Out of Sight, Into Mind: The History and Philosophy of Yogic Perception

Most Indian and Tibetan religious traditions have some theory of yogic perception—a profound type of sentience afforded by meditative practice. And most consider it the bedrock of their religious authority, the primary means by which one gains spiritual insight. Disagreements about what yogis perceive abound, however, spanning many philosophical topics, including epistemology, ontology, phenomenology, and language. Out of Sight, Into Mind is a groundbreaking exploration of debates over yogic perception, revealing their contemporary relevance as a catalyst for comparative philosophy. Jed Forman examines intellectual and philosophical developments over a millennium in India and Tibet, offering rich analyses of many previously untranslated texts. He traces divergences and confluences between thinkers within and across traditions, demonstrating that accounts of yogic perception shifted from theories based on vision to ones based on the mind. Drawing on this investigation, Forman calls for broadening philosophical discourse, arguing that subjects like yogic perception have often been deemed “religious” and thus neglected. He contends that these Indian and Tibetan debates hold important lessons for present-day topics such as hermeneutics and exegesis, the relationship between conception and perception, representationalism versus phenomenalism, and the limits of language. Shedding new light on the intellectual history of yogic perception, this book models how a comparative approach can yield novel philosophical insights.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Hindu Traditions and Epistemology 1. Extramission, Remote Seeing, and Intuitions 2. The Epistemology of Authority and Testimony Part II: Indian Buddhism and Phenomenology 3. Pragmatism and Coherentism 4. Omniphenomenology Part III: Tibetan Buddhism and Language 5. Gelug Representationalism 6. Sakya Antirepresentationalism Conclusion Notes References Index

About the Author :
Jed Forman is the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Assistant Professor in Buddhist Studies at Simpson College. With the Yakherds collective of scholars, he is a coauthor of Knowing Illusion: Bringing a Tibetan Debate into Contemporary Discourse (2021).

Review :
An impressive inquiry over the longue durée, Forman’s brilliant work unpacks the vibrant debates around “yogic perception” in ways that greatly advance our understanding of Indo-Tibetan philosophy while offering fresh insights for contemporary thought. Out of Sight, Into Mind truly sets a new standard for comparative philosophy. Jed Forman argues persuasively that accounts of ordinary and yogic perception in Asian texts challenge the common distinction between philosophical and religious ideas. Putting Indian and Tibetan scholars in dialogue with an array of Western epistemologists, he shows that the history of thought about yogic perception is rich in insight into the nature of knowledge. Jed Forman provides a fascinating and lucid account of the development of the notion of yogic perception through the intellectual history of India and Tibet. Readers wanting to understand how Buddhist thought fused epistemology, meditation, and the quest for enlightenment into an interconnected whole will be delighted by this important contribution to a comprehensive vision of the Buddhist philosophical project. In Out of Sight, Into Mind, Jed Forman offers a rich intellectual history of the much contested concept of yogic perception, drawing on an impressively wide range of sources from across the Indian and Tibetan philosophical canons. This is an excellent and conceptually sophisticated take on efforts to establish yogic perception as the instrument best suited to illuminate the complex relation between mind and world, supported by innovative interpretive arguments.