Findlay's Rational Mysticism: An Introduction. S. Drob

Download a pdf version of Findlay's Rational Mysticism by S. Drob

 

J.N. Findlay is primarily known for his groundbreaking work on Hegel (Hegel: A Re-examination, 1958), as the translator of Husserl’s Logical Investigations, for his essays on the puzzles engendered by time, and for his early efforts (later repudiated) to disprove the existence of God. He is also the author of a series of original works on major figures in the history of philosophy, including Meinong, Plato, Kant, and Wittgenstein. It is, however, Findlay’s original philosophical writings that may well prove to be his greatest philosophical legacy. Findlay presented his modern version of Neoplatonism, his unique understanding of the objects of religious experience and the Absolute, his axiological ethics, and phenomenology of the “value firmament” in four works, all published between 1961 and 1970: Values and Intentions (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1961); The Discipline of the Cave (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966); The Transcendence of the Cave (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966); and Ascent to the Absolute. (London: George Allen & Unwin 1970). It is most unfortunate that each of these volumes are currently out of print. They are, apart from their philosophical value great poetic works that embody the striving of the human spirit towards, and even beyond, its highest possibilities and ideals.

In this brief, essay I can only touch upon a small segment of Findlay’s thought, his philosophical theology, which reaches its zenith in The Transcendence of the Cave, and which can perhaps best be summarized with one of his own his terms, “rational mysticism”. Findlay, whose Neoplatonism is clearly filtered through his reading of such later philosophers as Kant and Hegel, argued that a dialectical understanding of the philosophical antinomies of earthly life and experience can provide us with an intellectual intuition of “higher worlds” and an all encompassing “absolute” that is in many ways equivalent to the absolute intuited in mystical consciousness, both east and west.

[This essay continues with the following posts.]

Download a pdf version of Findlay's Rational Mysticism by S. Drob

 

J.N. Findlay is primarily known for his groundbreaking work on Hegel (Hegel: A Re-examination, 1958), as the translator of Husserl’s Logical Investigations, for his essays on the puzzles engendered by time, and for his early efforts (later repudiated) to disprove the existence of God. He is also the author of a series of original works on major figures in the history of philosophy, including Meinong, Plato, Kant, and Wittgenstein. It is, however, Findlay’s original philosophical writings that may well prove to be his greatest philosophical legacy. Findlay presented his modern version of Neoplatonism, his unique understanding of the objects of religious experience and the Absolute, his axiological ethics, and phenomenology of the “value firmament” in four works, all published between 1961 and 1970: Values and Intentions (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1961); The Discipline of the Cave (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966); The Transcendence of the Cave (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966); and Ascent to the Absolute. (London: George Allen & Unwin 1970). It is most unfortunate that each of these volumes are currently out of print. They are, apart from their philosophical value great poetic works that embody the striving of the human spirit towards, and even beyond, its highest possibilities and ideals.

In this brief, essay I can only touch upon a small segment of Findlay’s thought, his philosophical theology, which reaches its zenith in The Transcendence of the Cave, and which can perhaps best be summarized with one of his own his terms, “rational mysticism”. Findlay, whose Neoplatonism is clearly filtered through his reading of such later philosophers as Kant and Hegel, argued that a dialectical understanding of the philosophical antinomies of earthly life and experience can provide us with an intellectual intuition of “higher worlds” and an all encompassing “absolute” that is in many ways equivalent to the absolute intuited in mystical consciousness, both east and west.

[This essay continues with the following posts.]