CFP: Special Issue of The Monist: Naturalizing Religious Belief

CFP: Special Issue of The Monist
Theme: Naturalizing Religious Belief

Deadline for Submissions: July 31, 2012
Advisory Editor: James Beebe, University at Buffalo (jbeebe2@buffalo.edu)

The cognitive science of religion brings the methods and resources of the cognitive sciences to bear on questions about religious thought and action, such as how ordinary cognitive structures inform and constrain the transmission of religious ideas, why people believe in gods, why religious rituals tend to have the forms that they do, and why afterlife and creation beliefs are so common. Findings in the cognitive science of religion raise a variety of philosophical questions, such as whether these findings undermine, threaten or explain away religious belief; whether those who believe in the supernatural can consistently accept a strongly naturalistic explanation of those beliefs; and whether traditional notions of religious belief are compatible with the view that explicit expressions of religious commitment are often post hoc rationalizations of intuitive but often unconscious inclinations of evolved mental structures. Contributions are invited that address these and other philosophical questions raised by the cognitive science of religion.

Submissions should be sent via email to the Advisory Editor, James Beebe (University at Buffalo) atjbeebe2@buffalo.edu.