ARC number: 5
(Technical Id number: 6)
| Author(s): | Levy, Gabriel |
| Title: | Religious Cognition: Between Integrated Physiology and Network |
| Category: | published article |
| Length (pages): | 16 |
| Keywords: | religion; Davidson; Boyer; Sperber; triangulation; networks |
| | | Abstract: | Recent scholarship in the cognitive science of religion
would have us believe that we are somewhere close to a cognitive
explanation of religion. I argue that it will take us a step even
closer if we give up on the project of reductive psychology. Recent
cognitive approaches to religion are excessively psychological,
focusing primarily on the brains of individual subjects. Since the
brain develops in the context of non-cognitive physiological and
network processes, and concepts and actions in the world depend on
non-cognitive physiological and network processes, we can say that
these processes are just as important to understanding religion as
those processes that take place in individual heads. I thus argue that
any bottom-up approach must look to the field of integrated
physiology, while any top-down approach must look to pragmatism. An
individuals cognitive capacity for religion may only be understood in
relation to the physiological systems, notably the endocrine system,
and in light of a sophisticated network theory. After some
introductory remarks, I describe in detail some of the physiological
constraints on cognition. This domain very loosely corresponds to what
Searle, following John Dewey calls background. I then describe the
notion of triangulation, which corresponds to Searles network and
Deweys environment. The last section lays out some of the
implications of the argument for religion. |
| | | Remarks: | |
| | | Email: | gjl @ umail.ucsb.edu |
| Bibliography: | |
| URL: | http://www.epoche.ucsb.edu/LevyFall05.pdf |
| | | Submitted: | 14/11/2006 09:51:03 (DD / MM / YYYY) | | Published: | 14/11/2006 12:41:40 (DD / MM / YYYY) |
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