How Religion Works: Towards a New Cognitive Science of Religion

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 272 pages
• Published by: Brill Academic Publishers August 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 9004132732
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-9004132733
• Book Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

Product Description
Recent findings in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology provide important insights to the processes which make religious beliefs and behaviors such efficient attractors in and across various cultural settings. The specific salience of religious ideas is based on the fact that they are 'counter-intuitive': they contradict our intuitive expectations of how entities normally behave. Counter-intuitive ideas are only produced by a mind capable of crossing the boundaries that separate such ontological domains as persons, living things, "and solid objects. The evolution of such a mind has only taken place in the human species. How certain kinds of counter-intuitive ideas are selected for a religious use is discussed from varying angles. Cognitive considerations are thus related to the traditions of comparative religion. This publication has also been published in hardback, please click here for details.

Reader Reviews
Pyysiäinen applies the philosophies and theories of thinkers that include Émile Durkhiem, Mircea Eliade, Jerry Fodor, Clifford Geertz and Robert McCauley in this analysis of the cognitive basis of religion. Central themes include religion and culture, religion and society, ritual and emotion, and ethics. Arguing, perhaps controversially, that mechanisms underlying religious thought and behavior are something that can be naturally explained in the same manner as any other cultural and cognitive phenomena, the author examines how cognitive science can shed light on religious phenomena. After defining the ideas and behaviors to be studied, he argues that cognitive theories of the representation of agency and counter- intuitiveness can make sense of the widespread belief in supernatural beings. The theories of religion of Geertz and Durkheim are examined and criticized as arbitrary abstractions. In the end, Pyysiäinen argues that religion should be understood both as a distinct cognitive phenomena and as being related to other phenomena of counter-intuitiveness revealed in empirical studies. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Ch. 1 Introduction: Cognitive Approach to Religion 1 The Category of 'Religion' 1 The Cognitive Approach 5 Ch. 2 God and Transcendence 9 'God' as an Emic Concept 9 Superhuman Beings, Religion and Science 12 Intentional Agents 14 Counter-Intuitiveness of Gods 18 Ch. 3 Religion and Culture 25 Geertz and the Concept of 'Culture' 25 Geertz and Symbolism 33 Geertz on Religion as a Symbolic Cultural System 44 Ch. 4 Religion and the Social 55 On the Sociological Background of Durkheim's Theory of Religion 55 Religion and Society 59 Religion as Symbolic of the Society - A Critique 63 Religion and Society Reconsidered seventy Ch. 5 Religious Belief, Experience, and Ritual 77 Ritual and Emotion 78 What is Emotion? 97 On the Neurophysiology of Emotion 102 Religious Experience, "Mysticism" and Emotions 109 Ch. 6 Religion, "Worldview," and Ethics 143 Religion as "Worldview" 143 An Outline of Ethics as a Field of Study 158 Religious Ethics 173 Ch. 7 Religion and Cognition: Towards a New Science of Religion 197 Domain Specificity 197 Cognitive Modules 199 Intuitive Theories and Cognitive Domains 208 Is Religion a Cognitive Domain? 215 References 237 Index of Names 267 Index of Subjects 270