Cognition, Culture and Religion

The Ontogenetic Role of Culture and its Consequences in the Study of Religious Experiences

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20251607
AutoresJames Cresswell (0000-0002-3757-808X, Booth University College), Rodrigo Farías Rivas (0009-0003-4564-9903, Film Independent)
Año2016
Volumen2
Número1
Fecha de publicación2016-02-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaOpen Theology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2300-6579 • E-ISSN: 2300-6579
EditorialWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/opth-2016-0009
OpenAlexW2342418880
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas21

The present paper is both a critical analysis of the reductive problems inherent in an evolutionary approach that surfaces in the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) and an appeal for an enactive turn that can enhance CSR by better accounting for religious experience – i.e. the phenomenologically experienced realities that are entailed in religious belief. First, we discuss CSR and a basic evolutionary presupposition: that religious experience is based on a universal architecture designed by natural selection, which includes the notion of domain-specific processing mechanisms. We then discuss how Cultural Psychologists conceive of the ontogenetic role of culture by arguing that religious cognition does not solely develop out of evolution. As we propose, CSR can be studied with a view to the evolution of cognition that can account for the ontogenetic role of culture and language constituting phenomenologically immediate realities. Finally, we discuss enactivism as an ideal alternative for such a shift. Enactivism conceives the relation between the evolution of cognition and the ontogenetic role of culture as embodied: a non-reductive relation in which cognition and culture shape each other. This approach allows for CSR that acknowledges the fact that religious experiences constitute non-representational but lived experiences

Autopoiesis · Cognition · Cognitive science · Embodied cognition · Enactivism · Epistemology · Presupposition · Sociology · Computer Science · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Study and Philosophy of Religion