contemporary pragmatism 15 (2018) 387-406 brill.com/copr What Cognitive Science of Religion Can Learn from John Dewey Hans Van Eyghen vu Amsterdam [email protected] Abstract I use three ideas from philosopher John Dewey that are of service for Cognitive Science of Religion (csr). I discuss how Dewey’s ideas on embodied cognition, embedded cog- nition can be put to work to get a fuller understanding of religious cognition. I also use his ideas to criticize csr’s reliance on the modularity of mind thesis Keywords cognitive science of religion – modularity of mind – embodied cognition – embedded cognition, John Dewey – religious cognition Introduction Cognitive science of religion is a fairly young discipline with the aim of study- ing the cognitive basis of religious belief. Despite the great variation in theo- ries a number of common features can be distilled and most theories can be situated in the cognitivist and modular paradigm. In this paper, I investigate how cognitive science of religion (csr) can be improved by using insights from philosopher John Dewey. I focus on Dewey because he offered important in- sights in cognition long before there was cognitive science and because his ideas are widely influential in the recent enactivist movement. The relevance of Dewey’s thought for csr will be discussed under three headers: embodied- ness, embeddedness and anti-modularity. I will first give a brief overview of the most influential theories in csr. Then I will discuss how existing theories in csr can be improved on the first two points and criticized on the third. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/18758185-01503007Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 09:33:53AM via free access 204221 388 Van Eyghen The Cognitive Science of Religion Cognitive science of religion is a fairly young discipline (from the 1990’s on- wards) with the aim of studying the cognitive basis of religious belief. Over the years a large number of theories have been proposed. Despite the wide variety, a number of common features can be distilled. According to Claire White the idea that human cognition is necessary (but not sufficient) to ex- plain the presence, persistence and prevalence of human ideas and behaviors deemed “religious” is at the heart of csr (White 2017). This sets csr apart from theories that explain religious belief on a strictly cultural basis (e.g. Durkheim 1971) and from theories that explain it as resulting from power structures (e.g. Marx 1970). White also notes that csr theories share the commitment that the human mind is central to understanding religious belief and that the hu- man mind actively processes religious ideas (White 2017). One of the leading csr theorists, Pascal Boyer, wrote that the human mind is not a blank slate, meaning that it is not susceptible to just any (religious) belief. Humans are by contrast rather picky in their beliefs (Boyer 2002). Boyer’s idea is widely ac- cepted in csr. Most theories in the field focus on cognitive biases or cognitive mechanisms that produce or prepare for religious beliefs. Deborah Kelemen found evidence for a bias towards teleological explanations (Kelemen 1999). Paul Bloom argues that a bias towards mind-body dualism could explain religious beliefs (Bloom 2005). Jesse Bering and David Bjorklund did experiments suggesting that after- life beliefs come natural to young children (Bering and Bjorklund 2004). Others proposed more elaborate theories featuring cognitive mechanisms, which they claim are responsible for religious beliefs. In doing so, they try to sketch a more complete picture of how religious beliefs are produced. No theory claims that there is one designated ‘special’ cognitive mechanism for religious beliefs but most argue that ‘ordinary’ mechanisms that also produce other beliefs lie at its root. Justin Barrett’s theory states that an important factor in the emergence of supernatural beliefs is the ‘hyperactive agency detection device’. As the name suggests, this is the cognitive mechanism responsible for detecting agents. The mechanism is hyperactive because it produces beliefs upon very limited evidence. For example, the sound of rustling leaves or a stick that looks like a snake is enough to conclude that one or more agents are around. According to Barrett, the process, joined by operations of the theory of mind,1 could lead to beliefs about invisible agents and gods (Barrett 2004). Jesse Bering argued that belief in God could result from applying mentalizing tools to meaningful 1 The theory of mind is the mechanism responsible for producing beliefs about other people’s mental states. contemporary pragmatismDownloaded from 15 Brill.com09/25/2021(2018) 387-406 09:33:53AM via free access 204221 What Cognitive Science of Religion 389 events. People would be inclined to interpret events like natural disasters or beautiful sunsets as intentionally created by an ultimate meaning giver (Ber- ing 2002). Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner claimed that human moral reasoning always takes a dyadic form. In moral situations, people intuitively look for a moral agent (the doer of good or evil) and a moral patient (the receiver of good or evil). In most situations both are easily found but in some there is no appar- ent moral agent. Examples are natural disasters or good things that happen to people like having a baby. In these situations, people infer to an ultimate moral agent, i.e. God (Gray and Wegner 2010). Lee Kirkpatrick argued that beliefs in supernatural beings arise when the attachment system of humans goes astray. Normally people attach to caregivers and partners but sometimes the system overreaches and attaches to invisible attachment figures like gods or spirits (Kirkpatrick 2005). Other theories explain how religious beliefs are transmitted and what makes religious beliefs successful.2 The most influential theory of this kind is Pascal Boyer’s ‘cognitive optimum’. He argued that minimally counterintuitive con- cept have the best chances of being remembered and being transmitted. In his view, people have intuitive ontological categories like ‘Plant’, ‘Animal’ or ‘Person’. These categories allow for predictions. For example, categorizing something under ‘Plant’ allows the inference that the thing will not be able to move and will grow under the right conditions. Minimally counterintuitive concepts violate some of the expectations that come with their intuitive on- tological category. For example, a ghost is usually categorized under ‘Person’ but violates the expectation that persons cannot move through walls. At the same time the majority of expectations is retained and a ghost is expected to perceive things in the same way persons do and to interact with others like per- sons do. Minimally counterintuitive concepts differ from intuitive (concepts that violate no expectations) and maximally counterintuitive concepts (con- cepts that violate many expectations). Intuitive concepts, like ‘John Doe’, are not memorable because they are ordinary. Maximally intuitive concepts, like a man who is 30 meter long, has 11,5 arms and only appears every second Tues- day of the month, require too much cognitive effort to remember. Most super- natural concepts are minimally counterintuitive and thus easily transmitted and remembered (Boyer 2002). Thomas Lawson and Robert McCauley propose that religious rituals serve as means for the transmittance of symbolic repre- sentations. These symbolic representations can be beliefs about supernatural beings or religious beliefs like ‘All men are sinners’. They need not take the form of written texts. Lawson and McCauley argue that rituals have two char- acteristics that make them very suitable to transmit symbolic r epresentations, 2 A belief is successful when it spreads through a large part of the population. contemporary pragmatism 15 (2018) 387-406 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 09:33:53AM via free access 204221 390 Van Eyghen the frequency of their performance and their stability. Both insure that ritu- als are memorable and hence that the symbolic representations they invoke get transmitted (McCauley and Lawson 2002). Another theory explaining why (some) religious beliefs are successful draws on the adaptive usefulness of supernatural beliefs (Norenzayan 2013; Bering and Johnson 2005; Shariff and Norenzayan 2007). Defenders of the theory3 note that human beings rely on cooperation to a far greater extent than other animals do. This offers many benefits but also makes humans vulnerable to free-riders, people who reap the benefits of cooperation but do not make any contributions themselves. Believ- ing in supernatural beings could help fix this problem. According to defenders of this theory, supernatural beings are commonly believed to have full access to people’s intentions and desires and to be concerned about whether people do the right thing. Believing that a being of this sort is watching will thus make people (far) less likely to free-ride. Because of their adaptive use, religious be- liefs would be transmitted. Finally, some theories highlight the social functions of religious rituals. Other than theories from the last category they do not discuss how the be- liefs themselves get transmitted but what effects these beliefs have on coop- eration or the formation of groups. The costly signaling theory (Bulbulia and Sosis 2011) states that religious rituals are means of signaling one’s commit- ment to social norms. By engaging in costly, hard-to-fake rituals, people would show their commitment to the social norms