McManis Lecture: "Transformative Religious Experience and Empathy for Future Selves"

The Wheaton College Department of Philosophy presents the first 2019-20 McManis Lecture, “Transformative Religious Experience and Empathy for Future Selves.” The lecture will be given by Dr. L.A. Paul.

Paul writes: “To understand a transformative experience, we often attempt to mentally model or imaginatively project ourselves into the possible future experience, that is, we attempt to imaginatively empathize with our possible future selves. However, actually experiencing these transformative changes can affect our judgments about what these subjective futures will be like (for us and for those around us). I will explore the way that transformative experience can put us in the position of regarding our future selves as epistemically and psychologically alien to our current selves, and how this raises a paradox of empathy. I’ll address related issues involving life-defining decisions, preference change, and the possibility of self-deception, and how fear of alienation and corruption is embedded in skeptical resistance to the possibility of religious transformation. ”

L.A. Paul (Ph.D., Princeton University) is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Yale University. Her main research interests are in metaphysics, cognitive science, and the philosophy of mind. She is the author of Causation: A User’s Guide (with Ned Hall) and Transformative Experience.

This event is free and open to the public and will take place in Blanchard Hall Room 339, located at 501 College Ave. in Wheaton. For more information, contact Amy Park at 630.752.5040 or philosophy@wheaton.edu.