Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Vol. LlV, No.4, December 1994

Reply to Commentators
WILLIAM P. ALSTON
Syracuse University

Reply to Gale
Both Gale and Pappas argue that I fail to justify the claim that mystical expe-
rience is perceptual. Hence, in Gale's terms, my project "gets derailed before
it leaves the station". However, the two criticisms are rather different. Gale's
is the more radical, since he seeks to show that mystical experience is not
even a candidate for being a source of justification for beliefs about any objec-
tive reality.
His strategy is to lay down two requirements for "perceptual status" and
argue that mystical experience satisfies neither. The first, or "metaphysical"
requirement is that the object of the experience occupy a position in some
dimension "by which it is individuated and within which it is causally hooked
up with different perceivers, thereby explaining how it is possible ... for it to
be the common accusative of different perceptions ... " The requirement is
stated in this unspecific way-"som~ dimension"-because Gale wants to
avoid tying the requirement too closely to sense perception by requiring a
spatio-temporal location of the object. He points out, quite correctly, that
God's individuation is not based on any location (God is everywhere all the
time). Rather it is based on His satisfying certain descriptions.
So what? What is the difficulty? So long as God gets individuated some-
how, that should be sufficient to satisfy any metaphysical demand for a prin-
ciple of individuation. What Gale takes to be a difficulty is that "there is no
way in which we can experientially identify someone as satisfying" the de-
scriptions that allegedly uniquely apply to God. In other words the individuat-
ing features do not provide us with an effective handle for determining when
we are perceiving God rather than something else or nothing at all. Clearly,
though the label 'epistemological' is reserved for the second requirement, it is
an epistemological consideration that provides the rationale for imposing this
"metaphysical" requirement as a condition of "perceptual status". So far as
purely metaphysical considerations are concerned, they would seem to be
satisfied by the provision of an effective way of distinguishing God from all
other beings, whether by descriptions or otherwise.

ALSTON SYMPOSIUM 891

 Gale doesn't tell us why he thinks that we cannot experientially identify
God. In the book I discuss perceptual identification at some length, pointing
out that the identification of objects of sense perception does not typically
involve the sensory presentation of features that uniquely identify the object.
Instead we use background knowledge (belief) to connect what is presented
with what we take the object to be. In recognizing something as your house
it will often be the case that the visual appearance is not unique to your
house. Instead my confidence that it is your house draws on my knowledge or
belief that your house is the only one that looks like. this in the area I take to
be my present location. I suggest that we use analogous background knowl-
edge (belief) to identify God on the basis of relatively sketchy experiential
presentations.
The second requirement, explicitly dubbed "epistemological", concerns the
tests to which an experience must be subject if it is to be "cognitive", "in
that it bestows a prima facie justification upon the objective belief based on
it". These tests include "having the right sort of causal hookup with the ob-
ject", "agreement among perceivers", and "predictive success". Gale fails to
say in any detail why he thinks that susceptibility to such tests is a necessary
condition of being a source of justification for objective beliefs. As he ac-
knowledges, I point out in the book that the practices of mystical belief for-
mation embody socially established tests of particular beliefs, but ·of a differ-
ent sort, suited to the character of this practice as sense-perceptual tests are
suited to that doxastic practice. As I acknowledge, since these tests involve
using the doctrinal system of a particular religious tradition to screen particu-
lar perceptual beliefs, we run into the problem of religious diversity, a (too)
simple statement of which is that we are confronted with the problem of how
to justify using one of these belief systems rather than others as a background
check on perceptual beliefs about God. Gale doesn't go into this, and I won't
either. Chapter 7 of the book is devoted to the problem.
Gale's one pass at saying why he supposes the applicability of the tests
he mentions is required to underwrite "cognitivity" is that they are needed to
render beliefs "verifiable". Unfortunately, he does nothing to indicate the ba-
sis for this claim. I would say that when a person supposes him/herself to
have been experientially aware of God as such-and-such and the claim passes
tests of the sort I mention, that supposition has thereby been "verified". Gale
appears to think that the term 'verify' is semantically, conceptually tied to
tests of his favored sort. But this is surely false. 'Verify' means show to be
true. No further specification of how this is to be done is built into the mean-
ing of the term. People can differ, even radically, as to how certain hypothe-
ses are to be verified without talking past each other by using 'verified' in dif-
ferent senses. Hence when someone claims that beliefs of a certain kind can
only be verified in such-and-such a way, some support for the claim is needed
over and above simply trotting out the term 'verified'.

892 WILLIAM P. ALSTON

 Anticipating a response of this ilk, Gale suggests that if I reject the de-
mand for the sense-perception kind of tests for all perceptual beliefs, then the
claim of a "commonality" across sensory and mystical perception amounts to
"nothing more than that both types of 'perceptions' involve a presentation".
Even if that were the case it would still not be without significance. Gale
takes it to be insignificant on the grounds that what I call 'presentation'
doesn't distinguish (objective) perception from dreams and introspection. For
my answer to that see the reply to Pappas.
Moreover, it is not true that this is the only commonality involved. On
my position, it is also the case that the practices of forming beliefs on the
basis of both sensory and mystical perception involve social established sys-
tems of tests involving, inter alia, background belief systems built up by the
use, inter alia, of the very practice in question. And both practices enjoy what
I call "significant self-support".
More generally, I would like to register a protest against any attempt to
enforce a priori constraints on what we can perceive and on what kinds of ex-
perience enable us to perceive something. It seem clear to me that we learn
both of these by experience. We have learned by experience that we can per-
ceive various features of the physical environment by various kinds of sen-
sory experience. And we have also learned by experience what features we can
and cannot perceive in what ways. We didn't start out with some general
principle to the effect that certain kinds of experience count as perceptions of
X's only if we have tests of Gale's sorts for the putative perceptions in ques-
tion. We learned that those tests are available for certain kinds of perception
that we have learned from experience count as perceptions. I suggest that we
should be equally open to learning from experience what other modes of expe-
rience, if any, enable us to perceive other aspects of reality. The "epistemic
imperialism" (see the Precis) of Gale's argument just gets in the way of this
enterprise.
One final note. Gale says that I aim "to establish that we have epistemic
justification for believing that MPs are reliable in that for the most part their
belief outputs are true ... ". The plural form (MPs) is fatal to this interpreta-
tion. I certainly know better than to think that "we" are justified in believing
that (all or most) MP's are reliable, since there is significant incompatibility
between their outputs. The claim was rather that a practitioner of a form of
MP that is not discredited in ways I specify can be prima facie justified in the
beliefs slhe forms by engaging in that practice.

Reply to Pappas
Pappas does not seek to show that mystical experience cannot be a source of
justification for beliefs about God. He contents himself with arguing that it
can't succeed at this in the way I suppose, viz., by being a mode of percep-

ALSTON SYMPOSIUM 893

tion. He contends that my way of explaining a concept of perception broad
enough to include mystical perception is too broad to be viable, and, more
specifically, he argues that what I take to be claims by people that God was
directly presented to their awareness are not plausibly so viewed. Since my
generic concept of perception is in terms of such presentation, this amounts
to an argument that the kinds of experiences on which I focus are not pre-
sented by their subjects as satisfying my general concept of perception.
This second part of Pappas' argument bothers me more than anything else
in these essays. It is troublesome just because it is so difficult to arrive at a
definitive interpretation of reports of mystical experience. Those who give
such reports are, by common consent, working under the severe disadvantage
of lacking a direct, publicly shared terminology for describing such experi-
ences. In the book I suggest that this is due to our lack of stimulus control
over such experiences, leaving us in no position to establish publicly shared
meanings for terms for features of the experiences. Faced with this situation
the mystic is forced to use analogy, metaphor, and other figurative devices,
and that makes it notoriously difficult to nail down a unique interpretation. In
the present case there is the additional difficulty that our informants are un-
concerned with the question of how their experiences relate to one or another
philosophical theory of perception! Hence when Pappas challenges my sup-
position, with respect to various reports, that they illdicate that the subject
took the experience to involve something that would be correctly described in
my terms as a direct presentation of God to one's awareness (as such-and-
such), I cannot claim to have the knock-down contrary argument I would like
to deploy. What I can do is to examine Pappas' reasons for his rejection of
my readings.
First I need to set aside a red herring, Surprisingly, one of the points Pap-
pas makes against my perceptual interpretation is that some of my infor-
mants make it explicit that the experience involved no sensory content. This
is surprising because in the book I took pains to emphasize that I was con-
centrating on nonsensory experiences of God, though I recognized sensory
ones as well. Hence in disclaiming any sense perception of God, the reporters
are supporting my reading rather than the reverse. To be sure, as indicated
above, Pappas also argues that I have not made out a sufficient case for a
concept of perception that includes such nonsensory awareness of God, but
that belongs to his more general argument, to be discussed below.
More to the present point is Pappas' claim that when St. Teresa, for ex-
ample, speaks of "being somehow conscious of God's presence", this is not
the same as God being presented. I agree with that. I need other support for
my reading. He also argues that my report (5) only speaks of love's being
presented and not of something or someone expressing love being presented.
It is at most the effect that is presented, not the agent responsible for that ef-

894 WILLIAM P. ALSTON

fect. l He sums up this line of criticism by saying "I do not think we have
been shown that the subjects have God presented to their consciousnesses in a
way analogous to what occurs in ordinary perception". Well, there are cer-
tainly are large differences. When I sensorily perceive another person express-
ing love to me I perceive the person in many ways that are different from, and
independent of, the exhibition of loving behavior. In the case of God this
may not be so. Of course, where God is, as I would say, perceived as loving,
there may be other modes of divine appearance as well, as in my case (1)
where the person says: "I felt the presence of God ... as if his goodness and his
power were penetrating me altogether". Even here Pappas will, presumably,
doubt that the subject experienced God as "presenting Himself' to him, but
that at most only the two attributes-love and power-were thus presented.
And in other cases the love that the subject feels coursing though him may
be the only phenomenal content he takes to indicate the presence of God to
him. Why should we say in any of these cases that the person takes God to
be presented to him as loving, rather than just feeling love coming into him
from some outside source?
We should not ignore the fact that the informants in question regularly
speak of God as what they are aware of, as being present to them, and so on.
But to this Pappas replies that there is no reason for him to think that this
was (taken to be) a perceptual awareness rather than one of some other kind.
Another difficulty in discussing this issue is that my examples were per-
force fragmentary. In almost all cases I took a small selection from a much
larger passage in order, as I supposed, to illustrate a certain point. I could
have used larger selections by using fewer, but I sought to convey as much of
the variety in mystical experience as possible. Without being able to docu-
ment the claim here, I am convinced that embedding my snippets in their
original context would make it much clearer that the subjects are thinking of
their experiences in ways that are naturally expressed by the language of per-
ceptual presentation of God to the subject But just sticking to what we have
in the book, I will make the following points.
(A) The fact that my subjects frequently use perceptual verbs like 'see' and
'feel' while denying any sensory content, indicates to me that they take the
experience to be perception-like though non-sensory.
(B) As to whether they think that God is perceptually presented, (1) flatly
says "he fell under no one of my senses, yet my consciousness perceived
him". (4), whom Pappas does not discuss in any detail, introduces the third of
,
In this connection Pappas also says that (4) speaks of feeling great joy but not of be -
ing presented with the cause of that joy. But (4) is presented as an example of someone
who explicitly distinguishes a perceptual presentation of God from other ways of, as
we might say, being experientially connected with God. The reference to feeling joy is
taken from the first of Angela's three ways, which is contrasted with the direct percep-
tual presentation of God (the third way).

ALSTON SYMPOSIUM 895

her three ways of experiencing God (the one involving a perceptual presenta-
tion of God) as follows. "And beyond this the soul receives the gift of seeing
God. God says to her, 'Behold Me!' and the soul sees Him dwelling within
her. She sees Him more clearly than one man sees another". (Angela goes on
to make explicit that this "seeing" is with "the eyes of the soul".)
(C) (1), (3), and (4) explicitly report God's "speaking" to them or other-
wise communicating with them. And this would seem to presuppose some
kind of awareness of God (of the general sort they are assuming, which I take
to be perception-like) as the other party in the communication. Here again
Pappas suggests that all that is presented is an effect of God's action rather
than God's acting. We might be driven to such a position in the end, but this
is clearly not the way in which (at least most of) my informants think of it.
(D) Finally the discussion in the book of "spiritual sensations", phenom-
enal qualia of mystical experience conceptualized by analogy with the qualia
of different senses, indicates that at least those who use this terminology
think of the experiences in question as perception-like.
I now turn to Pappas' objections to my wide sense of 'perception' that
(possibly) extends beyond sense perception. He, wisely, does not contend that
there can be no nonsensory perception. Instead he argues that my account of
perception in terms of presentation is too wide-that it includes, e.g., object
or event memory, especially "flashbulb memory". I must plead guilty to this
charge. I did not say enough in the book about the concept of presentation
involved to exclude these cases. Let me remedy that. The kind of presentation
I take to constitute perceptual consciousness comes to the subject, first, with
the "impression" that it is something external, something not part of the sub-
ject's mind or consciousness, that is being presented. This suffices to exclude
introspection. Secondly, in perception--the object is presented as present, both
in the sense of being currently in some sort of dynamic relationship to the
subject and as presently existing. This is what excludes memory, even of the
object or event sort. In this connection I should stress that I take presentation
to be necessary and sufficient for perceptual consciousness (experience). I
don't claim it to be sufficient for veridical perception, i.e., for the subject's
making a correct identification of the object perceived. Whenever I have an
experience that is phenomenologically a case of perception, something is pre-
sented to me in the ways just specified. But I could suppose that something
to be a (real) dagger whereas it is only a vivid mental image. What is, on my
account, necessary and sufficient for my seeing a real dagger is that it be what
is presented to me in the specified ways.
Finally, let me point out that even if I were convinced by Pappas that
mystical experience should not be thought of as a kind of perception, I could
still argue in essentially the same way for the epistemological thesis that M-
beliefs are prima facie justified by being based on mystical experience. For,
whether or not my perceptual model is viable, there is a socially established,

896 WILLIAM P. ALSTON

undiscredited, doxastic practice of forming M-beliefs on the basis of mystical
experience.

Reply to Adams
Adams' paper is different from the others in a respect that is most welcome to
me. He is continuing the enterprise of my book, making fresh and insightful
contributions thereto. He highlights aspects of the subject matter that were
neglected in the book, often in ways that I heartily applaud, though some-
times in ways I am forced to take issue with. Whichever way it goes, it elic-
its my hearty endorsement.
Adams favors a more individualistic emphasis in assessing the rationality
of doxastic practices than is found in the book. He is "uneasy about the de-
gree of conservatism" suggested by my stress on the social establishment of
doxastic practices. However, in plumping for more focus on the individual
practitioner Adams argues not from the undesirability of conservatism but
from differences between "religious doxastic practices" (he seems to be ad-
dressing a wider topic than just MP) and SP. Here he makes some valid and
useful points. SP belongs to the "substructure" of our thought, the former to
the "superstructure", along with philosophy and "ethical doxastic practice"
(EP). There is much more disagreement in the upper than in the lower prac-
tices. And the role of this disagreement is different. "When there is a dis-
agreement in SP, we can normally infer that the practice is not working as it
is supposed to in at least one of the contending parties. No such inference
holds in philosophy". Moreover, anyone who cannot argue for a controversial
position in philosophy is incompetent in the practice, whereas one can be
very good at SP without being good at arguing about disagreements. He takes
"religious doxastic practices" to be similar to philosophy and EP in these re-
spects. " ... internal disagreement is a persistent feature of religious life".
I find most of these points to be well taken, and quite illuminating to
boot. I would only cavil at the statement that "a real mastery of a religious
doxastic practice will include an ability to take a stand on disputed issues
within the tradition", at least in application to MP. Here the analogy with SP
seems to me to carry the day. One could have thoroughly mastered the prac-
tice of perceiving God and forming beliefs about God on that basis without
having any skill at theological disputation. But, as Adams anticipates, even
where I agree with his distinctions I do not always go along with him on the
implications he draws from them for the epistemology of the practices. Al-
though he agrees that too frequent inconsistencies within the belief system of
a single person is "a crushing objection to the practice", "it is harder to say
how far frequent, persistent interpersonal disagreements within a doxastic
practice should be regarded as a powerful overrider of the prima facie rational-
ity of the practice ... ". In support of the view that it does not constitute such

ALSTON SYMPOSIUM 897

an overrider, he recurs to the point that "in some important doxastic practices
[such as philosophy) ... people can show themselves exemplary practitioners
in disagreeing with each other". But if the reliability of a doxastic practice is
one factor that bears on the rationality of engaging in it, as seems obvious,
then the fact that philosophical belief formation cannot reasonably be claimed
to be highly reliable (given the persistent disagreement in philosophical be-
liefs of different people) must be taken to count against the rationality of en-
gaging in it. If that engagement is rational, it must be in spite of the exten-
sive interpersonal disagreements.
In support of his position on this issue, Adams says that with respect to
an area like philosophy or ethics or religion, though one does rely on the
practice, " ... 1 will tell more of the truth if I say that I rely on myself as a
practitioner ... ". There is wisdom in this. To be sure, one must tread carefully
in making this distinction. When we are speaking generally about doxastic
practices, we must recognize, as Adams says, that "it is practitioners, not
practices, that form and hold beliefs". Nevertheless, practitioners form and
hold those beliefs in the way they do just because they have internalized the
socially established practice. Both sides are essential and there is no competi-
tion between them. But Adams is not speaking here about practices generally,
as the bit just quoted might suggest. He means to be drawing a distinction
between doxastic practices like SP, and those like religion or philosophy
with respect to which individual differences-in expertise, sensitivity, and au-
thority-are important. Since there is relatively little difference in the mas-
tery of SP (except for exotic branches thereof like wine tasting), we can focus
on the reliability of the practice generally and largely ignore the reliability of
individual practitioners. But in philosophy, morals, and religion, there are
great differences in the expertise of the players, as I point out in the book.
Authority rightfully plays a larger role. Nevertheless, it does not follow that
the reliability of the practice generally has no bearing at all on the rationality
of engaging in it, as Adams acknowledges. The discussion comes down to
questions of the relative weight to be given to global and individualized con-
siderations.
In connection with his stress on the individual subject, Adams assigns a
considerable epistemic value to such factors as whether something "feels
right" or "seems true or plausible" to the individual. But it happens too often
that something that "feels right" or "seems plausible" turns out to be false,
and this should give us pause before taking such factors to be a strong indica-
tion of truth. In the absence of any way of quantifying degrees of strength
here there is no' clear cut opposition between Adams and myself on this
point.
Reading Adams' insightful delineation of differences between SP, on the
one hand, and interpersonal, ethical, philosophical, and religious doxastic
practices on the other led me to realize that I should have cited, e.g., philoso-

898 WILLIAM P. ALSTON

phy as an illustration of the way in which a relatively low reliability is com-
patible with rational engagement in the practice. Few philosophers, at any
rate, would deny that it is rational for one to engage in the enterprise of mak-
ing the best judgments we can on philosophical issues. This is not quite the
moral that Adams draws from his discussion, but it is something I learned
from it.
In his final section on religious diversity Adams again makes insightful
comments about which I will want to think further. I take the main contribu-
tion of this section to be found in his discussion of the relation between the-
ology and high level religious doctrines, on the one hand, and mystical per-
ception on the other. He holds that MP can make only a limited contribution
to the justification of any doctrinal system, since perceptual beliefs about
God are neutral, to a considerable extent, with respect to competing theologi-
cal positions and competing ways of understanding doctrines. This seems to
me partly right and partly wrong. In the book I tried to emphasize the point
that although there is, in principle, no limit to what one can learn about God
from perceiving Him, in practice mystical perception mostly yields informa-
tion only about certain of God's attributes and about what God is doing
(including "saying") vis-a-vis oneself at the moment. In general, what we
learn from particular perceptions of God is compatible with a wide variety of
theological and doctrinal options. I have no aspiration to be a 20th century
Schliermacher, spinning the whole of Christian doctrine out of my own expe-
rience. But I also stressed the fact that a socially organized practice of forming
perceptual beliefs about God like CMP contains a system of background doc-
trines by reference to which particular perceptual beliefs can be tested for ac-
ceptability. Because of this entanglement of the organized practice with a sys-
tem of doctrine I cannot regard the two ~s being as independent of each other
as Adams seems to suggest. In particular, this point would seem to block
Adams' suggestion that since "affirming the reliability of the doxastic prac-
tice will ... not carry with it the acceptance of any well worked out theology",
"this makes it easier. .. to ascribe reliability to the ordinary doxastic practices
of a religion different from one's own". If forms of MP and other religious
doxastic practices presuppose a background system of belief and doctrine
(though perhaps not a "well worked out theology") one can hardly acknowl-
edge the reliability of the former without subscribing to the latter.

ALSTON SYMPOSIUM 899