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Religions
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Situating Religious Cognition
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Situating Religious Cognition

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 6022

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Timothy Stanley

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
Interests: philosophy of religion; intellectual history; political philosophy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to evaluate religious media as examples of situated cognition, as it is broadly understood. Case studies may include a diverse range of sacred texts, music, architecture, and ritual practices. Historical instances of religious media are welcome, as well as recent digital developments in virtual reality and artificial intelligence. The issue will approach each case as an example of situated cognition. For instance, essays might focus on novel interpretations of the extended nature of religious communication practices, enacted musical or artistic performances, embodied ritual practices, or various aspects of socially extended religious cognition. The issue also invites essays that recognize methodological innovation arising from such analyses. Approaching religious media as examples of situated cognition may foster new synergies with pragmatist, hermeneutic, phenomenological, and deconstructive approaches to the study of religion.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Situated cognition;
  • Extended mind theory;
  • 4e cognition;
  • Phenomenology of religion;
  • Media studies;
  • Pragmatist studies of religion;
  • Hermeneutics;
  • Deconstruction;

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Timothy Stanley
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • situated cognition
  • extended mind theory
  • 4e cognition
  • phenomenology of religion
  • media studies
  • pragmatist studies of religion
  • hermeneutics
  • deconstruction

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 248 KiB  
Article
Challenges from 4e Cognition to the Standard Cognitive Science of Religion Model
by David H. Nikkel
Religions 2025, 16(4), 415; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16040415 - 25 Mar 2025
Viewed by 458
Abstract
Embodied, enactive cognition, which is also embedded or emplaced cognition and extended cognition through tools, including language, presents various challenges to the standard model of the cognitive science of religion. In its focus on unconscious brain mechanisms, the standard model downplays or eliminates [...] Read more.
Embodied, enactive cognition, which is also embedded or emplaced cognition and extended cognition through tools, including language, presents various challenges to the standard model of the cognitive science of religion. In its focus on unconscious brain mechanisms, the standard model downplays or eliminates religious meaning as epiphenomenal or illusory. It often denies that religion, once present, is adaptive or admits as adaptive only costly signaling. It regards humans’ perceptions of their environments as representations, mistaking an environment as determinate before cognition occurs. This support for indirect perception makes no sense given its emphasis on the need for sensing possible threats to survival. As brain mechanisms of individuals do all the heavy lifting, the model regards culture and its influence as nonexistent or insignificant. This stance denies how the social constitutes a huge part of our embodied preobjective and tacit engagement with the world, as well as socio-cultural realities, including religion, as self-organizing systems. The neglect of embodiment extends to its take on supernatural agents as allegedly disembodied minds. The standard model overlooks how ordinary rituals promote bonding through group presence, synchrony, and endorphin production and how some rituals increase knowledge of a particular natural environment, thus overlooking how religion can be adaptive. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Religious Cognition)
20 pages, 278 KiB  
Article
Extending the Transhuman Person: Religious Practices as Cognitive Technological Enhancements
by Tobias Tanton
Religions 2025, 16(3), 272; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16030272 - 22 Feb 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 701
Abstract
Transhumanism embraces the use of technology to enhance human capabilities. In keeping with traditional theories of cognition, transhumanists typically assume that mental capacities are organism-bound (or brain-bound), and enhancement is thus achieved exclusively by modifying the human organism. However, 4E cognition challenges this [...] Read more.
Transhumanism embraces the use of technology to enhance human capabilities. In keeping with traditional theories of cognition, transhumanists typically assume that mental capacities are organism-bound (or brain-bound), and enhancement is thus achieved exclusively by modifying the human organism. However, 4E cognition challenges this assumption. Instead, understanding the mind as extended or scaffolded highlights how cognitive processes recruit environmental resources to perform their tasks. Therefore, as Andy Clark argues, cognitive enhancement is no longer restricted to modifications of the biological organism but is also achieved by using cognitive tools or niches that allow brain–body–world coalitions to perform more efficient or more sophisticated cognitive functions. Hence, humans are ‘natural-born cyborgs’ who have long been using environmental resources to enhance cognitive abilities. In this article, I extend this analysis to religion. Drawing on recent work on 4E cognition in religious practices, I argue that religious practices can themselves be understood as ‘cognitive technologies’ that count as enhancements. These insights from cognitive science serve to reframe the dialog between Christian theology and transhumanism: (1) enhancements are reframed as belonging to a long history of self-modification, rather than being the sole purview of the future, (2) humans should be understood as intrinsically technological, and (3) theologians are already in the enhancement game and, conversely, transhumanists should consider religious practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Religious Cognition)
20 pages, 226 KiB  
Article
Miniature Mindfulness: Finding Spiritual Flow with Warhammer 40,000 Models
by Tara B. M. Smith
Religions 2025, 16(2), 121; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16020121 - 23 Jan 2025
Viewed by 1217
Abstract
Warhammer 40,000 (40k) is the world’s most popular miniature wargame. The game is played with miniatures (small-scale figures made of hard plastic or other materials), which have usually been painted by each individual player. These player–painters typically spend hours in deep concentration painting [...] Read more.
Warhammer 40,000 (40k) is the world’s most popular miniature wargame. The game is played with miniatures (small-scale figures made of hard plastic or other materials), which have usually been painted by each individual player. These player–painters typically spend hours in deep concentration painting the models. Drawing on interviews and journal entries from a six-month participant study of 14 painters, this paper explores whether miniature painters achieve a flow state, whether this creates a greater feeling of mindfulness, and how painting impacts their overall mental health. Results from this study indicate that miniature painting is meditative, meaningful, and positive for the participants’ mental health. Using the definition of flow outlined in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness (1988), flow is a state of pleasure had when an individual concentrates on a specific task. Csikszentmihalyi, from his research on flow, notes that this state of mind involves both immersion and a sense of transcendence, where the individual temporarily loses a sense of self. This sense of loss of self was explored with an increased attention to the feeling of the body, and situated cognition has been further explored to understand how this connects to painting. While flow is regularly applied to videogame studies, less work has been carried out on this flow state during activities like miniature painting. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Religious Cognition)
14 pages, 250 KiB  
Article
Situated Religious Cognition in Jamesian Pragmatist Philosophy of Religion
by Sami Pihlström
Religions 2024, 15(7), 815; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070815 - 5 Jul 2024
Viewed by 908
Abstract
Pragmatist philosophy of religion has, since the early days of the tradition, developed distinctive accounts of (what we now call) “situated” religious cognition highly relevant to currently ongoing discussions in this developing field. This paper focuses on William James’s pragmatism as an important [...] Read more.
Pragmatist philosophy of religion has, since the early days of the tradition, developed distinctive accounts of (what we now call) “situated” religious cognition highly relevant to currently ongoing discussions in this developing field. This paper focuses on William James’s pragmatism as an important example of such an approach in the philosophy of religion. Some central “situational” themes in James are identified, and special attention is given to the relation between the (situation-dependent) concepts of belief and hope in Jamesian pragmatism. The ontological status of the “objects” of situated religious cognition is thereby also briefly discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Religious Cognition)

Other

Jump to: Research

18 pages, 331 KiB  
Essay
Tracing the Extended Mind
by Timothy Stanley
Religions 2025, 16(2), 189; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16020189 - 6 Feb 2025
Viewed by 698
Abstract
The following essay evaluates the concept of the trace within extended mind (EM) theory. It begins by differentiating Andy Clark’s complementarity from several competing models. Second, it demonstrates how an undeveloped concept of the trace arises in Clark’s debate with internalist critics. In [...] Read more.
The following essay evaluates the concept of the trace within extended mind (EM) theory. It begins by differentiating Andy Clark’s complementarity from several competing models. Second, it demonstrates how an undeveloped concept of the trace arises in Clark’s debate with internalist critics. In response, I introduce Paul Ricoeur’s metaphor of the imprint in Memory, History, Forgetting. Fourth, the recent debate about the plastic trace will be applied in this context. In so doing, the legacy of Jacques Derrida will be rehabilitated. I conclude with EM’s renewed promise to model deliberations between religiously diverse people. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Religious Cognition)
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