Culture and the Cognitive Science of Religion

<p><em>Culture and the Cognitive Science of Religion</em> is the first book to bring together cultural psychology and the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Containing much-needed discussion of how good research should do more than simply follow methodological prescriptions this thought-provoking and original book<i> </i>outlines the ways in which CSR can be used to study everyday religious belief without sacrificing psychological science.<i> </i></p><p>Cresswell’s pragmatist approach expands CSR in a radically new direction. The author shows how language and culture can be integrated within CSR in order to achieve an alternative ontogenetic and phylogenetic approach to cognition and argues that a view of cognition that is not based on modularity but on the dynamic connection between an organism and its milieu can lead to a view of evolution that makes much more room for the constitutive role of culture in cognition. </p><p>As a provocative attempt to persuade researchers to engage with religious communities more directly<i> </i>the<i> </i>book should be essential reading for academics researchers and postgraduate students as well as psychologists interested in the cognitive science of religion theological anthropology religious studies and cultural anthropology. </p>