This outstanding textbook provides an expansive overview of the sub-field of the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). White’s summary of the field’s core assumptions affords the opportunity – as does the book as a whole – to reflect on theory and method in the CSR and its implications for the evolutionary study of religion and/or culture more generally. Although White effectively summarizes the core assumptions using the “fractionation” terminology widely adopted in the field, I think the process of deconstructing and reconstructing needs to be more firmly grounded in philosophical work on explanation and multi-level research on meaning-making and appraisal processes. Without that, researchers run the risk of conflating levels of analysis and muddying what can and cannot be claimed at each level. Greater clarity in this regard suggests that “fractionating” religion is a positive step toward a more comprehensive, scientific understanding of the possibilities and limits of cultural diversity rather than a theory of religion.
{"title":"Phenomena, Mechanisms, and Levels of Analysis in the CSR","authors":"Ann Taves","doi":"10.1558/jcsr.20877","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20877","url":null,"abstract":"This outstanding textbook provides an expansive overview of the sub-field of the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). White’s summary of the field’s core assumptions affords the opportunity – as does the book as a whole – to reflect on theory and method in the CSR and its implications for the evolutionary study of religion and/or culture more generally. Although White effectively summarizes the core assumptions using the “fractionation” terminology widely adopted in the field, I think the process of deconstructing and reconstructing needs to be more firmly grounded in philosophical work on explanation and multi-level research on meaning-making and appraisal processes. Without that, researchers run the risk of conflating levels of analysis and muddying what can and cannot be claimed at each level. Greater clarity in this regard suggests that “fractionating” religion is a positive step toward a more comprehensive, scientific understanding of the possibilities and limits of cultural diversity rather than a theory of religion.","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46159066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Research at the intersection of cognitive science and religion can illuminate the cognitive underpinnings of religious thought and behavior, as White (2021) persuasively demonstrates in her comprehensive synthesis of CSR research, but this research can also constrain broader theories of cognition. Here, I examine CSR research relevant to a prominent theory of how we represent minds and bodies: intuitive dualism. This theory, which posits that folk psychology and folk physics are not initially integrated in our representations of intentional agents, makes predictions about god concepts and afterlife beliefs that are not supported by empirical research on these topics. Rather, CSR research suggests that dualism varies by culture and context and must be learned. This case study highlights the reciprocal relation between cognitive science and the study of religion and points to the mutual benefits of their integration.
{"title":"Religion as a Testing Ground for Cognitive Science","authors":"Andrew Shtulman","doi":"10.1558/jcsr.20641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20641","url":null,"abstract":"Research at the intersection of cognitive science and religion can illuminate the cognitive underpinnings of religious thought and behavior, as White (2021) persuasively demonstrates in her comprehensive synthesis of CSR research, but this research can also constrain broader theories of cognition. Here, I examine CSR research relevant to a prominent theory of how we represent minds and bodies: intuitive dualism. This theory, which posits that folk psychology and folk physics are not initially integrated in our representations of intentional agents, makes predictions about god concepts and afterlife beliefs that are not supported by empirical research on these topics. Rather, CSR research suggests that dualism varies by culture and context and must be learned. This case study highlights the reciprocal relation between cognitive science and the study of religion and points to the mutual benefits of their integration.","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44739502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-25DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199646364.001.0001
H. Whitehouse
The ritual animal longs to belong. Rituals are a way of defining the boundaries of social groups and binding their members together. The ritual modes theory set out in this book seeks to unravel the psychology behind these processes, and to explain how ritual behaviour evolved, including how different modes of ritual performance have shaped global history over many millennia. Testing the theory has meant designing experiments run with children in psychology labs and on remote Pacific islands, gathering survey data with armed insurgents in the Middle East and Muslim fundamentalists in Indonesia, monitoring heart rate and stress among football fans in Brazil, and measuring changes in the brain as people observe traditional Chinese rituals in Singapore. The results of all this research point to new ways of addressing cooperation problems: from preventing violent extremism to motivating action on the climate crisis. Although this book is about the role of ritual in the evolution of social complexity, more broadly it models a new approach to the science of the social—an approach that is driven by real-world observation but grounded in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences. More ambitiously still, it shows how cumulative theory building can be used to deliver practical benefits for society at large, perhaps even addressing problems on a global scale by harnessing the formidable cohesive and cooperative capacities of the ritual animal.
{"title":"The Ritual Animal","authors":"H. Whitehouse","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199646364.001.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199646364.001.0001","url":null,"abstract":"The ritual animal longs to belong. Rituals are a way of defining the boundaries of social groups and binding their members together. The ritual modes theory set out in this book seeks to unravel the psychology behind these processes, and to explain how ritual behaviour evolved, including how different modes of ritual performance have shaped global history over many millennia. Testing the theory has meant designing experiments run with children in psychology labs and on remote Pacific islands, gathering survey data with armed insurgents in the Middle East and Muslim fundamentalists in Indonesia, monitoring heart rate and stress among football fans in Brazil, and measuring changes in the brain as people observe traditional Chinese rituals in Singapore. The results of all this research point to new ways of addressing cooperation problems: from preventing violent extremism to motivating action on the climate crisis. Although this book is about the role of ritual in the evolution of social complexity, more broadly it models a new approach to the science of the social—an approach that is driven by real-world observation but grounded in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences. More ambitiously still, it shows how cumulative theory building can be used to deliver practical benefits for society at large, perhaps even addressing problems on a global scale by harnessing the formidable cohesive and cooperative capacities of the ritual animal.","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48687679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the analysis developed in the book, Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind: What Mental Abnormalities Can Teach Us about Religions, by Robert N. McCauley and George Graham. In the book, the authors develop a model of the relationship between religious cognition and cognition associated with mental illness. Their model is based on the longstanding consensus that many classical mystical experiences appear to overlap phenomenologically with pathological states. This article argues that the model presented in the book, while compelling, could be strengthened by extending it to include discussion not only of the cognitive association between religious experiences and mental disorders, but also about how religious cognitions can similarly be associated with mental wellness. Such occurrences are seen, for example, in the positive mental health outcomes that can be associated with the religious/spiritual experiences of mystics, in contrast to the negative outcomes experienced by psychotics.
{"title":"Naturalism, Religion, and Mental Disorders","authors":"Daniel Cohen","doi":"10.1558/jcsr.19935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.19935","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the analysis developed in the book, Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind: What Mental Abnormalities Can Teach Us about Religions, by Robert N. McCauley and George Graham. In the book, the authors develop a model of the relationship between religious cognition and cognition associated with mental illness. Their model is based on the longstanding consensus that many classical mystical experiences appear to overlap phenomenologically with pathological states. This article argues that the model presented in the book, while compelling, could be strengthened by extending it to include discussion not only of the cognitive association between religious experiences and mental disorders, but also about how religious cognitions can similarly be associated with mental wellness. Such occurrences are seen, for example, in the positive mental health outcomes that can be associated with the religious/spiritual experiences of mystics, in contrast to the negative outcomes experienced by psychotics.","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45642838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World, by Clay Routledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 216pp., $29.95, ISBN 9780190629427
{"title":"Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World, by Clay Routledge.","authors":"Siria Kohonen","doi":"10.1558/jcsr.18788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.18788","url":null,"abstract":"Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World, by Clay Routledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 216pp., $29.95, ISBN 9780190629427","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41518549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this commentary I will be exploring a number of implications that McCauley and Graham’s theses about the interrelationship of normal, religious, and mentally disordered cognition have for an interpretative methodology that has been fruitfully utilized by empirically-oriented scholars of religion. I argue that that methodology imposes some important constraints on the type of theorizing McCauley and Graham propose, and that their findings in turn suggest some important modifications to that methodology.
{"title":"Hearing Voices, Interpreting Words","authors":"Mark Q. Gardiner","doi":"10.1558/jcsr.19502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.19502","url":null,"abstract":"In this commentary I will be exploring a number of implications that McCauley and Graham’s theses about the interrelationship of normal, religious, and mentally disordered cognition have for an interpretative methodology that has been fruitfully utilized by empirically-oriented scholars of religion. I argue that that methodology imposes some important constraints on the type of theorizing McCauley and Graham propose, and that their findings in turn suggest some important modifications to that methodology.","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43857400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Attraction of Religion: A New Evolutionary Psychology of Religion, edited by Jason D. Slone and James A. Van Slyke. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. xvi, 252 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1350005280
{"title":"The Attraction of Religion: A New Evolutionary Psychology of Religion, edited by Jason D. Slone and James A. Van Slyke.","authors":"Ismael Apud","doi":"10.1558/jcsr.18776","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.18776","url":null,"abstract":"The Attraction of Religion: A New Evolutionary Psychology of Religion, edited by Jason D. Slone and James A. Van Slyke. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. xvi, 252 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1350005280","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45581852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fine Lines between Mental Disorders and Religious Experiences","authors":"A. Geertz","doi":"10.1558/jcsr.20531","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20531","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48450722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Commentators’ concerns occasion clarifications of positions in Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind. Philosophical naturalism holds that philosophers needlessly handicap their projects if they ignore the sciences. Ecumenical Naturalism maintains that similar forms of cognition and experience associated with religiosity and mental disorders may submit to similar scientific explanations. The by-product theory, which looks to the operations of maturationally natural cognitive capacities to explain religious representations’ forms, offers explanatory leverage with regard to some mental disorders. The fact that examples are mostly American, Christian, and Western need not preclude the accounts’ broader applicability. Explanatory pluralism endorses many explanatory approaches. The aim is only to show how much cognitive considerations can do, not to suggest that they provide comprehensive theories of anything. Other telling proposals will enhance understanding of these matters. The operations of maturationally natural dispositions, regardless of how they are cued, contribute to what humans take to be meaningful.
{"title":"Gods in Disorder","authors":"Robert N. McCauley, G. Graham","doi":"10.1558/jcsr.20513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20513","url":null,"abstract":"Commentators’ concerns occasion clarifications of positions in Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind. Philosophical naturalism holds that philosophers needlessly handicap their projects if they ignore the sciences. Ecumenical Naturalism maintains that similar forms of cognition and experience associated with religiosity and mental disorders may submit to similar scientific explanations. The by-product theory, which looks to the operations of maturationally natural cognitive capacities to explain religious representations’ forms, offers explanatory leverage with regard to some mental disorders. The fact that examples are mostly American, Christian, and Western need not preclude the accounts’ broader applicability. Explanatory pluralism endorses many explanatory approaches. The aim is only to show how much cognitive considerations can do, not to suggest that they provide comprehensive theories of anything. Other telling proposals will enhance understanding of these matters. The operations of maturationally natural dispositions, regardless of how they are cued, contribute to what humans take to be meaningful.","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47444168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind seeks to bring the theories and discoveries of the Cognitive Science of Religion to broader discussions of mental health. In doing so, the authors introduce auditory verbal hallucinations as one example of a supposed continuity between religious experiences and mental disorder. Based on up-to-date research into the phenomenological overlap between the voice-hearing experiences of those with and without a mental health diagnosis and those who report hearing spiritually significant voices, this essay elucidates the complexity of presupposing such continuities. We critique the notion that the cognitive mechanisms implicated in religiosity are inadvertent “by-products” of the mind’s operations and propose, rather, that they are the inevitable outcomes of human meaning-making.
{"title":"By-Products or By Design? Considering Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind","authors":"Adam J. Powell, C. Cook","doi":"10.1558/jcsr.20092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20092","url":null,"abstract":"Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind seeks to bring the theories and discoveries of the Cognitive Science of Religion to broader discussions of mental health. In doing so, the authors introduce auditory verbal hallucinations as one example of a supposed continuity between religious experiences and mental disorder. Based on up-to-date research into the phenomenological overlap between the voice-hearing experiences of those with and without a mental health diagnosis and those who report hearing spiritually significant voices, this essay elucidates the complexity of presupposing such continuities. We critique the notion that the cognitive mechanisms implicated in religiosity are inadvertent “by-products” of the mind’s operations and propose, rather, that they are the inevitable outcomes of human meaning-making.","PeriodicalId":29718,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41876681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：