Newsletter of Phenomenology

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Disembodied communication and religious experience

the online model

David S. Oderberg

pp. 381-397

The idea of disembodied communication has received widespread discussion in the context of the various kinds of online interaction. Electronic mail is probably the purest form of text-based communication where interlocutors are present in mind rather than body. I argue that this online model provides a way of understanding and defending the possibility of a certain kind of public religious experience, contra the many critics of the very coherence of genuine religious experience. I introduce the concept of "telic possibility", a specific kind of modality, applying it to e-mail. I argue that we can reasonably move from the telic possibility of disembodied communication in mundane e-mail exchanges to the epistemic possibility of communication from a divine being in cases where the content of the messages is sufficiently extraordinary.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/s13347-011-0051-6

Full citation:

Oderberg, D. S. (2012). Disembodied communication and religious experience: the online model. Philosophy & Technology 25 (3), pp. 381-397.

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