Is there something like a logical core, an essence of the spiritual perspective? In the history of Western philosophy, the Latin term spiritualitas has three main meanings. 4 First, it has something like a judicial and cultural meaning—referring to the totality of spiritualia, which are the opposite of temporal institu- tions, or temporalia; spiritualia, accordingly, are clerical offices, the administration of the sacraments, jurisdiction, places of worship and cult objects, ordained persons such as clerics and persons belonging to religious orders. The second meaning is the early concept of reli- gious spirituality, which refers to different aspects of religious life and is the opposite of car- nalitas, or carnality. Third, there is a philosophical meaning of spirituality, which for centu- ries referred to the existence and ways of knowing immaterial beings. Here, the opposites are corporalitas and materialitas. I do not, however, want to delve deeper into history, but rather first want to ask which understanding of spirituality might be shared by many of those
then, involves the desire for a specific kind of knowledge. Spirituality is, at its core, an epistemic stance. Spiritual persons do not want to believe, but to know. Spirituality is clearly aimed at an experience-based form of insight, which is related to inner attention, bodily experience, and the systematic cultivation of certain altered states of consciousness.
Spirituality is an epistemic stance of persons for whom the sought-after form of knowledge is not theoretical. This means that the goal is not truth in the sense of possessing the correct theory, but a certain form of practice, a spiritual practice. To take the example of classical meditative practice, it is a systematic form of inner action, which on second sight turns out to be a certain form of attentive non-action. The sought-after form of knowledge is not propositional, it does not involve true sentences. Be- cause it also does not involve intellectual insight, the sought-after form of insight is not communicable by way of language, but at most can only be hinted at or demonstrated. On the other hand, it always remains clear that spirituality is not merely about therapy or about a sophisticated form of well- ness, but that in a very strong sense, it concerns ethical integ- rity through self-knowledge, a radically existential form of liberation through insight into oneself; and it is also clear that in many traditions, this involves some kind of mental training and practice, an inner form of virtue or self-refinement. At the very beginning, then, there is an aspect of knowledge as well as a normative aspect, and this means that, in a very special sense, taking a spiritual stance on the world involves both insight and ethics. The spiritual stance is an ethics of inner action for the sake of self-knowledge.
– Spirituality and Intelectual Honesty by thomas-metzinger