Robert N. McCauley | Publications | Rethinking Religion : Table of Contents

Rethinking Religion:
Connecting Cognition and Culture

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Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture

First (1990) Hardcover Edition

1993 Paperback Edition

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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

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