Gerhard Richter: Painting after the Subject of History

Abstract

system of interconnected propositional attitudes. Hence to explain the origins of religious beliefs, Levy suggests that they must have emerged from stories. In this view, narrative is the substratum of human consciousness, and indeed predates any individual human mind, hence stories are the primordial soup out of which religious belief emerged. Is this a “cognitive theory of religion” as the subtitle promises? To this reviewer it feels more like a philosophical theory of cognition in which religion tags along for the ride. But perhaps that is the point: anomalous monism can and should be applied to everything. What happens next in the book is hard to describe. Having established that religion is just a kind of story-telling in which primitive information is imbued with communal meanings, Levy is apparently exempted—much like the scientists and humanists he criticizes—from attending to the things we call religion as human beings experience them. Ostensibly, Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are about ancient texts, especially the Hebrew Sefer Yetzirah on Jewish mysticism; modern information technology and the cult of celebrity; and intimacy (sexual and otherwise) as a space of intersubjectivity. The reasons for these choices are more or less opaque to this reader. But even if that opacity is my fault rather than the author’s, which is entirely possible, the content of each chapter is wildly heterogenous and Deleuzian, more akin to a journey through the author’s own mind, bookshelf, and Netflix queue than a series of case studies. Perhaps this is intentional, as it was for Deleuze, a subtle and clever meta-example of anomalous monism. But that does not make it any more clarifying as a “cognitive theory of religion” when long discussions of the films Fight Club and Arrival and Joe Rogan’s podcasts rub elbows with Mount Rushmore, theories of laughter, the Chauvet Cave, the evolutionary origins of life, mixed martial arts, and erotic sculpture, just to name a few. As an exercise in intersubjectivity, its success depends upon the recognition of the reader. So I invite you to read this interesting, unique, and challenging book and decide for yourself.