Imagining the Cognitive Science of Religion

Thomas Lawson is Professor Emeritus at Western Michigan University, USA. He is also Honorary Professor and Research Scientist at the Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen's University Belfast, UK.

• Preface AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Toward Cognitive Science of Religion PART I: Theoretical Issues in the Cognitive Science of Religion 2. Magic Bullets and Complex Theories 3. The Wedding of Psychology, Ethnography, and History: Methodological Bigamy or Tripartite Free Love? 4. Cognitive Categories, Cultural Forms, and Ritual Structures 5. Evoked and Transmitted Culture PART II: Cognition and the Imagination 6. Cognitive Constraints on Imagining Other Worlds 7. The Explanation of Myth and Myth as Explanation 8. Psychological Perspectives on Agency 9. How to Create a Religion PART III: Cognition, Culture, and History 10. History in Science 11. The Cognitive Science of Religion and the Growth of Knowledge 12. Counterintuitive Notions and the Problem of Transmission: The Relevance of Cognitive Science for the Study of History 13. Experimental Adventures Conclusion Index

E. Thomas Lawson is the grand elder of the Cognitive Science of Religion, who brought together and mentored a younger generation of scholars as the field became established and who has continued to inspire at least two more generations after that. This long-awaited book reveals how he did it and it will be of great interest to everyone engaged in the scientific study of the religion.