A Reductionistic Model of Distinct Modes of Religious Transmission

Interaction with imagined non-physical agents (gods, spirits, ghosts, etc. ) is a puzzling cultural universal, as it is of no straightforward adaptive value, indeed is often costly to individuals or groups. One promising research strategy is to evalu-ate to what extent religious concepts and norms may be a by-product of evolved brain function (Boyer, 2003). Indeed, in the past fifteen years, a variety of an-thropologists, psychologists and religious scholars have demonstrated that the apparently complex and variable domain of religious concepts and behaviours could be better understood in terms of the cognitive processes involved [see sur-veys in (Barrett, 2000; Pyysiainen, 2001; Boyer, 2003)]. This has led to a common or "standard" model of religious concepts and norms (presented in more detail below) that is extremely general in its scope. It describes mental states and processes found in most people in most religious contexts most of the time, without providing descriptive or explanatory models for those features that distinguish one religious tradition from another. Starting from this general model, there are two ways to progress in the expla-nation of religion. One is to provide more and more sophisticated, empirically tested descriptions of the underlying processes that make religion in general pos-sible and probable in human minds. Another one is to describe how these cogni-tive processes interact with specific historical circumstances, producing specific religious systems. In a series of recent books and articles, Harvey Whitehouse has offered a major contribution to this latter enterprise. Starting from his descrip-tion of «modes of religiosity», I will try to outline the potential and pitfalls of this move towards greater specificity. In particular, I want to delineate two stages in this process of making the cog-nitive model more historically or culturally specific. At first, we should do what Whitehouse did, that is, take into account the fact that religious systems seem to come in different types, in different packages of correlated features that White-house called «modes of religiosity». Religious systems with priests and organised theologies also seem to comprise frequent, repetitive and less-than-altogether-thrilling rituals; systems with inspired individuals seem to focus on rare, exciting and conceptually ambiguous rites (Whitehouse, 2000; McCauley & Lawson, 2002). A thorough description of the correlated features in these two modes, such as that offered by Whitehouse, should then lead, in my view, to a second stage where we can jettison some unnecessary assumptions of the «modes»

Английский

Mind and religion : psychological and cognitive foundations of religiosity / ed. by H. Whitehouse and R. N. McCauley. – Walnut Creek : AltaMira Press, 2005. – P. 3–29.