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religion and reason as natural phenomena
Browsing All Posts filed under »cognition«
Abstract for the Brno workshop
The lovely people at Levyna in Brno have been very busy. The research centre has its own website and they’re about to host a research workshop to which I’m about to head off. To fit in with the general theme, I have decided to present a paper which takes a step back from the approach […]
Knowledge, Value, Evolution is out
July 30, 2011
The volume edited by Tomas Hribek and Juraj Hvorecky, entitled Knowledge, Value, Evolution, is now out and available in all good internet book-stores (as well as Tesco!) It contains articles by Franz Wuketits, Jonathan Knowles and Jaroslav Peregrin. It also contains an article of mine that I mentioned earlier on this blog. The have-to I […]
Review of Plotkin’s Evolutionary Worlds without End
July 29, 2011
Not long ago, Philosophy in Review put online a review I did of Henry Plotkin’s Evolutionary Worlds without End. A most worthwhile read (the book that is, the assessment of the review I leave to others). Here is the first paragraph: Plotkin’s synthesis is a gem of a book, but a flawed gem. His vision […]
Diets and deities
August 4, 2010
While working on the book I was struck by what feels like an enlightening comparison between what we eat and what we believe. People’s diets are usually determined by three different kinds of considerations. The first is purely physiological – certain substances are necessary for the proper functioning of human bodies while others are toxic. […]
Videos from the Religious Ritual, Culture and Cognition conference
August 1, 2010
Back in May 2008 took place a conference that I dearly wish I had attended, the topic of it being very much central to my own work, i.e. cognitive approaches to religious and magical ritual. The conference was organised by Armin Geertz and Jesper Sorensen and took place at the Religion, Cognition and Culture research […]
Is postdecisional dissonance functional?
July 25, 2010
Last semester I taught Judgement and Decision Making using the Scott Plous book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. I found the book quite frustrating in that it followed the “rhetoric of irrationality” that is currently favoured within JDM right up to the last chapter where it took a more critical view of this […]
Dual system theories demolished
July 14, 2010
The most thorough critique that one can offer for any particular position should, it seems to me, contain two elements. The first should be the standard argument showing why it is that the position under attack is fallacious. The second, but often forgotten, element is an explanation for why it is that some people, often […]
Review of Epistemology and Emotions
July 9, 2010
My review of Epistemology and Emotions edited by Brun, Doguoglu and Kuenzle is now out in the most recent issue of International Studies in Philosophy of Science. While not definitive, the volume is quite interesting and makes a number of valuable points. I spend much of my review, however, picking apart an article by Peter […]
Scientific presuppositions and the supernatural
June 24, 2010
In the discussion of my interview (linked to in the previous post) one of the readers suggests that I think science must presuppose naturalism on, what I gather is being suggested, something like faith. This is, of course, nonsense but it is very popular nonsense and is based upon a couple of misconceptions concerning science […]
Aarhus talk
June 9, 2010
At the end of last month I went for a couple of days to Aarhus to give a talk on how the magic/religion distinction can be explained in terms of a dual inheritance model of religion. The Religion, Cognition and Culture people there also know Christophe Heintz and we set it up so that both […]
Just Another Deisidaimon 
February 28, 2012
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