How is religious experience to be identified, described, analyzed and explained? Is it independent of concepts, beliefs, and practices? How can we account for its authority? Under what conditions might a person identify his or her experience as religious? Wayne Proudfoot shows that concepts, beliefs, and linguistic practices are presupposed by the rules governing this identification of an experience as religious. Some of these characteristics can be understood by attending to the conditions of experience, among which are beliefs about how experience is to be explained.

Preface Introduction

1. EXPRESSION The Priority of the Affective Mode: Schleiermacher's On Religion The Feeling of Absolute Dependence: The Christian Faith Religious Language as Expression Expression and Thought

2. INTERPRETATION The Hermeneutic Tradition The Pragmatic Tradition Understanding and Explanation

3. EMOTION Hume and the Traditional Theory Aristotle on Emotion A Philosophical Critique of the Traditional View A Psychological Critique of the Traditional View A Classic Conversion Experience Attribution of Causes

4. MYSTICISM The Search for a Mystical Core Ineffability Noetic Quality Anomaly and Authority

5. EXPLICATION The "Sense" of James's Varieties Sensible Authority Religious Experience

6. EXPLANATION The Problem Descriptive and Explanatory Reduction Protective Strategies Force Explaining Religious Experience Conclusion Notes References