How Science and Religion are more like Theology and Commonsense Explanations than they are like each other: A Cognitive Account
Chasing Down Religion - In the Sights of History and the Cognitive Sciences - Panayotis Pachis
Robert N. McCauley [+ ]
Emory University
McCAULEY N. ROBERT, William Rand Kenan Jr. University Professor, Director, Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture, Emory University. His research focuses on philosophy of science (especially philosophy of psychology), cognitive science of religion, naturalized epistemology. Selected Publications: Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture (Cambridge 1990) and Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms (Cambridge 2002), both with E. Thomas Lawson. Editor of The Churchlands and Their Critics (Blackwell 1996). Research articles in Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Philosophical Psychology, Consciousness and Cognition, Theory and Psychology, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and History of Religions. Fellowships and Honors: grants or fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, British Academy, National Endowment for the Humanities, Lilly Endowment, American Academy of Religion, Templeton Foundation, and Council for Philosophical Studies; Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award, 1996; Massée-Martin/NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor (1994-1998, inaugural appointment);
President, Society for Philosophy and Psychology (1997-1998).
Description
This Chapter initially considers standard comparisons of science and religion. Robert McCauley then goes on to delineate two cognitive criteria for comparing science, religion, theology and commonsense explanations.