Re-cognizing the Mind in the Anthropology of Religion

Numen ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 545-565
Author(s):  
Paul-François Tremlett
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Anthropology Of Religion ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
Cognitive Approaches ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Natural Fact ◽  
Alternative Theories

AbstractCognitive approaches to religion in religious studies and anthropology are proving increasingly fashionable of late. The focus of this essay is on “cognitivism” in the anthropology of religion, and in particular the writings of E. B. Tylor, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Harvey Whitehouse. I define cognitivism in the anthropology of religion as an approach to religion that appeals to the mind and to processes of cognition as universals from which theories of — and explanations for — religion, can be generated. The essay engages in a detailed analysis of three cognitive theories of religion. Each theory takes the mind to be an enduring and stable foundation upon which an explanation for religion can be erected. Yet the mind — the foundation — is disclosed through each theory as unstable; it actually changes under different kinds of enquiry into religion. I then sketch two possible alternative theories of the mind before concluding by arguing that the cognizing mind might productively be treated not as a given and natural fact but rather as the product of discourse.

Juliana Apostaty mit o Heliosie

Vox Patrum ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 477-498
Author(s):  
Ewa Osek
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Universe

The present paper is a brief study on Julian the Apostate’s religion with the detailed analysis of the so called Helios myth being a part of his speech Against Heraclius (Or. VII), delivered in Constantinople in AD 362. In the chapter one I discuss veracity of the Gregory of Nazianzus’ account in the Contra Julianum (Or. IV-V) on the emperor’s strange Gods and cults. In the chapter two the reconstruction of the Julian’s theological system has been presented and the place of Helios in this hierarchy has been shown. The chapter three consists of the short preface to the Against Heraclius and of the appendix with the Polish translation and commentary on the Julian’s Helios myth. The Emperor’s theosophy, known from his four orations (X-XI and VII-VIII), bears an imprint of the Jamblichean speculation on it. The gods are arranged in the three neo-Platonic hypostases: the One, the Mind, and the Soul, named Zeus, Hecate, and Sarapis. The second and third hypostases contain in themselves the enneads and the triads. The Helios’ position is between the noetic world and the cosmic gods, so he becomes a mediator or a centre of the universe and he is assimilated with Zeus the Highest God as well as with the subordinated gods like Apollo, Dionysus, Sarapis, and Hermes. The King Helios was also the Emperor’s personal God, who saved him from the danger of death in AD 337 and 350. These tragic events are described by Julian in the allegorical fable (Or. VII 22). The question is who was Helios of the Julian’s myth: the noetic God, the Hellenistic Helios, the Persian Mithras, the Chaldean fire, or the Orphic Phanes, what is suggested by the Gregory’s invective. The answer is that the King Helios was all of them. The Helios myth in Or. VII is the best illustration of the extreme syncretism of the Julian’s heliolatry, where the neo-Platonic, Hellenistic, magic, and Persian components are mingled.

scholarly journals Ways of Seeing Christ the Judge: The Iconography of Christ III and its Visual Context

Neophilologus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Jones
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Visual Imagery ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Visual Context ◽  
Notable Feature ◽  
The World ◽  
Dual Perspective ◽  
The Mind

AbstractThis article examines the iconographic programme of the Last Judgement scene depicted in Christ III. A notable feature of the poem’s detailed visual programme is the way in which it provides the audience with a single, panoramic vision that encompasses the divergent perspectives of the blessed and the damned. It is on account of this dual perspective that the poem, through its precise use of language and imagery, presents the audience with a bifocal vision of Christ as King of Kings and Judge of the World, in keeping with the words of Revelation 19:16. A detailed analysis of the poem’s imagery, however, suggests that its portrait of Christ as Judge is not only informed by scripture and exegetical sources, but is also indebted to contemporary visual imagery, particularly the depiction of Christ as Majestas Domini, or Christ in Majesty. As a result, and by approaching the poem’s imagery from an iconological perspective, it is argued that the poet of Christ III had a detailed knowledge of contemporary Christological motifs. Furthermore, a careful analysis of the language used to describe the Judgement scene, and particularly the depiction of Christ as Judge, suggests that the poet intentionally seeks to evoke a range of specific visual images in the mind of his audience in order to amplify the poem’s instructive and penitential aims.

Gods and Corporations: Fifth-Century B. C. E. Athena and the Economic Utility of Extraordinary Agents

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 323-331
Author(s):  
John Rundin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Cognitive Structures ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Theories Of Religion

AbstractGregory D. Alles has suggested that economic theory can be a valuable supplement to cognitive theories of religion. The cult of Athena at Athens supplies evidence to support this suggestion. Athena may have origins in the cognitive structures of the human mind as an extraordinary agent. However, she developed economic functions in fifth-century B. C. E. Athens. The sanctuary of Athena served as a bank that funded Athenian civic endeavours. Athena's sanctuary was able to do this because she was a disembodied agent with functions similar to those of a modern United States corporation, which is also a disembodied agent.

scholarly journals Thomas Aquinas and Hervaeus Natalis on First and Second Intentionality

Topoi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Amerini
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Real Relation ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
The Mind

AbstractThomas Aquinas and Hervaeus Natalis (†1323) share a correlational theory of intentionality. When I cognize a thing, I am in a real relation with the thing cognized and at the same time the thing is in a relation of reason with me. Hervaeus coins the term “intentionality” to designate precisely this relation of reason. First and second intentionality express two stages of this relation. First intentionality refers to the relation that a thing has to the mind, while second intentionality indicates the relation that a thing qua cognized has to the mind. Thus, first intentionality involves direct cognition, while second intentionality reflexive cognition. This theory of intentionality has two purposes: first, to de-psychologize the cognitive process and second, to allow the application of Aristotle’s table of categories to the sphere of the mental. Through his detailed analysis of the relation of intentionality, Hervaeus clarifies some of Thomas’s obscurer points, but at the same time he has to solve a delicate problem of circularity entailed by the notion of intentionality as a relation of reason.

Horace Bushnell among the Metaphysicians

2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 614-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine L. Albanese
Keyword(s):  
Andrew Jackson ◽  
Horace Bushnell ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind

On December 15, 1851, Andrew Jackson Davis—self-styled Harmonial philosopher and noted scion of the spiritualist world—sent a public letter. Addressed through the Hartford Times to the controversial Congregationalist minister Horace Bushnell, the message concerned the first of a series of lectures Bushnell was delivering at his North Church. Davis, who at the time claimed Hartford, Connecticut, as his base, was clearly excited. The announced topic—“On the Naturalistic Theories of Religion as Opposed to Supernatural Revelation”—already gave Davis “much pleasure,” suggesting a position “entirely unlike any other ever assumed by the clergy of Christendom.” More than that, Bushnell's way of approaching the subject and defining his position was “considerably unlike the method pursued by most clergymen,” since Bushnell relied on his own “reason or judgment” to address “the corresponding faculty in the mind of the hearer.” Davis went on to propose that, with so important an issue, better to move the lectures from Bushnell's North Church pulpit to a different location and to invite “all parties interested” to “analyze and examine before the same audience the various positions.”

Rethinking Cultural Evolutionary Psychology

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 477-492
Author(s):  
Ryan Nichols ◽  
Henrike Moll ◽  
Jacob L. Mackey
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Alternative Theories

AbstractThis essay discusses Cecilia Heyes’ groundbreaking new book Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking. Heyes’ point of departure is the claim that current theories of cultural evolution fail adequately to make a place for the mind. Heyes articulates a cognitive psychology of cultural evolution by explaining how eponymous “cognitive gadgets,” such as imitation, mindreading and language, mental technologies, are “tuned” and “assembled” through social interaction and cultural learning. After recapitulating her explanations for the cultural and psychological origins of these gadgets, we turn to criticisms. Among those, we find Heyes’ use of evolutionary theory confusing on several points of importance; alternative theories of cultural evolution, especially those of the Tomasello group and of Boyd, Richerson and Henrich, are misrepresented; the book neglects joint attention and other forms of intersubjectivity in its explanation of the origins of cognitive gadgets; and, whereas Heyes accuses other theories of being “mindblind,” we find her theory ironically other-blind and autistic in character.

scholarly journals Religious Studies as Neoliberal “Triple Mediation”: Toward a Deconstruction of Its “Colonial Difference”

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 238
Author(s):  
Carl Raschke
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
Western Scholarship ◽  
Anglophone World ◽  
Academic Study

This article makes the case, citing the work of David Chidester, Achille Mbembe, Tomoko Masuzawa, and Walter Mignolo, that the academic study of religion (often known as “religious studies” in the Anglophone world, Religionswissenschften or sciences religieuses in Continental Europe) remains both historically, and to a large extent contemporaneously, a “colonial” discipline derived from what Michel Foucault termed the structures of “power/knowledge,” imposed on the cognitive and philosophical traditions of non-Western and indigenous peoples. It argues that the “archetype” of rationality taken for granted in much Western scholarship about “religion” amounts to what Chidester terms a “triple mediation” between the imperial domination and colonial classification and administration of subjugated peoples and their symbolical practices and cultural memory—one which, in fact, has been re-inscribed in present day “neoliberal” fantasies of one world “without religion.” Finally, the article proposes a new “deconstructive” reading of theories of religion using post-structuralist instead of Enlightenment methodologies.

Topic neutrality and the parity thesis: a surrejoinder to Williams

2001 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-101
Author(s):  
J. P. MORELAND
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Empirical Approach ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Important Paper ◽  
The Third ◽  
Parity Thesis ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

In an important paper, Clifford Williams advanced a Lockean-style argument to justify the parity thesis, viz., that there is no intellectual advantage to Christian physicalism or Christian dualism. In an article in Religious Studies I offered a critique of Williams's parity thesis and he has published a rejoinder to me in the same journal centring on my rejection of topic neutrality as an appropriate way to set up the mind–body debate. In this surrejoinder to Williams, I present his three main arguments and respond to each: (1) The dualist rejection of topic neutrality is flawed because it expresses a conceptual approach to the mind–body problem instead of the preferable empirical approach. The latter favours physicalism and, in any case, clearly supports topic neutrality. (2) If the dualist rejects the first argument, then a second parity thesis can be advanced in which an essentialist view of soul and the brain are presented in which each is essentially a thinking and feeling entity. Thus, an essentialist parity thesis is preserved. (3) If the dualist rejects the second argument, a new topic neutrality emerges in the dialectic, so topic neutrality is unavoidable. Against the first argument, I claim that Williams makes two central confusions that undermine his case and that he fails to show how the mind–body debate can be settled empirically. Against the second argument, I claim that it leaves Williams vulnerable to a topic-neutral approach to God and it merely proffers a verbal shift with a new dualism between normal and ‘special’ matter. Against the third argument, I point out that it misrepresents the dualist viewpoint and leads to two counterintuitive features that follow from topic neutrality.

Anthropologies of Medicine, Religion, and Spirituality and Their Application to Clinical Practice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda L. Barnes ◽  
Lance D. Laird
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Medical Anthropology ◽  
Clinical Work ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Cultural Humility ◽  
Religion And Spirituality ◽  
Anthropology Of Religion ◽  
Cultural System ◽  
Religious Traditions

This chapter reviews how medical anthropology has characterized and interpreted biomedicine as a cultural system in its own right. Because so much of the field has attended to how practitioners and patients experience their engagement in biomedicine and other systems of healing, we introduce related dimensions. Some medical anthropologists have also drawn from what is known as the Anthropology of Religion, as a way of exploring religious traditions related to healing. Their work adds useful dimensions to the topic at hand. Finally, we address applied dimensions, that include how biomedical professionals can introduce issues related to religion/spirituality in their clinical work. We advocate for a synthesis of the strengths of religious studies, medical anthropology, refined tools of spiritual inquiry that reflect the particularities of the different traditions, and a stance of cultural humility.

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