Reduction, integrated theory, and the study of religion

Bibliographic Data

ID4371980
AuthorsBenson Saler (Brandeis University, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume39
Issue4
Pages348-351
Publication date2009-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-721X • E-ISSN: 1096-1151
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1016/j.religion.2009.08.004
OpenAlexW2072608270
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited19

The philosophy of science helps us to sort out and evaluate conflicting claims about reduction. Some persons maintain that reductions can be useful in constructing theories in science. Others hold that, with certain possible exceptions, reductions are likely to prove unproductive as well as inelegant. Such disagreements sometimes turn on differences in the scale or scope of the reductions envisioned. A promising strategy is to subsume considerations of reduction into efforts to find compatibilities among the claims and theoretical constructs of different disciplines. The postulation of compatibilities, advanced under rubrics such as ‘unified theory’, ‘consilience’, and ‘integrated theory’, holds great promise for studies of religion undertaken with reference to the contemporary cognitive and evolutionary sciences. Numbers of such studies view religious phenomena as, in part, expressions of evolved capacities and propensities that are not themselves necessarily religious

Consilience · Epistemology · Reduction (mathematics) · Rubric · Scale (ratio) · Scope (computer science) · Sociology · sort · Computer Science · Mathematics · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Study and Philosophy of Religion

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