Literatuur paper “Christian Incubation and Cognitive Science of Religion: Possibilities and Problems”

Literatuur paper “Christian Incubation and Cognitive Science of Religion: Possibilities and Problems” (7 juli 2022, University of Leeds). IMC Congress. Engler and Gardiner 2017 Steven Engler and Mark Quentin Gardiner, ‘A Critical Response to Cognitivist Theories of Religion’, in: Philip F. Esler (ed.), The Early Christian World. Second Edition (Routledge 2017) 237-246. Geertz 2016 Armin W. Geertz, ‘Cognitive Science’, in: Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion (Oxford University Press 2016) 97-111. Larson 2016 Jennifer Larson, Understanding Greek Religion (Routledge 2016) xiii – iv, 379; of religion xiii – v, xviii, 1 – 7, 191, 374 –382; magic and 133 –134; incubation 197-198. Panagiotidou 2014 Olympia Panagiotidou, ‘The Asklepios Cult: Where Brains, Minds, and Bodies Interact With the World, Creating New Realities’, in: Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1.1 (2014) 14-23. Pyysiänen 2017 Ilkka Pyysiänen, ‘Religion and the Brain: Cognitive Science as a Basis for Theories of Religion’, in: Richard King (ed.), Religion, Theory, Critique. Classic and Contemporary Approaches and Methodologies (Columbia University Press 2017) 229-235. Uro 2016 Risto Uro, Ritual and Christian Beginnings. A Socio-Cognitive Analyses (Oxford University Press 2016) ritual studies, Cognitive Science of Religion 1-71; healing 34, 66, 69, 98, 100–101, 111, 113–114, 121–123, 126, 181. Is religion “in the brain”? First, it has been suggested that all mental states reduce to neural activity in the brain, everything else being mere illusion. Another option is to think that mental phenomena are real and that they somehow “emerge from” or “supervene on” physical events in the brain, although it is no easy task to describe the mechanisms by which this apparently mysterious ontological transformation actually takes place. The standard cognitivist (functionalist) argument says that mental states are realized in the brain that supports them, but that mental phenomena could just as well be realized in any other type of material basis. They should therefore be defined by their functional roles, not by the particular type of material basis in question.1 PROBLEM The people who performed incubation rituals are not alive anymore, so we cannot measure their brain activity. + Cognitive science of religion (CSR) sits somewhat uneasily in a section called “religion and the brain.” Most work in the field holds, at least implicitly, that religion is rooted in or constrained by evolved and brain-based cognitive processes, for example, analyzing the “functional origins of religious concepts . . . in evolved minds” and characterizing “religious thought, [culture]2 and behavior as by-products of brain function.” However, there are three distinct claims to be sorted out here. (i) Religion is subject to or constrained by universal cognitive processes; (ii) The relevant constituents, constraints, or precursors of religion are reducible to neurophysiological phenomena, that is, are “hardwired” in the brain, and (iii) these cognitive features emerged through adaptive evolutionary processes. Strictly speaking, CSRs focus on (i); a cognitive theory of religion is not necessarily committed to an evolutionary or brain-based view.3 There are basically six foundational hypotheses in CSR. They are as follows: • Epidemiology of representations (Dan Sperber) • Animism and anthropomorphism (Stewart Guthrie) • Hyperactive Agency Detection Device— HADD (Justin Barrett) • Ritual representations (E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley) • Counterintuitive ideas (Pascal Boyer) • Modes of religiosity (Harvey Whitehouse).4 CSR is rapidly expanding into new areas and developing novel hypotheses, but three theories stand out as having enjoyed considerable attention and having been subjected to extensive discussion, criticism, and further modification in the subsequent literature. These are, in the order in which they have been presented to the scholarly and scientific community, the 1 Ilkka Pyysiänen, ‘Religion and the Brain: Cognitive Science as a Basis for Theories of Religion’, in: Richard King (ed.), Religion, Theory, Critique. Classic and Contemporary Approaches and Methodologies (Columbia University Press 2017) 229. 2 Culture was extra mentioned by Geertz: Armin W. Geertz, ‘Cognitive Science’, in: Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion (Oxford University Press 2016) 99-100. 3 Steven Engler and Mark Quentin Gardiner, ‘A Critical Response to Cognitivist Theories of Religion’, in: Philip F. Esler (ed.), The Early Christian World. Second Edition (Routledge 2017) 237; For the view of Pascal Boyer see Geertz, ‘Cognitive Science’, 98-99. 4 Geertz, ‘Cognitive Science’, 100. Theory of Religious Ritual Competence; the Modes of Religiosity Theory (Whitehouse); and the Theory of Commitment (Costly) Signalling. 5... CONTINUES...