Constructing religion without the social: Durkheim, Latour, and extended cognition
Zygon 44 (3):719-737 (2009)
| Abstract | I take up the question of how models of extended cognition might redirect the academic study of religion. Entering into a conversation of sorts with Emile Durkheim and Bruno Latour regarding the "overtakenness" of social agency, I argue that a robust portrait of extended cognition must redirect our interest in explaining religion in two key ways. First, religious studies should take up the methodological principle of symmetry that informs contemporary histories of science and begin theorizing the efficacy of gods as social actors. Second, theorists of religion should begin noting how the work required to construct spaces in which the gods appear depends on the construction of disciplined and capable subjects. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,709 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesD. Z. Phillips (2001). Religion and the Hermeneutics of Contemplation. Cambridge University Press.
William Sims Bainbridge (2006). Social Cognition of Religion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (5):463-464.
Zoe Drayson (2010). Extended Cognition and the Metaphysics of Mind. Cognitive Systems Research 11 (4):367-377.
Anne Warfield Rawls (2004). Epistemology and Practice: Durkheim's the Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Cambridge University Press.
Charles Lemert (1999). The Might Have Been and Could Be of Religion in Social Theory. Sociological Theory 17 (3):240-263.
Émile Durkheim (1926). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York, the Macmillan Company.
Joel Krueger (2011). Extended Cognition and the Space of Social Interaction. Consciousness and Cognition 20 (3):643-657.
Gesa Lindemann (2011). On Latour's Social Theory and Theory of Society, and His Contribution to Saving the World. Human Studies 34 (1):93-110.
Shannon Spaulding (2012). Overextended Cognition. Philosophical Psychology 25 (4):469 - 490.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-08-27Total downloads25 ( #49,684 of 550,967 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,425 of 550,967 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
