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      Darwinian Bases of Religious Meaning: Interactionism, General Interpretive Theories, and 6E Cognitive Science

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      Journal of Cognition and Culture
      Brill

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          Abstract

          Interactionism holds that explanatory and interpretive projects are mutually enriching. If so, then the evolutionary and cognitive science of religions’ explanatory theories should aid interpretive projects concerning religious meaning. Although interpretive accounts typically focus on the local and the particular, interpreters over the past century have construed Freud and Marx as offering general interpretive theories. So, precedent for general interpretive theorizing exists. 4E cognitive science, which champions how cognition is embedded in natural and cultural settings, extended into external structures, enacted via motor routines, and embodied via representations rooted in human bodily form, has encouraged interpretive researchers. Theories of embodied cognition especially have embraced a sweeping view of meaning that attends to the emotions’ role and to their evolutionary origins. That inspires a 6E cognitive science that attends to the emotional and evolved dimensions of cognition too and opens up the possibility of general interpretive theories of broadly Darwinian character. Evolved cognitive systems qualify as maturationally natural cognition, which exhibits a distinctive constellation of features. The by-product theory holds that religious representations’ engagement of maturationally natural cognition fosters religions’ success. Representations with some minimal violation of intuitive expectations concerning some ontological category grab attention, stick in memory, and preserve the many automatic inferences accompanying the category. The empirical evidence for this and other elaborations of the by-product view suggests that it discloses dynamics of evolved cognition and associated emotions that tend to guide the pursuit of religious meanings systematically toward well-worn grooves in the semantic landscape.

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          Most cited references27

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            The creative structuring of counterintuitive worlds

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              Functional origins of religious concepts: Ontological and strategic selection in evolved Minds

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                (View ORCID Profile)
                Journal
                Journal of Cognition and Culture
                J. Cogn. Cult.
                Brill
                1567-7095
                1568-5373
                April 03 2023
                April 03 2023
                April 03 2023
                April 03 2023
                : 23
                : 1-2
                : 1-28
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Kenan University Professor, Emeritus, Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture, Emory University https://dx.doi.org/1371 Atlanta, GA USA
                Article
                10.1163/15685373-12340149
                911ceca8-eee5-4c92-a220-8fb0c2105800
                © 2023
                History

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