{"title":"论哲学的益处和“宗教”紊乱的科学效用","authors":"Jonathan A. Lanman","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987311","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"According to Miller (2003), the field of cognitive science took shape through the combined contributions of scholars in psychology, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. The sub-field of the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), too, has taken shape through the contributions of scholars from a number of disciplines including different branches of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, history, religious studies, philosophy, biology, computer science, and more. Each discipline brings its own set of perspectives, tools, and evidential base to the scientific study of religion. In Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind: What Mental Abnormalities Can Teach Us About Religions, Robert N. McCauley and George Graham (2020) demonstrate the benefits that philosophers bring to our growing field. Their precision and rigor in evaluating arguments, evidence, and metatheoretical assumptions shines through in both their overall goals for the volume and the particular topics they use to illustrate their perspective. The field is better for it. My wish for their monograph, and what I will ask of the authors below, is for them to utilize that precision and rigor a bit more on an issue I still found unclear in the text: does labeling some symptom or disorder as “religious” have any scientific utility in better understanding its causes or effects? InHearing Voices, McCauley and Graham aim to kickstart the systematic interdisciplinary investigation into “forms of religious and theistic cognition that either strongly resemble or are directly associated with cases of mental illness or disorder” by exploring “why religions around the world and throughout human history have hit upon multiple means for engendering experiences with many of the same features as those associated with various mental disorders” (p. 5) and, by doing so, “illustrate how the scientific field of psychopathology can serve as a robust disciplinary aid to the cognitive science of religion” (p. xiii). Throughout the text, they defend an interdisciplinary framework they call “ecumenical naturalism” or EN and a “byproduct” account of the influence of cognitive mechanisms on the religious phenomena discussed. EN, they tell us, entails bringing the “same theories, findings, and research tools to the study of cognition whether it is normal, pathological, or religious” (p.xiv). The framework is ecumenical “in its attention to normal and abnormal forms of human religiosity” and naturalistic “in its commitment to the science of cognition and the study of mental illness” (p. 211). The byproduct theory, as they relate, holds that the cognitive systems at work in religious contexts are “garden variety” cognitive systems and that their existence owes nothing to religion or each other. It also holds that “religious representations tend to evolve in directions that are consonant with the content biases of human minds” (p. 17). With the framework of ecumenical naturalism in place and the byproduct approach described and defended, the authors put them to use in four chapters to examine four areas of entanglement between religion, cognition, and mental illness. Chapter 2 examines the phenomena of hearing voices, while Chapter 3 examines prayer and depression, Chapter 4 examines scrupulosity, ritual, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Chapter 5 examines autism’s impacts on religiosity. In","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"97 1","pages":"437 - 441"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"On the benefits of philosophy and the scientific utility of “religious” disorders\",\"authors\":\"Jonathan A. Lanman\",\"doi\":\"10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987311\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"According to Miller (2003), the field of cognitive science took shape through the combined contributions of scholars in psychology, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. The sub-field of the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), too, has taken shape through the contributions of scholars from a number of disciplines including different branches of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, history, religious studies, philosophy, biology, computer science, and more. Each discipline brings its own set of perspectives, tools, and evidential base to the scientific study of religion. In Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind: What Mental Abnormalities Can Teach Us About Religions, Robert N. McCauley and George Graham (2020) demonstrate the benefits that philosophers bring to our growing field. Their precision and rigor in evaluating arguments, evidence, and metatheoretical assumptions shines through in both their overall goals for the volume and the particular topics they use to illustrate their perspective. The field is better for it. My wish for their monograph, and what I will ask of the authors below, is for them to utilize that precision and rigor a bit more on an issue I still found unclear in the text: does labeling some symptom or disorder as “religious” have any scientific utility in better understanding its causes or effects? InHearing Voices, McCauley and Graham aim to kickstart the systematic interdisciplinary investigation into “forms of religious and theistic cognition that either strongly resemble or are directly associated with cases of mental illness or disorder” by exploring “why religions around the world and throughout human history have hit upon multiple means for engendering experiences with many of the same features as those associated with various mental disorders” (p. 5) and, by doing so, “illustrate how the scientific field of psychopathology can serve as a robust disciplinary aid to the cognitive science of religion” (p. xiii). Throughout the text, they defend an interdisciplinary framework they call “ecumenical naturalism” or EN and a “byproduct” account of the influence of cognitive mechanisms on the religious phenomena discussed. EN, they tell us, entails bringing the “same theories, findings, and research tools to the study of cognition whether it is normal, pathological, or religious” (p.xiv). The framework is ecumenical “in its attention to normal and abnormal forms of human religiosity” and naturalistic “in its commitment to the science of cognition and the study of mental illness” (p. 211). The byproduct theory, as they relate, holds that the cognitive systems at work in religious contexts are “garden variety” cognitive systems and that their existence owes nothing to religion or each other. It also holds that “religious representations tend to evolve in directions that are consonant with the content biases of human minds” (p. 17). With the framework of ecumenical naturalism in place and the byproduct approach described and defended, the authors put them to use in four chapters to examine four areas of entanglement between religion, cognition, and mental illness. Chapter 2 examines the phenomena of hearing voices, while Chapter 3 examines prayer and depression, Chapter 4 examines scrupulosity, ritual, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Chapter 5 examines autism’s impacts on religiosity. 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引用次数: 0
摘要
Miller(2003)认为,认知科学领域是由心理学、哲学、语言学、人类学、神经科学和人工智能等领域的学者共同贡献形成的。宗教认知科学(CSR)的子领域也通过来自许多学科的学者的贡献而形成,包括心理学、人类学、神经科学、历史、宗教研究、哲学、生物学、计算机科学等不同分支。每个学科都为宗教的科学研究带来了自己的一套观点、工具和证据基础。罗伯特·n·麦考利(Robert N. McCauley)和乔治·格雷厄姆(George Graham)在《听到声音和其他心灵问题:精神异常能教会我们什么关于宗教的东西》(2020)一书中展示了哲学家给我们这个不断发展的领域带来的好处。他们在评估论点,证据和元理论假设的准确性和严谨性在他们的总体目标和他们用来说明他们的观点的特定主题中都得到了体现。这片土地因此变得更好了。我对他们的专著的愿望,以及我对下面作者的要求,是希望他们在一个我在文本中仍然不清楚的问题上更多地利用这种精确性和严谨性:将一些症状或障碍标记为“宗教”是否对更好地理解其原因或影响有任何科学效用?在《幻听》一书中,McCauley和Graham旨在通过探索“为什么世界各地和整个人类历史上的宗教都有多种方式来产生与各种精神障碍相关的许多相同特征的体验”(第5页),从而启动系统的跨学科研究,研究“宗教和有神论认知的形式,要么与精神疾病或障碍非常相似,要么直接相关”。“说明了精神病理学的科学领域如何能够作为宗教认知科学的有力学科援助”(第13页)。在整个文本中,他们捍卫了一个跨学科的框架,他们称之为“基督教自然主义”或EN,以及对所讨论的宗教现象的认知机制影响的“副产品”解释。他们告诉我们,EN需要将“相同的理论、发现和研究工具带到认知研究中,无论它是正常的、病理的还是宗教的”(第14页)。该框架是普世主义的,“在关注人类宗教的正常和不正常形式方面”,而“在致力于认知科学和精神疾病研究方面”是自然主义的(第211页)。副产品理论认为,在宗教环境中起作用的认知系统是“普通的”认知系统,它们的存在与宗教或彼此无关。它还认为,“宗教表现倾向于朝着与人类思想的内容偏见一致的方向发展”(第17页)。随着大同自然主义框架的就位,以及对副产品方法的描述和辩护,作者在四个章节中运用它们来考察宗教、认知和精神疾病之间纠缠的四个领域。第二章研究了幻听现象,第三章研究了祈祷和抑郁,第四章研究了严谨、仪式和强迫症,第五章研究了自闭症对宗教信仰的影响。在
On the benefits of philosophy and the scientific utility of “religious” disorders
According to Miller (2003), the field of cognitive science took shape through the combined contributions of scholars in psychology, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. The sub-field of the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), too, has taken shape through the contributions of scholars from a number of disciplines including different branches of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, history, religious studies, philosophy, biology, computer science, and more. Each discipline brings its own set of perspectives, tools, and evidential base to the scientific study of religion. In Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind: What Mental Abnormalities Can Teach Us About Religions, Robert N. McCauley and George Graham (2020) demonstrate the benefits that philosophers bring to our growing field. Their precision and rigor in evaluating arguments, evidence, and metatheoretical assumptions shines through in both their overall goals for the volume and the particular topics they use to illustrate their perspective. The field is better for it. My wish for their monograph, and what I will ask of the authors below, is for them to utilize that precision and rigor a bit more on an issue I still found unclear in the text: does labeling some symptom or disorder as “religious” have any scientific utility in better understanding its causes or effects? InHearing Voices, McCauley and Graham aim to kickstart the systematic interdisciplinary investigation into “forms of religious and theistic cognition that either strongly resemble or are directly associated with cases of mental illness or disorder” by exploring “why religions around the world and throughout human history have hit upon multiple means for engendering experiences with many of the same features as those associated with various mental disorders” (p. 5) and, by doing so, “illustrate how the scientific field of psychopathology can serve as a robust disciplinary aid to the cognitive science of religion” (p. xiii). Throughout the text, they defend an interdisciplinary framework they call “ecumenical naturalism” or EN and a “byproduct” account of the influence of cognitive mechanisms on the religious phenomena discussed. EN, they tell us, entails bringing the “same theories, findings, and research tools to the study of cognition whether it is normal, pathological, or religious” (p.xiv). The framework is ecumenical “in its attention to normal and abnormal forms of human religiosity” and naturalistic “in its commitment to the science of cognition and the study of mental illness” (p. 211). The byproduct theory, as they relate, holds that the cognitive systems at work in religious contexts are “garden variety” cognitive systems and that their existence owes nothing to religion or each other. It also holds that “religious representations tend to evolve in directions that are consonant with the content biases of human minds” (p. 17). With the framework of ecumenical naturalism in place and the byproduct approach described and defended, the authors put them to use in four chapters to examine four areas of entanglement between religion, cognition, and mental illness. Chapter 2 examines the phenomena of hearing voices, while Chapter 3 examines prayer and depression, Chapter 4 examines scrupulosity, ritual, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Chapter 5 examines autism’s impacts on religiosity. In