Defining “religion” as natural: A critical invitation to Robert McCauley

Zygon 49 (3):708-715 (2014)
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Abstract

Previous critics have argued that Robert McCauley defines religion and science selectively and arbitrarily, cutting them to fit his model in Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not. McCauley has responded that final definitions are “overrated” and that artificial distinctions can serve an important role in naturalistic investigation. I agree with this position but argue that a genealogy of the category of religion is crucial to the methodology that McCauley describes. Since the inherent ambiguity of religion will undermine any essential claims about its cognitive naturalness, I invite McCauley to consider how his research might investigate scientific and religious cognition in new terms

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Explanatory modesty.Robert N. McCauley - 2014 - Zygon 49 (3):728-740.

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References found in this work

Explaining Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodin to Freud.J. Samuel Preus - 1987 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 27 (3):186-187.
Religion, religions, religious.Jonathan Z. Smith - 1998 - In Mark Taylor, Critical Terms for Religious Studies. The University of Chicago Press. pp. 269–284.

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