Cognitivism and Religion: Am I My Keeper’s Brother?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The author is to be commended for bringing interesting ideas and excellent research to this complex topic. 

The uses of and interactions with the writings of Atran, Whitehouse, and Conway Morris are helpful to reach the conclusion.

Unfortunately, the conclusion/thesis seems rushed and incomplete. The comparison-contrast between the realist position and the imaginative position (670-678) is compelling but brief. Perhaps the discussion beginning with "The precise locus of the disagreement . . " (405) could be elaborated upon to further expound the author's original and interesting contribution. 

Another suggestion is to bring the commentary on the title (lines 628-650) to the front of the essay. Perhaps the clarity this section brings to the author's thesis would be more useful, for readers potentially overwhelmed by the theoretical complexity of the topic, at the beginning than at the ending. 

The consistent uses of first person "we" (and occasional uses of "our," "us," and "I") often seem unnecessary and vague. If there is a need for the first or second person, then certainly they should be used. Otherwise, the use of the third person is recommended. 

Author Response

I thank the reviewer for a careful reading, identifying the argument. My reply to the substantial point (para 3 of comments) is that I am making a single point, about the centrality and insufficiency of a certain kind of naturalism to cognitivist approaches to religion. Although I sketch in a possible alternative approach in the places identified, they are not the focus of the article, and I would set about their presentation in quite another fashion if they were. They are intended to be 'brief and compelling'; the argument and conclusion concern identifying the role of naturalism.

I shall adopt the suggestion of fore-fronting the comment on the title. And I shall eliminate some of the uses of 'we', but not all; the point of the article is that a language that claims to be impersonal on such a subject matter is a contentious claim, and I am sketching an alternative approach.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is interesting to be sure, but there is very little exploraton of the role of religion on its own - as separate from imagination, culture, and symbols. 

The article consists mostly of summaries of other works and little by the way of advancing the discussion, especially in relation to religion.

Author Response

I thank the reviewer for their careful and comments. My overall response is that I feel that the reader does not fully accept the perspective of the article, which is an exploration by a sympathetically-minded anthropologist of how best to engage with the contribution of cognitive science to the study of religion. In this regard, the question of contextualization is sketched in the third part. And the argument is perhaps more straightforward than appears: it simply identifies the crucial role of naturalism and questions its adequacy to its task.

Let me take the comments. To reply to the second, when looking at presuppositions, one has to analyze specific texts, taken as representative of the wider field. Otherwise, argument simply becomes assertion. The analysis is the  contribution. With respect to the first comment, it is cognitivists who assimilate religion to culture, symbols and the imagination, not myself as critic. My argument is that a more critical approach would lead both to better scientific method and to better case studies, thus reconciling cognitivst and anthropological interests.

So, in reply to the judgement on design, question etc., this article concerns a discussion of the presuppositions used by cognitivist approaches, and is clearly stated in the Introduction. The work of this article is to identify the role of naturalism. It is not an approach that is usually identified as such, although it underlies many disputes, and as such cannot be supported directly through the secondary literature (last judgement).

I have made some additions to the text to clarify the argument and discussion.