 The phenomenology of meditation: An Advaita approach
Sthaneshwar Timalsina
21 What is meditation good for?: Reflections on the use of meditation in the study of consciousness
Georges Dreyfus
22 Bare attention, dereification, and meta-awareness in mindfulness: A phenomenological critique
Odysseus Stone and Dan Zahavi
23 Consciousness, content, and cognitive attenuation: A neurophenomenological perspective
Christian Coseru
PART VI: Meditation in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions
24 Prosochê as Stoic mindfulness
Massimo Pigliucci
25 The philosophical presuppositions of Christian meditation: Theo-philosophical anthropology and its corresponding participatory ontology
Joseph Terry
26 The end of man: Philosophical consummation in Jewish meditative tradition
Tomer Persico
Editor(s)
Biography
Rick Repetti is Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York (CUNY), USA, and author of four books, including Buddhism, Meditation, and Free Will (Routledge 2018), and dozens of articles and chapters on meditation and free will. He is an APPA-certified philosophical counselor, podcaster, and 4th-Dan Shotokan blackbelt, and has taught meditation and yoga since the mid-1970s.
Reviews
"Rick Repetti has invited the leading scholars of the philosophy of meditation to reflect on the significance of this practice. Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation is the most extensive and informative collection of articles on this topic in print. This Handbook is the first stop for anyone interested in the philosophical issues raised by meditation practice."
Jay L. Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities, Smith College and the Harvard Divinity School, USA
"Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation is first of its kind. Rick Repetti, a leader in the field, has edited this excellent collection of original articles from experts with diverse perspectives, masterfully arranging them into themes including phenomenology, metaphysics, epistemology, values, and religion, relating each to the central hypothesis that there is a philosophy of meditation."
Miri Albahari, Philosophy, University of Western Australia
"This volume includes important new essays from prominent experts on Buddhist thought and from key contributors to the scholarly conversation about meditation. It contains careful, rigorous work from a variety of perspectives, drawing on relevant research in psychology as well as Asian textual traditions. The book will be valuable to philosophers, psychologists, and scholars of Asian religions. It will also be helpful to anyone looking for insights into what meditation is and what it can do for us, both as seekers of knowledge and as suffering humans."
Charles Goodman, Binghamton University, USA