Abstract
Aku Visala takes a closer look at the role of naturalism in CSR. The cognitive-evolutionary study of religion takes itself as “naturalizing” not only the study of religion, but the humanities as a whole. Apart from the obvious denial of non-supernatural causal factors, it is sometimes difficult to see whether this naturalization involves anything more than a general rhetorical strategy meant to play up the “science” part (and downplay other, “non-scientific” approaches). In his paper, Visala seeks to identify the basic philosophical assumptions of the naturalization project, present some critical points about them, and suggest what he considers to be more plausible assumptions instead. The basic assumptions of the naturalization project include a commitment to a specific kind of unity of science, a commitment to a certain kind of inter-level reduction and explanatory fundamentalism and a deep suspicion towards causal factors above the cognitive/psychological level. He suggests that these commitments suffer from a number of problems and the goals of the cognitive-evolutionary study can be achieved just as well, or even better, by adopting weaker and more plausible commitments. Here he briefly discusses some new accounts of mechanistic explanation, Robert McCauley’s model of inter- and intra-level relationships and the idea of explanatory pluralism. He conjectures that loosening the “naturalistic” constraints of the cognitive-evolutionary study of religion might result in a more pluralistic (but nevertheless strict) approach to religion.
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Notes
- 1.
The argument I am making here is developed more comprehensively in (Visala 2011).
- 2.
- 3.
Some philosophers disagree with this and suggest that scientists should not make a priori distinctions between what is natural and non-natural. For discussion, see (Clarke 2009: 127–42).
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
Slingerland also criticizes traditional approaches to the study of religion for (1) positing ontologically vague entities (beliefs, religions, cultures, etc.), (2) their inadequate explanations and (3) their plurality of incompatible methodological assumptions. Such problems, Slingerland suggests, could be remedied, if a more naturalistic attitude were adopted.
- 7.
For an overview of physicalism, see (Stoljar 2010).
- 8.
For a vigorous defence of emergentism, see (Clayton 2004).
- 9.
See, e.g., (Kim 2007).
- 10.
I want to thank the anonymous reviewer for this point.
- 11.
Again, I thank the anonymous reviewer for raising this point.
- 12.
For more, see (Visala 2011).
- 13.
See, e.g., (Raatikainen 2010).
- 14.
For McCauley’s philosophical work, see, e.g., his (McCauley 2007).
- 15.
See (Pyysiäinen 2011)
- 16.
I would like to thank the participants of the Explaining Religion: Cognitive Science of Religion and Naturalism workshop (Amsterdam 2015) for their feedback and discussions. In addition, special thanks go to Steven Clarke, Rik Peels and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and substantial criticisms and suggestions.
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Visala, A. (2018). Pro-Science Rhetoric or a Research Program? – Naturalism(s) in the Cognitive-Evolutionary Study of Religion. In: van Eyghen, H., Peels, R., van den Brink, G. (eds) New Developments in the Cognitive Science of Religion. New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion , vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90239-5_4
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