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The cognitive science of religion: philosophical observations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2008

LEO NÄREAHO
LEO NÄREAHO
Affiliation:
Department of Systematic Theology, University of Helsinki, PO Box 33 (Aleksanterinkatu 7), 00014 Helsinki, Finland
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Abstract

The cognitive science of religion seeks to find genuine causal explanations for the origin and transmission of religious ideas. In the cognitive approach to religion, so-called intuitive and counter-intuitive concepts figure importantly. In this article it is argued that cognitive scientists of religion should clarify their views about the explanatory and semantic role they give to counter-intuitive concepts and beliefs in their theory. Since the cognitive science of religion is a naturalistic research programme, it is doubtful that its proponents can remain neutral on important ontological questions.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 83 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

1. See Pascal Boyer Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors (London: Vintage, 2002 [2001]), 69–75; Ilkka Pyysiäinen Magic, Miracles and Religion: A Scientist's Perspective, Cognitive Science of Religion Series (Walnut Creek CA: AltaMira Press, 2004), 42–43.

2. Boyer Religion Explained, 109–115.

3. Pyysiäinen Magic, Miracles and Religion, 41.

4. Boyer Religion Explained, 115–134.

5. Scott Atran ‘Modes of thinking about living kinds: science, symbolism, and common sense’, in David R. Olson and Nancy Torrance (eds) Modes of Thought: Explorations in Culture and Cognition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 220–222.

6. Jerry Fodor The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology, Representation and Mind (Cambridge MA & London: MIT Press), 64. In his book Fodor criticizes (ch. 4) the idea of massive modularity; he considers it philosophically incoherent and empirically implausible. For instance, if there are modules related to social interaction in the mind, there also has to be a system that has already recognized the situation as social prior to the activation of the modules. But this requires thinking which brings inductive and abductive (inference to the best explanation) reasoning with it. This requirement is a problem for the classical computationalism that is module-based and not sensitive to a system's global features.

7. See e.g., Ilkka Pyysiäinen How Religion Works: Towards a New Cognitive Science of Religion, Cognition and Culture Book Series (Leiden, Boston MA, & Cologne: Brill, 2001), 20.

8. See Boyer Religion Explained, 70–87.

9. E.g. Pyysiäinen Magic, Miracles and Religion, 39.

10. Idem How Religion Works, 227; idem Magic, Miracles and Religion, 46–47.

11. Scott Atran In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, Evolution and Cognition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 107–113; Pyysiäinen Magic, Miracles and Religion, 72–77, 126–129.

12. See Boyer Religion Explained, 146–154.

13. It is plausible to argue, however, that not all states of consciousness are intentional (e.g. pain states do not seem to be ‘about’ anything).

14. See Pyysiäinen Magic, Miracles and Religion, 72.

15. Ibid., 77. On meta-representations in relation to cultural explanations, see also Dan Sperber Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic Approach (London: Blackwell, 1996), 87–92.

16. See, for example, Pascal Boyer The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion (Berkeley CA & London: University of California Press, 1994), viii.

17. Boyer writes (Religion Explained, 191): ‘Such agents [gods] are not really necessary to explain anything, but they are so much easier to represent and so much richer in possible inferences that they enjoy a great advantage in cultural transmission.’

18. Ibid., 173.

19. Ibid., 187. According to Scott Atran (In Gods We Trust, 97), those supernatural concepts that are better than others for cultural transmission and retention in human minds have the following features: (1) they are more attention-arresting; (2) they have greater inferential potential; (3) they cannot be processed completely; and (4) they are more emotionally provocative.

20. Boyer Religion Explained, 230.

21. Ibid., 229–230.

22. Inferential role semantics has been widely accepted in cognitive science as Jerry Fodor notes in his book Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, Oxford Cognitive Science Series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 35.

23. Boyer The Naturalness of Religious Ideas, 91.

24. Pyysiäinen Magic, Miracles and Religion, 88.

25. If a cognitive scientist of religion considers religious counter-intuitive beliefs by default false, what happens if empirical research shows that ghosts and poltergeists are real phenomena? Obviously these phenomena still remain counter-intuitive, but at least they can no longer be explained as illusory by-products of our cognitive structure. It should be remembered that the so-called paranormal phenomena are also being investigated scientifically and it is possible that some of them will turn out to be real. It is rational to keep this alternative open and not exclude it on cognitive-scientific or metaphysical grounds.

26. However, in one place Boyer says that apart from passing the question of the truth-value of religious ontologies he does the same in respect to the ‘spontaneous natural ontologies’ (The Naturalness of Religious Ideas, 91). My point is that, given the observations above, this cannot be a sensible view for a cognitive scientist of religion to take.

27. It is interesting to note that there is no entry for ‘consciousness’ or ‘awareness’ in the indexes of Boyer's Religion Explained and Atran's In Gods We Trust.

28. See, for example, William Seager's critical exposition of these theories in his book Theories of Consciousness: An Introduction and Assessment, Philosophical Issues in Science (London & New York: Routledge, 1999), ch. 3.

29. I am grateful to Peter Byrne and an anonymous reviewer for this journal for helping to improve this essay. A Finnish version of this article has been published in Teologinen Aikakauskirja (Finnish Journal of Theology).