Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
I. Declarations and debts 1
II. Loans and pursuits of an interdisciplinary sort 8
1. Interpretation and explanation: problems and promise
      in the study of religion
I. Introduction 12
II. Explanation and Interpretation: three accounts 14
Exclusivism 15
Inclusivism 18
Interactionism 22
2. Three theories of religion
I. Introduction 32
II. Intellectualism 33
III. Symbolism 37
IV. Structuralism 41
V. Conclusion 43
3. Ritual as language
I. Introduction 45
II. Ritual as performative utterance 51
III. Ritual as the communication of information 54
IV. Ritual as formal system 56
4. A cognitive approach to symbolic-cultural systems
I. Introduction 60
II. On the status of linguistic theory 61
III. A cognitive approach to cultural materials 68
IV. In defense of a cognitive approach to religious ritual acts 77
5. Outline of a theory of religious ritual systems
I. Introduction 84
II. Action elements and formation rules 87
III. Applications and illustrations 95
Two complications 96
The object agency filter 98
Ritual alterations of objects 102
Ritual implication of the superhuman 110
A further illustration 113
IV. Universal principles of religious ritual structure 121
Substantive and formal universals 122
Functional universals 123
6. Semantics and ritual systems
I. Introduction 137
II. Semiotic ghosts and reflexive holism in semantics 138
III. Holism with multiple models 148
IV. Comments on the semantics of religious ritual systems 157
V. Staal and ritualization 166
7. Connecting the cognitive and the cultural
I. Introduction 170
II. The theory of religious ritual systems and explanation 172
III. Structural explanation 177
IV. An integrated approach to cognitive and cultural systems 180
References 185
Index 191