RELI 189: Seminar in Religion: This Side of Mystery

seminar in religion

THIS SIDE OF MYSTERY

Literature Building 437 Thursday 1:00 - 3:50 pm

Mystery derives from the Greek noun mysteria, “secret rites or doctrines,” which in turn takes its origin from the Greek verb, myein, meaning “to close” or “to shut.” Entering the English language in the fourteenth century, the word mystery has always been associated with deep truths that are inaccessible to the average man or woman; secreted behind a dark veil; accessible, if at all, only after s/he receives a special revelation or initiation.

This class begins the question: What if? What if the hidden cannot be revealed? What if the veil cannot be pulled away? What if that there is no transcendental power abiding, as it were, on the other side of mystery, poised to open our eyes to the full truth? What if mystery always remains mysterious? What if, in short, all we might know of mystery exists on this side of mystery: as an emotional fact and an existential fact without any discursive solution? What if we can never know if there even is an other side? Perhaps nothing is hidden and the “veil” does not veil.

Let us spend ten weeks exploring this, what if? Our collective pursuit will have two parts. In weeks one through five, we will try to come to terms with the cognitive dimensions of mystery. What do you do, intellectually, with a question that has no answer? Here we will investigate categories such as discourse, knowledge, authority, faith, and wisdom. In the second half of the quarter, the class will turn to the emotional and existential encounter with mystery. For a question that has no answer may, nevertheless, have power. Weeks six through ten will treat the expression of that power through categories such as love, compassion, joy, and serenity.

Class Goals

Students who complete this class receive an advanced introduction to “mystery” as a complex problem within the study of religion. They explore connections between mystery and other concepts central to the academic field, such as freedom, authority, faith and wisdom. They also consider how a nuanced understanding of mystery might influence social ideals such as love and compassion. These explorations provide students with an opportunity to develop communication skills, for they are obliged to write essays that exercise their intellectual imaginations as well as to participate actively in class discussions. Moreover, RELI 189 functions as something of a capstone course for the religion program. It is expected that students will bring in, and build upon, concepts and knowledge that they gained in other religion courses.

Contact Professor Cohen

office address: Literature Building 323
office hours: Wednesday 1:00-3:00 + Thursday 12:00-1:00
email: prof.richard.cohen@gmail.com
home page: http://profcohen.net
phone: (858) 534-8691

Formal Requirements

writing assignments

50%

Several writing projects will be assigned throughout the quarter.

various dates

attendance
and class participation

50%

Attendance: You are allowed to miss one class. After that, your attendance grade drops an entire range for every missed class. Miss four classes and you fail the course entirely.

Participation: This class places a premium on student engagement in the classroom. This is not a lecture course; it is not principally concerned with the transmission of information from professor to student. Rather, it is something akin to a lab, albeit a humanities lab. It is an opportunity for us to explore, even experiment with, what it means to be a human being, together. I understand that students have different personalities and skills: some are shy or do not like speaking in front of others. But just as a math professor will not allow you pass his class if you don't do the problem sets -- "I don't like problem sets" is not an excuse -- and just as a chemistry professor will not allow you to pass his class if you don't go to the lab -- "I don't like working in the lab" is not an excuse -- so you cannot succeed in this class unless you actively participate in the weekly discussions on a regular basis.

every class

Required Readings

You are required to purchase five books for this class:

Rob Brezsny, Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia (click to purchase from amazon.com)
Thomas Lewis, et al., A General Theory of Love (click to purchase from amazon.com)
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (click to purchase from amazon.com)
Lewis Hyde, The Gift (click to purchase from amazon.com)
Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (click to purchase from amazon.com)

All other readings will be either posted in PDF format on the class’ web page, or handed out in class the week before they are due.

This is a dynamic syllabus. It will be updated every week.
For this reason, I expect you to check the class website at least once per week for updates vis-a-vis readings and assignments.
And, of course, read the assigned readings and think about them before class.

Further Readings

This is a running list of the sources that I find particularly useful while developing the weekly discussions.

This list does not include books from which I have assigned chapters.

**Starred items are especially recommended.**

Albert A. Anderson, et al., Mythos and Logos (amazon.com)
Harvey B. Aronson, Love and Sympathy in Theravada Buddhism (amazon.com)
John Baer, James C. Kaufman, and Roy F. Baumeister, Are We Free? Psychology and Free Will (amazon.com)
Matthew Bagger, Religious Experience, Justification, and History (amazon.com)
**Matthew Bagger, The Uses of Paradox (amazon.com)**
**Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances (amazon.com)**
Warren S. Brown, Understanding Wisdom (amazon.com)
**Bhadantacariya Buddhaghosa, The Path of Purification (amazon.com)**
Andy Clark, Supersizing the Mind (amazon.com)
Richard S. Cohen, Beyond Enlightenment: Buddhism, Religion, Modernity (amazon.com)
Donald Davidson, Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (amazon.com)
David Eagleman, Sum (amazon.com)
Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling On Happiness (amazon.com)
Ran R. Hassain, et al., The New Unconscious (amazon.com)
**William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (amazon.com)**
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh (amazon.com)
Soren Kierkegaard, Without Authority (amazon.com)
Richard Kradin, The Placebo Response (amazon.com)
Nicholas Maxwell, From Knowledge to Wisdom (amazon.com)
Ken McLeod, Wake Up To Your Life (amazon.com)
Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By (amazon.com)
**Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry (amazon.com)**
Marvin Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook (amazon.com)
Iain Nicolson, Dark Side of the Universe (amazon.com)
Alva Noë, Out of Our Heads (amazon.com)
Donald Pfaff, Brain Arousal and Information Therapy (amazon.com)
William Poundstone, Labyrinths of Reason (amazon.com)
T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe To Each Other (amazon.com)
Regina Schwartz, Transcendence (amazon.com)
Martin E. P. Seligman, Authentic Happiness (amazon.com)
Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind (amazon.com)
Daniel J. Siegel, The Mindful Brain (amazon.com)
Robert J. Sternberg, Wisdom (amazon.com)
**Jeffrey Stout, Flight From Authority (amazon.com)**
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan (amazon.com)
**Daniel M. Wenger, The Illusion of Conscious Will (amazon.com)**
Timothy D. Wilson, Strangers to Ourselves (amazon.com)

Schedule of Topics

mystery || freedom || authority || faith || wisdom
love || compassion || joy || serenity || this side of mystery

Mystery		April 2

Freedom		April 9

Authority		April 16

Faith		April 23

Wisdom		April 30

Love		May 7

Compassion		May 14

Joy

May 21

1. Peter Khoroche, "Ksantivadin," Once the Buddha Was a Monkey: Arya Sura’s Jatakamala (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 193-204. [PDF link]

2. Peter Khoroche, "The Buffalo," Once the Buddha Was a Monkey: Arya Sura’s Jatakamala (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 245-8. [PDF link]

Two more jataka tales. Unlike the previous tales, these do not entail the willful self-sacrifice of the bodhisattva. Rather, in the first case, the bodhisattva is chopped to bits even though he was blameless. In the second story, the bodhisattva kills a monkey who is pestering him, and doesn't feel the slightest bit sad about doing so.

2. Assorted websites on schadenfreude and compersion

wIkipedia entry for schadenfreude [link]
youtube song about schadenfreude [link]
blog entry 1 on compersion [link]
blog entry 2 on compersion [link]
blog entry 3 on compersion [link]

Schadenfreude is the act of taking pleasure in another's misfortunes. Compersion is the act of taking pleasure from another's pleasure. Obviously, in a unit on joy we are more interested in the second. The word "compersion" itself comes from the lexicon of polyamory (a lifestyle that involves open sexual relations among multiple partners). It's odd, if not significant, that the only word in English to express vicarious joy of this sort comes from a counter-cultural sexual philosophy, and thus that our readings will emphasize overcoming sexual jealousy. In class, we are not going to focus on the polyamorous uses/meanings of compersion, but rather on the idea of finding pleasure in the fact that others are enjoying themselves, even when those others have nothing directly to do with you.

3. Soren Kierkegaard, "The Work of Love in Recollecting One Who Is Dead," Works of Love trans. by Howard V Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) pp. 345-58.

Our last reading from Works of Love. Love for the dead is love as sacrifice, for it is love that cannot be reciprocated or repaid. This raises all sorts of interesting issues after the previous week's focus on compassion and gift exchange. What joy is there to be found in a love that, given, does not return?

4. Donald Davidson, "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme," Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47 (1974), pp. 5-20. [PDF link]

This dense essay addresses the idea of conceptual relativity. Davidson is arguing against two positions. Philosophers in the first position hold that there can be incommensurable conceptual schemes, i.e., that person A and person B might see the world in fundamentally different ways, and there is no ultimate standard by which to adjudicate whether person A or person B has the correct view of reality. Philosophers in the second position hold that divergent conceptual schemes can be judged by reference to “uninterpreted” pre-cognitive experience, and thus particular conceptual schemes can identified as “true” or “false.” Davidson disputes the first position, arguing that the idea of the incommensurability of conceptual schemes cannot be logically sustained. He disputes the second position, arguing that there is no way to irrevocably separate experience from knowledge. Instead, Davidson argues that we need to hold to the Principle of Charity, i.e., we have to assume that the people with whom we speak are reasonable and intelligent and intend to communicate something that we should be able to understand even if we do not, in fact, understand what they are saying.

(To be somewhat snide, students assume the Principle of Charity all the time. When a student writes an incoherent paper, knows it is poorly written, and yet turns it in, assuming the professor will understand what he or she means, that is the Principle of Charity. And indeed, some professors are charitable in this way, some are not)

This Principle of Charity can be considered in relation to Kierkegaard's proposition that "love builds up."

5. Louis Cozolino, The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), pp. 229-55. [PDF link]

This

6. Richard S. Cohen , Beyond Enlightenment: Buddhism, Religion, Modernity (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 181-9, 213-15. [PDF link]

The conclusion to my book. Pay attention here to the figure of the icchantika. In a sense, for me this entire course on "this side of mystery" is an attempt to understand how such a figure perceives and participates in the world.

Serenity		May 28

	1. Rick Anthony Furtak, "The Structural Critique," Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp.17-23, 147-49. [PDF link] 2. Rick Anthony Furtak, "The Fundamental Thesis," Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp.24-33, 149-53. [PDF link] 3. Rick Anthony Furtak, "Integrity Without Apathy?,"Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp. 34-8, 153. [PDF link] Having proceded from the emotional highs of "love" through the activity of "compassion" to trauma-inspired "joy," we end up at "serenity." One way to maintain serenity is to avoid passionate attachments and to mindfully squelch emotional responses whenever they occur. These three chapters discuss this option, presenting the views of classical Greek and Roman Stoicism, for which the passions are untrustworthy; the wise person is one who finds serenity beyond passion. Chapters 2 and 3 of Furtak's book present the Stoic thesis. Chapter 4, then, proposes that Stoicism is not the last word on the subject: It is possible to have an integrated and coherent emotional life that involves passions and attachments. By the way, if you want to go further into the subjects we have covered this quarter, I highly recommend you read the whole of this book. 4. Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (New York: Washington Square Press, 1998), pp. 1-9. [PDF link] Did Carlos Castanada find his spot? Can you find yours? What is this "spot"? (To think through this question, you might review the stories of Catherine and Samantha from last week's reading: The Neuroscience of Human Relationships, pp. 237-40, 242-44.) 5. Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Lived, And What I Lived For," Walden (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), pp. 105-29. First Published 1854. [PDF link] Keeping with Castenada's metaphor of place, Henry David Thoreau explains his reason for leaving the town of Concord, Masacheusetts, in order to live in cabin in the woods at Walden Pond. In last week's reading, Louis Cozolino observes, "When we lack the ability to regulate our internal emotional state, we attempt to regulate by 'acting out' or through geographical solutions. When we can't move away physically, we learn to dissociate our reality from consciousness" (p. 230). Would this statement provide the basis for a fair criticism of Thoreau's move to Walden Pond? Why or why not? 6. Annie Dillard, "Heaven and Earth in Jest," Pilgrim At Tinker Creek (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2007), pp. 3-15 . First published 1974. [PDF link] 7. Annie Dillard, "The Present," Pilgrim At Tinker Creek (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2007), pp. 78-104. First published 1974. [PDF link] Like Thoreau, Annie Dillard writes about her time living alone, in the woods, beside a body of water. Think about noises and silences -- not just the buzzes and clicks of nature, but also the monkey-chatter of one's own mind. How does Dillard's relationship to her natural environment differ from that of Thoreau. Which of the two has more to teach us about "serenity"? 8. Mark Whitwell, "The Hridayayogasutra," Yoga of Heart: The Healing Power of Intimate Connection (New York: Lantern Books, 2004), pp. 19-30. [PDF link] 9. Mark Whitwell, "You Are Here Now!," Yoga of Heart: The Healing Power of Intimate Connection (New York: Lantern Books, 2004), pp. 96-7. [PDF link] The Sanskrit word, yoga, can be translated as union or discipline. In this reading, Mark Whitwell describes a discipline that entails becoming intimate with the physical and emotional realities that connect one's own life to the lives of others and of the planet. 10. Rick Anthony Furtak, "Conclusion," Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp. 137-41, 203. [PDF link] Something of a resolution to the questions Furtak broaches in the earlier chapters, as well as the course's final homage to Kierkegaard. 11. Cary Tennis, "Since You Asked," Salon.com June 3, 2008. [click to open] Mr. and Mrs. X inherit $3,000,000. What should they do? Move to Mexico, buy a beach-front property, drink cervezas? No problems, no worries? Or ... ?

This Side of Mystery		June 4