Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture [Paperback]

E. Thomas Lawson (Author), Robert N. McCauley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521438063 | ISBN-13: 978-0521438063 | Publication Date: January 29, 1993

This book develops a cognitive approach to religion. Focusing particularly on ritual action, it borrows analytical methods from linguistics and other cognitive sciences. The authors provide a lucid, critical review of established approaches to the study of religion, and make a strong plea for the combination of interpretation and explanation. Often represented as competitive approaches, they are, rather, complementary and equally vital to the study of symbolic systems. Rethinking Religion deals with the relationship between cognition and culture in a novel manner, and introduces a method of analysis that will have many applications.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[The authors] do a splendid job of demonstrating how such a theory would have interpretive and explanatory capabilities that previous theories have lacked....their analysis truly connects the cognitive and cultural dimensions involved in all religious ritual systems." A. Javier Trevino, Sociological Analysis

"One certainly hopes that this impressive book will set the tone for future discussions of this topic. It provides an important theoretical framework that the anthropology of religion cannot possibly ignore." Pascal Boyer, American Anthropologist

"Lawson and McCauley's Rethinking Religion is a creative and carefully crafted book that both defends a general approach to explaining religious systems and develops in embryo a substantive theory of religious ritual. The book cuts across disciplines in a fruiful way, making contributions to anthropology, cogitive psychology and philosophy as well as religious studies more generally." Harold Kincaid, Annals of Scholarship

Book Description

An ambitious attempt to develop a cognitive approach to religion focuses particularly on ritual action, borrows analytical methods from linguistics and other cognitive sciences and makes a strong plea for combining interpretation with explanation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 29, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521438063
• ISBN-13: 978-0521438063
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,317,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

E. Thomas Lawson was born in Cape Town South Africa, received his education from the University of Chicago, Ph. D. 1963, is an Honorary Professor and Research Scientist at Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland and is also editor of the Journal of Cognition and Culture published by Brill Academic Publishers. He has played a significant role in the development of the cognitive science of religion. The cognitive science of religion involves the application of methods from the cognitive sciences as well as from evolutionary psychology to religious thought and behavior.