How mysticism goes beyond the limits of reason

How mysticism goes beyond the limits of reason 

An interview with Simon Critchley

In this interview, I sit down with Simon Critchley, Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research in New York, to explore his provocative new book, On Mysticism. Drawing on medieval Christian figures like Julian of Norwich and Marguerite Porete, Critchley argues that ecstatic experience, intense love, and a willingness to be “outside oneself” can offer a counterbalance to the narrowly rational outlook dominant in modern philosophy. Throughout our conversation, he probes the boundaries of faith and reason, discuss the possibility of maintaining mysticism alongside science, and question the role of philosophy itself in shaping our cultural consciousness. What follows is only a short, edited extract from Critchley’s call for more openness, both in our thinking and our collective search for meaning. Link to the full interview.

Simon Critchley: Mysticism is experience in its most intense form, experience in its most intense form. So what mysticism is about, who these mystics were, were people that were able to experience an intensity of aliveness and and love and a sense of being outside themselves, ecstasy. So, the subtitle of the book in in the UK is the experience of ecstasy. That sense of being outside oneself is really what I'm trying to say. That's the core of mystical experience. And we can, we can get there by pushing ourselves out of the way as much as possible.

I see Hamlet as the quintessential philosopher, melancholic, who is the cleverest person we could imagine. And he's sad, he's depressed, and his extraordinary intelligence leads to a melancholy. It leads, in his case, to the extinction of the capacity to love. I see that melancholy, rational, skeptical disposition all over the place in philosophy. And so mysticism poses a significant challenge to that and a different way of opening things up.