One of the key concepts of the German philosopher Max Scheler (1874-1928) is his concept of spirit. He understands spirit as one of several naturally functioning human mental agencies, such as consciousness, will, memory, etc. That is, he treats the mental agency of spirit in a scientific way and avoids any esoteric or religious connotations that this peculiar term may involve. The nature of human spirit, according to Scheler, is the ability to withstand and deliberately redirect biological imperatives and instinctive drives, up to the point of purposefully throwing away one's own life. The presence of spirit constitutes the essence of the human being that differentiates him qualitatively from all animals. In this article, I argue that it is human spirit that plays the determinative role in causing heroic and self-sacrificial behavior. I also argue that the individual human spirit experiences its inherent development, thus having several rather dissimilar stages and manifestations. I discuss the meaning that the term 'spirit' has in the English and the American philosophical and psychological traditions and the meaning of the corresponding term 'der Geist' in the German traditions. The specific English-language understanding of the term 'spirit', compared to its German counterpart 'der Geist', namely, less scientific and more religious and esoteric and metaphorical for the former, makes it alien and almost unusable in the English and American traditions. The linguistic difference leads to the misunderstanding of some very important ideas brought by the concept of spirit as introduced by Scheler. My purpose is to overcome this discrepancy and omission and to introduce the notion and the concept of spirit, in their scientific understanding, into the arsenal of modern English-language cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy in order to provide for the full explanatory force of the hitherto neglected concept of spirit.
I discuss the ontological nature and heuristic value of psychedelic experience. I argue that psychedelic phenomena may manifest the activity of certain mental formations and brain mechanisms that otherwise remain hidden. Thus, psychedelic phenomena can be heuristic tools and intriguing objects of scientific study. I consider two types of psychedelic phenomena in particular. The first is the moral cleansing that may accompany a psychedelic trip. The second is the appearance of visual and auditory hallucinations. I establish a unified explanatory ground for the phenomena that are commonly viewed as distinct in their genesis. I explain both types of phenomena as products of the amplified imaginative ability of the brain under a substance's influence. I suggest that the activation of imagination causes an increased empathy and thus accentuates moral feelings. I propose the hypothesis that hallucinations are mental objects of a quantum nature. I argue that no ontologically separate reality stands behind psychedelic visions.
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