Imagining the Cognitive Science of Religion - Magic Bullets, Complex Theories, Experimental Adventures

Uniting E. Thomas Lawson''s essays on the cognitive science of religion, this volume explores theoretical issues in the study of cultural phenomena such as religion, the role of imagination, and the experiments that emerge from these theories.The book begins with Lawson''s influential essay ‘Towards a Cognitive Science of Religion’, which was the first to employ the phrase, and has since become widely adopted in many different disciplines. It signals to scholars in the humanities that the cognitive revolution has finally reached them and serves to introduce them to the world of science. With both newcomers and established scholars in mind, the book then focuses on theoretical issues in the field, and describes experiments exploring the connections between cognition and culture.