Introducing the Special Issue “Situating Religious Cognition”

1. Introduction

This Special Issue began as a call to evaluate religious media as examples of situated cognition. Its scope was intentionally wide-ranging to include 4e cognition (extended, embedded, enacted, and embodied) and discuss where established compendia have summarized the various perspectives within this field (Robbins and Aydede 2009; De Bruin et al. 2018). It sought to explore both the application of situated cognition to case studies and interventions in conceptual and methodological matters in cognitive science, aiming to demonstrate how situated cognition could foster the integration of scientific and humanistic studies of religion (Chalmers 2008; Clark 2008; Logan 2007; Menary 2010; Rowlands 2010; Rupert 2009). This concept has similarly been articulated as “historical cognitive sciences” that “study cognition scientifically and culturally at once” (Sutton 2010, p. 215). However, challenges in combining scientific and humanistic studies still prevail, thus necessitating new research efforts in this field (Slingerland 2008; Slingerland and Collard 2012; Varela et al. 2016). This Special Issue highlights several critical divisions that have emerged in the study of religion, offering ways to resolve and address them.

In the cognitive science of religion (CSR), E. Thomas Lawson and Robert McCauley’s 1990 Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture is often cited as a touchstone (Martin and Wiebe 2017, p. 1). Part of its appeal was its integration of “perspectives and methods from within the humanities and across the humanities-sciences divide” (Barrett 2017, p. 193). However, since its publication, CSR has struggled to maintain a strong “relationship with the C in CSR” without “losing track of the cultural unit of analysis” (Barrett 2017, p. 194). To some extent, this is because Rethinking Religion’s connection between cognition and culture was predicated on “biologically based principles which constrain the form of all and any natural languages” (Lawson and McCauley 1990, p. 66, citing; Chomsky 1986, p. 26). Noam Chomsky’s theory of linguistics featured heavily throughout the book (Lawson and McCauley 1990, p. 180). His approach focused on an “idealized theory of the internalized language of speaker-listeners” (Lawson and McCauley 1990, p. 74, citing; Chomsky 1980, p. 120). While this emphasis provided a widely accepted approach to the study of language, Chomsky’s internalism created a significant barrier to evaluating cultural aspects of cognition (Lawson and McCauley 1990, p. 181). In response, cognitive science of religion (CSR) scholars have promoted the concept of extended cognition, given its emphasis on “connections between the body, the brain, consciousness, language, culture and religion” (Jensen 2013, p. 248, citing; Clark 1997). This Special Issue presents an opportunity to take this suggestion further. For example, David Nikkel applied 4e cognition to enhance established approaches to CSR by “holistically studying religious cognition in terms of the full embodiment and embeddedness of human beings.”

Situated cognition can also add a cognitive dimension to studying the nexus between religion, media and technology, a notion that has been explored in previous studies (De Vries and Weber 2001; Debray 2004, 2006). This attaches importance to Regis Debray’s suggestion that the study of religion could progress as a form of mediology. This concept aims to apprehend “the interactions between” people and their milieux (Debray 2004, p. 283), focusing on “correlations between our ‘higher social functions’ (religion, art, ideology, politics) and our procedures of memorization, displacement and organization” (Debray 2004, p. 6). Debray analyzes various human artifacts, grounded in the pre-historian Leroi-Gourhan’s view that we “became human by externalizing [our] faculties in a process of objectification without end” (Debray 2004, p. 6, Cf; Leroi-Gourhan [1964] 1993). In this sense, simple tools are coterminous with the most complex technologies. This continuity was captured in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which opens with a sequence juxtaposing a “femur-cudgel thrown into the air by a palaeoanthropic ape and a space rocket at takeoff” (Debray 2004, pp. 6–7). Debray’s approach provides a more general rubric to study religion and responds in part to Jonathan. Z. Smith’s problem of “generalization” (Smith [2001] 2004, p. 369). However, he did not integrate the cognitive dimensions of human actors outlined in the situated cognition literature.

Debray makes it clear that this new study of relations does not pertain to current “documentary sciences” (Debray 2004, p. 6). At one point, he even states that his investigation of religion is “concerned not with a realm of reality, the media, but with the realm of relations” (Debray 2004, p. 6). In contrast, mediology studies “the Eternal as a phenomenon of transmission, which is, to be sure, subject to a material history of signs and their supports” (Debray 2004, p. 5). Here, situated cognition can reorient the focus of media to its relation to the mind. As Andy Clark noted, examples of extended cognition include tool use from antiquity to present-day digital devices (Clark 2003). He also cites writing implements as a particular case in point: “These tools or resources are usually no more the object of our conscious thought and reason than is the pen with which we write, the hand that holds it while writing, or the various neural subsystems that form the grip and guide the fingers” (Clark 2003, pp. 28–29). For Clark, “the problem-solving system just is the composite of the biological system and these nonbiological tools” (Clark 2003, p. 38). In this view, further analyzing the form of a text has direct implications for human cognition. My contention is that this can significantly refigure Debray’s interest in the form of religious texts in scroll or codex form in the early centuries of the common era (Debray 2004, pp. 125–27). My own work has studied this connection, integrating exterior text forms into the development of religious thought (Stanley 2017, 2022). In this Special Issue, however, other examples of media were explored, such as Tara B. Smith’s evaluation of immersive flow states in one of the world’s most popular miniature wargames, Warhammer 40k. Her study explores new connections between “flow, religion and cognition.”

Moreover, situated cognition can be utilized to expand the scope of the philosophy of religion to engage with a wider range of topics and traditions (Wildman 2010; Draper and Schellenberg 2017; Trakakis 2008; Oppy and Trakakis 2018; Phillips and Solomon 1996; Knepper 2022). For instance, in Ricoeur’s debate with Jean-Pierre Changeux, he posits another “religious paradox” (Changeux and Ricoeur 2000, p. 269), comparing religion “with what happens in language” (Changeux and Ricoeur 2000, p. 270). Being part of a religion is akin to knowing a language. In this sense, “my language is the limit of my world” (Changeux and Ricoeur 2000, p. 270). For Ricoeur, this means that our access to the world is limited, given that other languages exist and may offer different routes through religious experiences. He conceptualizes a fragmented sphere to expound upon this point: “If I try to run along this surface—if I try to be eclectic—I will never reach a universal religion through syncretism; but if I go deeply enough into my own tradition, I will go beyond the limits of my language” (Changeux and Ricoeur 2000, p. 270). Ricoeur’s view was not simplistic in this regard and presented a vision of religious tolerance and the pursuit of peace grounded in basic religious modesty (Changeux and Ricoeur 2000, p. 273). This is also why, elsewhere, Ricoeur affirmed a deliberative context whereby “discourse consists in someone saying something to someone about something following rules” (Ricoeur 2004, p. 180). However, my argument is that the extended nature of language use has not been adequately applied to interreligious matters. As Andy Clark notes, “skilled language use (even silent inner rehearsal) counts as the use of a kind of external resource” (Clark 2004, p. 720). My contribution to this Special Issue interrogates the importance of language in extended mind theory to better connect skilled language use with deliberations about religious and moral disagreement.

Applying situated cognition to the philosophy of religion also ensures that traditional topics in the field reflect progress in cognitive science. Both fields increasingly challenge longstanding dualisms between the body and mind and the associated overemphasis on inner beliefs and doctrines. These oversights are sometimes traced to early modern philosophers such as René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy (Descartes [1641] 2008), although there is evidence that his views on the human body were more nuanced (Descartes [1662] 2003; Antoine-Mahut and Gaukroger 2016). To overcome such dualisms, neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio investigated how recent findings were more consistent with alternative historical examples of theories of the mind, such as in Spinoza’s 1677 Ethics (De Spinoza 2002; Damasio 1994, 2003). Philosophers of religion have cited situated cognition’s potential to build upon these insights, with Kevin Schilbrack playing a crucial role in outlining the concepts of this emerging field (Schilbrack 2014, pp. 39–50). Several essays have also demonstrated this integration between situated cognition and the study of religion (Day 2004; Krueger 2009, 2017), leading some authors, such as Day, to suggest that “without these elaborate layers of cognitive technology the gods would be, to one degree or another, unthinkable” (Day 2004, p. 117). However, reframing the inner–outer distinction in this way also raises questions about the religious meaning of transhuman technological enhancement. Tobias Tanton therefore explores the wider theological notions at work upon viewing humans as “intrinsically technological.” In doing so, he demonstrates the relevance of the longer history of religious deliberations about self-modification.

Furthermore, some approaches to the study of religion have compounded inner–outer dualisms, which developed throughout the nineteenth century. As critics such as W. C. Smith have noted, the concept of religion itself became associated with inner experience during this period (Smith [1962] 1991; Cf. Stanley 2022, p. 131). This was substantiated by pioneers of the phenomenology of religion, such as Gerard van der Leeuw, whose theories relied on Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s Annales history of mentalities (van der Leeuw [1938] 1986, p. 40, cf. xiii; Lévy-Bruhl 1923, 1975). Critics of the history of ideas questioned the emphasis upon “disincarnated minds—which take on a life of their own outside time and space” (Chartier 1988, 23). This led to the development of “‘idea materials’ (matériaux d’ idées)” (Chartier 1988, p. 26). As Roger Chartier recognized, the question of materiality is central to cultural history, a concept that finds resonance in sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, which Chartier commended (Bourdieu and Chartier 2015). Here, I argue that situated cognition can enhance our understanding of the materiality of mentalities and inner experiences. This reinforces the need to integrate embodied practices into the study of religion and to broaden Smith’s overemphasis on piety (Asad 1993, 2001). Applying cognitive sciences provides new opportunities to surpass the study of inner beliefs (Martin and Sørensen 2011). This was the aim of my own essay that redraws connections between extended mind theory and hermeneutic and deconstructive philosophy, in line with ongoing research that demonstrates that “Derrida does not contradict the contemporary perspectives of biological research” (Vitale 2018, p. 73).

Lastly, proponents of situated cognition often note Peirce and other pragmatists such as John Dewey as their philosophical antecedents (Gallagher 2009; Cf. Clark 2008). This is pertinent as pragmatists aimed to avoid self-centered solipsism by proposing that the mind is inherently connected to the world through signs and symbols (Skagestad 2004). Peirce’s semiotic theory is sometimes regarded as one of his most important contributions to pragmatist philosophy (Short 2004). He studied how signs and symbols interact with cognitive processes. He also recognized that writing implements, such as inkstands, are part of the cognitive apparatus of the human mind (Peirce 1960a, 7.366; Cf. Skagestad 1999). While such views have been discussed in technology studies (Skagestad 1999; Kettner 1984, 1988), their connection to situated cognition has not been applied in this context. Moreover, developments in situated cognition provide the means to reframe aspects of other pragmatist beliefs, such as those held by William James. For instance, in this Special Issue, Sami Pihlström highlighted the situational context of James’s account of belief and hope. While his will-to-believe argument is sometimes depicted as individualist, Pihlström demonstrates James’s critical contribution to thinking about the situated nature of belief.

In sum, this Special Issue follows Jonathan Z. Smith’s heuristic approach to studying religion, as detailed in Map Is Not Territory (Smith 1978). New maps require careful corroboration and the application of abstractions to be useful. Smith elaborates on this by taking Jorge Luis Borges’s 1946 “Exactitude in Science” (Smith [1999] 2004a, p. 209, citing; Borges 1998, p. 325) as an example, where Borges imagines a mapmaker whose cartography was so precise that the resulting map was identical to the territory it represented, thus losing its utility. While Borges noted the inevitable gap between a map and the territory it depicts, Peirce applied a similar logic in discussing the notion of empirical overlap. In his Speculative Grammar, Peirce illustrates this by describing “the map of an island laid down upon the soil of that island” (Peirce 1960b, Book 2.2.230, p. 136). I’ve written about the implications of Peirce’s empirical point elsewhere (Stanley 2022, p. 62). However, here I propose that situated cognition provides new ways to consider this image’s relevance to studies of religion, and the essays in this Special Issue have endeavored to do just that.