Abstract
The purpose of this study is to explore philosophical arguments and disputes concerning the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and to clarify several concepts and issues discussed in the field. CSR is comprised of scholars from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, the study of religion, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience. CSR regards ordinary cognitive mechanisms, such as theory of mind, anthropomorphism, or folk-dualism, as causes of religious phenomena. It also includes evolutionary views such as evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution. Four philosophical issues in CSR can be identified. First, CSR is criticized because it has reductionism, which can ignore social and cultural factors. Second, modernist and postmodernist scholars are at odds over what scientific knowledge is, and they are also divided over the concept of consilience, which means the unification of various disciplines. Third, while scholars of religion have been criticized the concept of religion for its Western-centric bias, proponents of CSR argue that it has analytic utility. Finally, some point out that CSR has ideological stances such as atheism or materialism, and CSR can debunk certain religious beliefs. Although opinions on these issues are polarized between proponents and critics of CSR, a more in-depth examination of each issue would allow for the mediation of the two positions.
