scholarly journals Sacred Technologies: the Evolution of Religious Cognitive Niche

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
David J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Standard Model ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Causal Account ◽  
Modular Theory ◽  
Cognitive Niche ◽  
Cognitive Studies ◽  
Religious Systems ◽  
By Products

<p>Most cognitive studies of religion adopt a modular theory of cognition. The 'space'that is studied is often the 'space between the ears'. Culture and religion are viewed as by-products of more entrenched features of our brains. Although this 'Standard Model' explains many intuitive expressions of religious belief, it has trouble explaining (a) the variability of religious systems crossculturally (b) the uses of material culture (i.e. symbolic structures etc) in transmitting religious concepts. The following thesis presents a 'wideware mind' hypothesis for religious cognition. I urge that while our internal cognitive architecture is causally relevant to religious cognition, the material artefacts of culture must be viewed as cognitive properties in their own right. Hence any causal account of religious cognition must acknowledge the external features of minds and how our neurological resources interact with the artefacts of our world.</p>

scholarly journals Sacred Technologies: the Evolution of Religious Cognitive Niche

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
David J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Standard Model ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Causal Account ◽  
Modular Theory ◽  
Cognitive Niche ◽  
Cognitive Studies ◽  
Religious Systems ◽  
By Products

<p>Most cognitive studies of religion adopt a modular theory of cognition. The 'space'that is studied is often the 'space between the ears'. Culture and religion are viewed as by-products of more entrenched features of our brains. Although this 'Standard Model' explains many intuitive expressions of religious belief, it has trouble explaining (a) the variability of religious systems crossculturally (b) the uses of material culture (i.e. symbolic structures etc) in transmitting religious concepts. The following thesis presents a 'wideware mind' hypothesis for religious cognition. I urge that while our internal cognitive architecture is causally relevant to religious cognition, the material artefacts of culture must be viewed as cognitive properties in their own right. Hence any causal account of religious cognition must acknowledge the external features of minds and how our neurological resources interact with the artefacts of our world.</p>

6. The roots of religious belief

2018 ◽  
pp. 79-92
Author(s):  
Tim Bayne
Keyword(s):  
Standard Model ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Commitment ◽  
The Standard Model

One of the features of human societies is the ubiquity of religious commitment. But why do we find religious ideas compelling? ‘The roots of religious belief’ suggests we need to look beyond the arguments for God’s existence. The ‘standard model’ of religious belief is comprised of three elements: the activity of a hypersensitive agency detection device; the intuitive pull of teleological explanations; and the need to ensure that the members of a society comply with its norms. What implications might the standard model have for the rationality of religious belief? The destabilizing thesis, the by-product argument, the argument from explanatory absence, and the argument from unreliability are all discussed.

The French Tradition of African Research

1960 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 108-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georges Balandier
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Social Data ◽  
Scientific Training ◽  
Ethnic Classification ◽  
West And Central Africa ◽  
Religious Systems ◽  
French Tradition ◽  
Scientific Endeavor

African research has a long tradition in France, its origin deriving from the colonial responsibilities acquired in Africa South of the Sahara. Originally the work was done by men with no scientific training who, during long sojourns in the area, tried to collect all possible information on Negro societies and cultures. Thus it was administrators (Delafosse, Tauxier, Labouret, etc.), Army men (Desplagnes, Le Hérissé, etc.), and missionaries (R. P. Trilles, etc.) who wrote the first monographs and outlined the first systematic studies. Their scientific endeavor was at first oriented toward general research. They wanted to cover all phenomena from basic ecology and material culture to social data, cultural manifestations, and mental outlook. Such listing of social and cultural items in West and Central Africa did not entirely exclude an interest in synthesis: the essays on linguistic and ethnic classification by Delafosse, the linguistic studies of Gaden and Labouret, the research on religious systems by R. P. Trilles, etc. The Bibliographie de l'Afrique Occidentale Franćaise by E. Joucla (1937), which lists more than 9,500 titles, and the Bibliographie de l'Afrique Equatoriale Française of G. Bruel (1914), including more than 7,000 titles, indicate the very considerable results obtained through the research of non-specialists working as isolated individuals. The publications of the "Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Française," created in 1916, consist of numerous useful works written by this first generation of French Africanists.

“‘to subscribe unto GODS BOOK’: The Bible as Material Culture in Seventeenth-Century New England Colonialism”

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Marie Plane
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
New England ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Physical Object ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Reformation England ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
New England Indians ◽  
Religious Systems

AbstractReading scripture in the vernacular forged a unique discursive community in colonial New England, just as it had in post-Reformation England and elsewhere. But just as important were the many ways the bible functioned as a physical object imbued with special power, serving as talisman as much as text. In the colonial context, missionary activity among New England Indians introduced both aspects of scripture to indigenous communities, which in their turn, endowed it with meanings of their own. This essay first reviews the role of the Bible as physical object among the English colonists, before turning to its reception, rejection, and uses among New England’s Algonquian peoples. Examining bibles as items of material culture in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut reveals the creativity and creolization inherent in the introduction of the Bible to this colonial context. The intellectual, practical, and talismanic properties of the Bible so familiar to the English were cast into new relief in the colonial contest between Europeans and Indians, between literate and oral cultures, and between these vastly different religious systems.

Biology, Culture and Coevolution: Religion and Language as Case Studies

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 305-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Ferretti ◽  
Ines Adornetti
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Cognitive Studies ◽  
Cognition And Culture ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
By Products

The main intent of this paper is to give an account of the relationship between bio-cognition and culture in terms of coevolution, analysing religious beliefs and language evolution as case studies. The established view in cognitive studies is that bio-cognitive systems constitute a constraint for the shaping and the transmission of religious beliefs and linguistic structures. From this point of view, religion and language are by-products or exaptations of processing systems originally selected for other cognitive functions. We criticize such a point of view, showing that it paves the way for the idea that cultural evolution follows a path entirely autonomous and independent from that of biological evolution. Against the by-product and exaptation approaches, our idea is that it is possible to interpret religion and language in terms of coevolution. The concept of coevolution involves a dual path of constitution: one for which biology (cognition) has adaptive effects on culture, the other for which, in turn, forms of culture have adaptive effects on biology (cognition). This dual path of constitution implies that religion and language are (at least in some aspects) forms of biological adaptations.

Beads for a Plastic Mind: the ‘Blind Man's Stick’ (BMS) Hypothesis and the Active Nature of Material Culture

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lambros Malafouris
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Functional Anatomy ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Human Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
Active Nature ◽  
Shell Beads

In this article I employ the example of the ‘Blind Man's stick’ (BMS) in order to redraw the traditional boundaries that separate brains, bodies and things. It is argued that the functional anatomy of the human brain is a dynamic bio-cultural construct subject to continuous ontogenetic and phylogenetic remodelling by behaviourally important and socially embedded experiences. These experiences are mediated and sometimes constituted by the use of material objects and artefacts (like the stick) which for that reason should be seen as continuous and active parts of the human cognitive architecture. Based on the above premises I use the example of the Blombos shell beads in order to explore the role of early body decoration in the emergence of human self awareness.

Alfred Métraux: Between Ethnography and Applied Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Bulamah
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
Religious Systems ◽  
Applied Knowledge ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Different Parts

Alfred Métraux was part of a prolific moment in which French sociology and ethnology were enlarging their scientific scope and advancing toward new fields. Following the colonial expansion of France, Métraux participated in establishing ethnographic methods for codifying social life, material culture, and artistic forms. Through his own transatlantic voyages and personal exchanges, Métraux left personal documents in different parts of the world. Consequently, many are the archives that hold parts of his personal collections, letters, and published or unpublished materials. In addition, because of Métraux’s own cosmopolitanism, studies on the ethnologist’s life and works can be found in different languages. Métraux meticulously collected artifacts and documents from different cultures, and these items are now part of collections in museums in Argentina, France, and the United States. The multiplicity of themes Métraux dedicated himself to during his life reveal logics and developments of his work, as well as the importance of fieldwork to his making as an anthropologist, or a “man of the field,” as he used to describe himself. His intense and long-term relationship with Haitian Vodou was central in his career as it arose from his early interest in vanishing civilizations, religious systems, and material culture, and defined his personal agenda for future research.

Beyond Belief: Religious Experience, Ritual, and Cultural Neuro-phenomenology in the Interpretation of Past Religious Systems

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Dornan
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
State Level ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
The Past ◽  
Religious Symbolism ◽  
Religious System ◽  
Religious Systems

While there is growing agreement within anthropology and archaeology that notions of ‘experience’ can contribute to our interpretations of the past, this article suggests that there is a need to incorporate insight gathered from the fields of cultural phenomenology and cultural neuro-phenomenology into general anthropological understandings of cross-cultural religious experience. Specifically, this article explores the insight offered by cultural neuro-phenomenology into the relationships between religious symbolism, ritual, power, religious belief, and individual religious experience. In assessing the role that belief, as instantiated through ritually-induced religious experience, plays in the maintenance or alteration of state-level religious systems, this article will outline the ways in which this insight may both help us better to understand past religious experience as well as to interpret the maintenance and alteration of past religious systems. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, this article will conclude with a brief discussion of the fall of the Classic Maya state religious system.

scholarly journals Religious faith and the modalities of tolerance in a liberal society

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-78
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Fatic
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Liberal Society ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
Liberal Societies ◽  
Religious Systems

The paper discusses three aspects of belonging to religious systems of belief within a modern liberal society, namely (1) the sincerity and consistency of belief, (2) the possibility of exteriorization of belief through broader social interactions or transactions, and (3) the relationship between religious belief and the modern concept of affirmative tolerance, or affirmation of differences, which has become a pronounced public policy in multicultural liberal societies. The author argues that, while negative tolerance allows sincere religious belief to flourish in the private sphere and for benevolence to be shown to those who are seen as mistaken in their beliefs, affirmative tolerance opens an array of logical issues. The demand to extend potential substantive validation to opposed beliefs produces the ricochet effect of de-validating one?s own beliefs. This creates difficulties for religious communities when issues at stake are beliefs that, in the respective belief-systems, are definitive of the moral goodness and moral badness. Upon a more careful examination of the logical relations between the soteriological promises characteristic of what is sometimes called the ?substantive? layer of religiousness, on the one hand, and the public expectation of a tolerant coexistence of religious communities on a social level, on the other hand, it becomes clear that the tolerance required can only be a negative tolerance. Any expectation of affirmative tolerance de-values the soteriological script of the respective system of religious belief, and is thus likely to lead to serious disturbances in a liberal context of multi-cultural coexistence. The author argues that the recent political announcements of a ?failure of the multicultural experiment? are caused by the aggressive pursuit of ?affirmative tolerance? rather than by any in-built intolerance of others in any of the large religious belief systems now prevalent in the liberal democratic world.

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