Imagining the Cognitive Science of Religion

E. Thomas Lawson is Professor Emeritus at Western Michigan University, USA. He is also Honorary Professor and Research Scientist at the Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen's University Belfast, UK.

Uniting Thomas Lawson's essays on the cognitive science of religion, this volume explores theoretical issues in the study of cultural phenomena such as religion, the role of imagination, and the experiments that emerge from these theories.The book begins with Lawson's influential essay "Towards a Cognitive Science of Religion," which was the first to employ the phrase, and has since become widely adopted in many different disciplines. It signals to scholars in the humanities that the cognitive revolution has finally reached them and serves to introduce them to the world of science. The rest of the book focuses on theoretical issues in the study of cultural phenomena and describes experiments by scholars working on the connections between cognition and culture.Described as "the grandfather of the cognitive science of religion," Lawson offers a unique perspective on the development of the field and the principles that underlie it, which will be relevant to both newcomers and established scholars.

Written accessibly by one of the founding scholars of the field

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Toward Cognitive Science of ReligionPART I: Theoretical Issues in the Cognitive Science of Religion2. Magic Bullets and Complex Theories3. The Wedding of Psychology, Ethnography, and History: Methodological Bigamy or Tripartite Free Love?4. Cognitive Categories, Cultural Forms, and Ritual Structures5. Evoked and Transmitted CulturePART II: Cognition and the Imagination6. Cognitive Constraints on Imagining Other Worlds7. The Explanation of Myth and Myth as Explanation8. Psychological Perspectives on Agency9. How to Create a ReligionPART III: Cognition, Culture, and History10. History in Science11. The Cognitive Science of Religion and the Growth of Knowledge12. Counterintuitive Notions and the Problem of Transmission: The Relevance of Cognitive Science for the Study of History13. Experimental AdventuresConclusionIndex