Isolating the Individual: Theology, the Evolution of Religion, and the Problem of Abstract Individualism
Debates about the theological implications of recent research in the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion have tended to focus on the question of theism. The question of whether there is any disagreement about the conceptualization of the individual human being has been largely overlooked. I...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Open Library of Humanities$s2024-
[2020]
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| In: |
Zygon
Year: 2020, Volume: 55, Issue: 1, Pages: 207-228 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Kognitive Religionswissenschaft
/ Religion
/ Rise of
/ Individual
|
| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AE Psychology of religion |
| Further subjects: | B
Individual
B Mind B evolution of religion B Relationality B Theological Anthropology B abstract individualism B Person |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Debates about the theological implications of recent research in the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion have tended to focus on the question of theism. The question of whether there is any disagreement about the conceptualization of the individual human being has been largely overlooked. In this article, I argue that evolutionary and cognitive accounts of religion typically depend upon a view of cognition that conceptually isolates the mind from its particular social and physical environmental contexts. By embracing this view of the mind, these accounts also unwittingly embrace an abstract individualist view of individual personhood that Christian theologians have explicitly battled against. Taken as a whole, the field leaves sufficient room for supplementary theories that are compatible with theological accounts of the relational individual, but in practice, no effort has been made to engage, or even to accommodate, any other view of individual personhood. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-9744 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Zygon
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/zygo.12580 |