Abstract
This article clarifies the relationship between spiritual desire and religious practice. I outline a philosophical account of practice, and suggest that desire is one of four cornerstones of the concept of practice. I distinguish three kinds of practice - art practice, skill practice, and spiritual practice - which are differentiated by their structures of desire. I argue that 'spiritual desire' can be understood as an 'infinite desire'', and that spiritual practices offer determinate, embodied, culturally specific ways to express this infinite desire. Within this theoretical framework, I discuss certain salient features of experiences described during my interviews with religious practitioners, showing how these first-person accounts of spiritual desire and religious practice relate to my philosophical analysis.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 429-446 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | RELIGIOUS STUDIES |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 15 Mar 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2019 |