How Cognitive Is the Cognitive Science of Religion?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20919Keywords:
cognitive science, religion, cognition, conceptual hygiene, predictive coding, cultural evolution, complex adaptive systemsAbstract
In this commentary on An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion by Claire White, I reflect on how the lack of clarification of a key concept, i.e., cognition, leads to a distorted image of the field. This is because different strands of research can now be represented in a cognitivist context. I also ask to what extent this field is still concerned with research on cognitive mechanisms and constraints and whether the cognitivist paradigm truly represents most of the field. I argue that other theoretical frameworks, such as predictive coding theory, cultural evolution, and complex adaptive systems are recently of importance in the CSR and should be rendered in similar detail as the “standard model” of the CSR framework. I further suggest that some shortcomings in the explicit communication of conceptual definitions may be to blame for theoretical misunderstandings and a feeling of a biased image of the discipline.
References
Allen, C. (2017). On (not) defining cognition. Synthese, 194(11), 4233–4249. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1454-4
Andersen, M. (2019). Predictive coding in agency detection. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(1), 65–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2017.1387170
Barrett, J. L. (2017). Could we advance the science of religion (better) without the concept “religion”? Religion, Brain & Behavior, 7(4), 282–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2016.1249926
Barrett, L. (2018). The evolution of cognition. In A. Newen, L. De Bruin, & S. Gallagher (Eds.). The Oxford handbook of 4E cognition (pp. 718–734). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198735410.013.38
Barsalou, L. W. (2009). Simulation, situated conceptualization, and prediction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 364, 1281–1289. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0319
———. (2011). Integrating Bayesian analysis and mechanistic theories in grounded cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34(4), 191–192. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X11000197
Bayne, T., Brainard, D., Byrne, R. W., Chittka, L., Clayton, N., Heyes, C., Mather, J., Ölveczky, B., Shadlen, M., Suddendorf, T., & Webb, B. (2019). What is cognition? Current Biology, 29(13), R608–R615. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.05.044
Boyer, P. (1994). The naturalness of religious ideas: A cognitive theory of religion. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
———. (2001). Religion explained: The human instincts that fashion gods, spirits and ancestors. New York: Basic Books.
———. (2005). A reductionist model of distinct modes of religious transmission. In H. Whitehouse, & R. N. McCauley (Eds.). Mind and religion: Psychological and cognitive foundations of religiosity (pp. 3–30). Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.
Bulbulia, J. (2004). The cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion. Biology & Philosophy, 19(5), 655–686. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-005-5568-6
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181–204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12000477
———. (2016). Surfing uncertainty: Prediction, action and the embodied mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190217013.001.0001
Friston, K. (2009). The free-energy principle: A rough guide to the brain? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(7), 293–301.
———. (2018). Does predictive coding have a future? Nature Neuroscience, 21(8), 1019–1021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-018-0200-7
Frith, C. (2007). Making up the mind: How the brain creates our mental world. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Geertz, A. W. (2010). Brain, body and culture: A biocultural theory of religion. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 22(4), 304–321. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006810X531094
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X
Hohwy, J. (2013). The predictive mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jensen, J. S. (2009). Religion as the unintended product of brain functions in the “standard cognitive science of religion model”: on Pascal Boyer, Religion explained (2001) and Ilkka Pyysiäinen, How religion works (2003). In M. Stausberg (Ed.). Contemporary theories of religion: A critical companion (pp. 129–155). New York: Routledge.
Kundtová Klocová, E. (2017). Body in ritual space: Communication through embodied practices in religious ritual. Doctoral dissertation, Department of the Study of Religion, Masaryk University, Brno.
Kundtová Klocová, E., & Geertz, A. W. (2019). Ritual and embodied cognition. In R. Uro, J. J. Day, R. E. Demaris, & R. Roitto (Eds.). The Oxford handbook of early Christian ritual (pp. 74–94). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lang, M., & Kundt, R. (2020). Evolutionary, cognitive, and contextual approaches to the study of religious systems. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 32(1), 1–46. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341466
Lieder, F., & Griffiths, T. (2020). Resource-rational analysis: Understanding human cognition as the optimal use of limited computational resources. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43, E1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X1900061X
McCauley, R. N. & Lawson, E. T. (2002). Bringing ritual to mind: Psychological foundations of cultural forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mesoudi, A. (2011). Cultural evolution: How Darwinian theory can explain human culture and synthesize the social sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Newson, L., & Richerson, P. (2014). Religion: The dynamics of cultural adaptations. In F. Watts & L. Turner (Eds.). Cognitive approaches to the evolution of religion (pp. 192–218). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Newson, M., Buhrmester, M., Xygalatas, D., & Whitehouse, H. (2018/2021). Go WILD, not WEIRD. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 6(1–2), 80–106. https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.38413
Powell, R., & Clarke, S. (2012). Religion as an evolutionary byproduct: A critique of the standard model. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 63(3), 457–486. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axr035
Purzycki, B. G., & Willard, A. K. (2016). MCI theory: A critical discussion. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 6(3), 207–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2015.1024915
Richerson, P. J., & Boyd, R. (2005). Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schjødt, U. (2007). Homeostasis and religious behaviour. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 7(3–4), 313–340. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853707X208530
Schjoedt, U., & Geertz, A. W. (2017). The beautiful butterfly: On the history and prospects of the cognitive science of religion. In L. H. Martin & D. Wiebe (Eds.). Religion Explained?: Cognitive Science of Religion After Twenty-five Years (pp. 57–67). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Sosis, R. (2019). The building blocks of religious systems: Approaching religion as a complex adaptive system. In G. Georgiev, J. Smart, C. Flores Martinez, & M. Price (Eds.). Evolution, development and complexity (pp. 421–449). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00075-2_19
———. (2020). Four advantages of a systemic approach to the study of religion. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 42(1), 142–157. https://doi.org/10.1177/0084672420905019
Stainton, R. J. (2006). Contemporary debates in cognitive science. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
van Mulukom, V., & Lang, M. (2021). Religious experiences are interpreted through priors from cultural frameworks supported by imaginative capacity rather than special cognition. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 7(1), 39–53. https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.19803
Van Slyke, J. A. (2011). The cognitive science of religion. London: Ashgate.
White, C. (2021). An introduction to the cognitive science of religion. New York: Routledge.
Wrangham, R. W., & Peterson, D. (1996). Demonic males: Apes and the origins of human violence. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
