Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture

This book is an ambitious attempt to develop a cognitive approach to religion. Focusing particularly on ritual action, it borrows analytical methods from linguistics and other cognitive sciences. The authors, a philosopher of science and a scholar of comparative religion, provide a lucid critical review of established approaches to religion, and make a strong plea for the combination of interpretation and explanation. Often represented as competitive approaches, they are rather, complementary, equally vital to the study of symbolic systems.

• An explanation of religious systems alongside substantive theory of religious ritual: an original • Cuts across disciplines including anthropology, cognitive psychology and philosophy as well as religious studies • Well drawn and creative analysis and assessment

‘Lawson and McCauley have done the psychology of religion a service by opening new theoretical and research vistas. Their work merits close study because Rethinking Religion offers a truly creative and different kind of contribution to the field.’

– Bernard Spika, Contemporary Psychology

‘… a very important book that marks a turning point in the way anthropologists think about religious ideas and practices.’

– Pascal Boyer, American Anthropologist