This article critically re-examines the long-standing dominance of constructivism in debates concerning the epistemic reliability of religious experience. It argues that the epistemic reliability of such experiences can be more supported not through a strictly cognitivistic framework, but rather through an embodied approach. By interpreting religious experience from the perspective of embodied cognition, this article offers a possible resolution to the prolonged impasse between religious-experience-based epistemology and constructivism. Moreover, it proposes not merely a compatibility between the two paradigms, but the potential for an integrative framework that moves beyond their traditional opposition.

This article critically examines some of the main arguments of Stephen Palmquist’s Kant and Mysticism. While I agree with Palmquist that Kant admits the possibility of certain indirect forms of mystical experience, I argue that Palmquist makes Kant out to be more of a mystic than he actually was. In particular, I contend that Palmquist fails to provide convincing justification of two of his main claims: (1) that Kant was a mystic or at least had strong mystical tendencies and (2) that some of the experiences that are central to Kant’s philosophy are best understood as mystical experiences.