Nathaniel F Barrett
Biographic Data
| ID | 440476 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nathaniel F Barrett |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nathaniel F |
| FAMILY NAME | Barrett |
| SIGNATURE | BARRETT N F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Universidad de Navarra |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5209-8631 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Experience and nature in pragmatism and enactive theory
Enactive theory seems to be reaching a critical juncture in its evolution, as it expands beyond cognitive science to include a project that Shaun Gallagher has called “new naturalism”: a “phenomenologized” reconstruction of nature, directed by a distinctive view of experience that is itself a product of “naturalized phenomenology.” This article aims to contribute to conversations about how to move forward with this project by highlighting importa…
Where does CSR go from here
The Problem of Coordination in Movement and Art
In this paper, I explore the possibility that the creation of art involves a version of the coordination problem that lies at the center of the ecological approach to movement. Both movement and art require finely coordinated adjustments to a large number of interrelated components, and in most cases, the complexity of this task is such that the solution—the specific coordination that is sought—cannot be formulated beforehand. In addition, I prop…
Enjoyment as Enriched Experience
Religious Symbolism and the Experience of Life as Meaningful
This paper explores the question of how religious symbolism functions to provide a more meaningful or enriched experience of life. It examines a common and highly influential view, referred to here as the "source model", for which this function requires the addition to experience of transcendent meanings generated by rituals and other specially adapted kinds of symbolic activity. Using Robert Bellah's Religion in Human Evolution and Clifford Geer…
How does pleasure relate to the rest of experience? A pragmatist response to Glucklich
Ariel Glucklich’s The Joy of Religion (2020) is an innovative work that pushes the cognitive science of religion in a new direction. Specifically, Glucklich tries to show that the functionalist-ada
Defining Religion
Enactivist approaches to the cognitive science of religion
What does the cognitive science of religion (hereafter, CSR) offer to studies of religious embodiment and materiality? The answer to this question depends on how we understand CSR, which in turn de
Belief-centred religious constructs, modern religious self-understanding, and interreligious relations
This article explores questions raised by the scholarly view that modern popular discourse about religion overemphasises the role of belief. It asks how this alleged overemphasis on belief might be investigated, especially with regard to its effects on religious self-understanding and interreligious relations. In an effort to stimulate discussion and empirical inquiry, this article provides an initial definition of ‘belief-centred religious const…
Deacon's negative approach to realism
The task of responding to Terrence Deacon's Incomplete Nature (2012) is a daunting one, as it is the kind of book that requires—and deserves—multiple, careful readings. Only after a second reading
The perception of religious meaning and value
The perception of value is one of the most important dimensions of religious experience, and yet the cognitive science of religion has so far had little to say about it. This neglect may be the result of a widespread assumption that value is constructed, that is, a special quality added to sensory input by the mind. However, such a view not only divorces value from meaning, but it also cannot register the ways in which value is discovered and enr…
Perceptualization and the enjoyment of religious practice
I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the commentators for their willingness to engage a theory that is still very much in the early stages of its development. I have learned enormous
Religion and the evolution of meaning
Foundations of Conduct
Radical embodied cognitive science
What Are the Constraints of Computational Theory? A Reply to Schloss, Barrett, and Murray
Journal Article What Are the Constraints of Computational Theory? A Reply to Schloss, Barrett, and Murray Get access Nathaniel F. Barrett Nathaniel F. Barrett * *Nathaniel F. Barrett, Institute for the Biocultural Study of Religion, 1711 Massachusetts Ave NW #308, Washington, DC 20036, USA. Email: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 78, Is…
Toward an Alternative Evolutionary Theory of Religion
Cognitive science of the last half-century has been dominated by the computational theory of mind and its picture of thought as information processing. Taking this picture for granted, the most prominent evolutionary theories of religion of the last fifteen years have sought to understand human religiosity as the product or by-product of universal information processing mechanisms that were adaptive in our ancestral environment. The rigidity of s…
Toward an Alternative Evolutionary Theory of Religion
Cognitive science of the last half-century has been dominated by the computational theory of mind and its picture of thought as information processing. Taking this picture for granted, the most prominent evolutionary theories of religion of the last fifteen years have sought to understand human religiosity as the product or by-product of universal information processing mechanisms that were adaptive in our ancestral environment. The rigidity of s…
What Are the Constraints of Computational Theory? A Reply to Schloss, Barrett, and Murray
Journal Article What Are the Constraints of Computational Theory? A Reply to Schloss, Barrett, and Murray Get access Nathaniel F. Barrett Nathaniel F. Barrett * *Nathaniel F. Barrett, Institute for the Biocultural Study of Religion, 1711 Massachusetts Ave NW #308, Washington, DC 20036, USA. Email: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 78, Is…
Toward an Alternative Evolutionary Theory of Religion
Cognitive science of the last half-century has been dominated by the computational theory of mind and its picture of thought as information processing. Taking this picture for granted, the most prominent evolutionary theories of religion of the last fifteen years have sought to understand human religiosity as the product or by-product of universal information processing mechanisms that were adaptive in our ancestral environment. The rigidity of s…
Radical embodied cognitive science
Religion and the evolution of meaning
Foundations of Conduct
The perception of religious meaning and value
The perception of value is one of the most important dimensions of religious experience, and yet the cognitive science of religion has so far had little to say about it. This neglect may be the result of a widespread assumption that value is constructed, that is, a special quality added to sensory input by the mind. However, such a view not only divorces value from meaning, but it also cannot register the ways in which value is discovered and enr…
Perceptualization and the enjoyment of religious practice
I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the commentators for their willingness to engage a theory that is still very much in the early stages of its development. I have learned enormous
Deacon's negative approach to realism
The task of responding to Terrence Deacon's Incomplete Nature (2012) is a daunting one, as it is the kind of book that requires—and deserves—multiple, careful readings. Only after a second reading
Belief-centred religious constructs, modern religious self-understanding, and interreligious relations
This article explores questions raised by the scholarly view that modern popular discourse about religion overemphasises the role of belief. It asks how this alleged overemphasis on belief might be investigated, especially with regard to its effects on religious self-understanding and interreligious relations. In an effort to stimulate discussion and empirical inquiry, this article provides an initial definition of ‘belief-centred religious const…
Enactivist approaches to the cognitive science of religion
What does the cognitive science of religion (hereafter, CSR) offer to studies of religious embodiment and materiality? The answer to this question depends on how we understand CSR, which in turn de
Defining Religion
How does pleasure relate to the rest of experience? A pragmatist response to Glucklich
Ariel Glucklich’s The Joy of Religion (2020) is an innovative work that pushes the cognitive science of religion in a new direction. Specifically, Glucklich tries to show that the functionalist-ada
Enjoyment as Enriched Experience
Religious Symbolism and the Experience of Life as Meaningful
This paper explores the question of how religious symbolism functions to provide a more meaningful or enriched experience of life. It examines a common and highly influential view, referred to here as the "source model", for which this function requires the addition to experience of transcendent meanings generated by rituals and other specially adapted kinds of symbolic activity. Using Robert Bellah's Religion in Human Evolution and Clifford Geer…
Where does CSR go from here
The Problem of Coordination in Movement and Art
In this paper, I explore the possibility that the creation of art involves a version of the coordination problem that lies at the center of the ecological approach to movement. Both movement and art require finely coordinated adjustments to a large number of interrelated components, and in most cases, the complexity of this task is such that the solution—the specific coordination that is sought—cannot be formulated beforehand. In addition, I prop…
Experience and nature in pragmatism and enactive theory
Enactive theory seems to be reaching a critical juncture in its evolution, as it expands beyond cognitive science to include a project that Shaun Gallagher has called “new naturalism”: a “phenomenologized” reconstruction of nature, directed by a distinctive view of experience that is itself a product of “naturalized phenomenology.” This article aims to contribute to conversations about how to move forward with this project by highlighting importa…
Epistemology (14 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Cognitive science (4 works) · Embodied and Extended Cognition (4 works)