Transformative Experience (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Transformative experiences are experiences that radically change the experiencer in both an epistemic and personal way (see Paul 2014). When a person transforms epistemically, they gain knowledge of “what the experience is like” that they could not have had without the experience. For instance, falling in love for the first time—be it with a romantic partner, child, friend, or pet—is the only way to truly know what it’s like to fall in love and allows one to better understand human bonds and relationships. A person might also transform personally, or such that key agential features—like their core preferences, life goals, and way they maneuver through the world—change. For instance, falling in love has a tendency to radically reshape the people and activities one prefers, change one’s major future plans, and alter the way one moves through the world. While these personal transformations might be caused by epistemic ones, they also just could arise alongside the epistemic transformation