Publication details
Teorie vtělené a rozšířené kognice a její význam pro výzkum náboženství
| Title in English | Theory of embodied and extended mind a its relevance for the study of religion |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Pantheon: religionistický časopis |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Philosophy and religion |
| Keywords | embodied cognition; extended mind; material artifacts; religious ritual |
| Description | The paper traces the connections of embodied cognition and extended mind theorizing with the study of religions. First, paper discusses key elements of embodied cognition. The theory is explained against the assumptions of classical conceptions of human mind based on early computer science and cybernetics. These cognitivist theories understood mental processes as an abstract and disembodied operations executed by any kind of hardware. However the success of neural network simulations laid down support for a theoretical articulations of thinking as embodied and materially constrained process. The simulations demonstrated that memory operations and decision-making are possible by underlying material structure. Analogically, the early theories of embodiment were mapping the way our bodily perceptions, resulting from distributed neural connections, shape the knowledge concerning space, weight and physical dynamics. These theories showed the way this appreciation shapes language , symbolic forms and decision-making. This theoretical development is illustrated by the research of (1) ritual, emotions and religious experience; (2) embodied linguistics and metaphor comprehension in early Chinese texts; (3) research of religious intuitions. The second part of the paper maps the impact of environmental context on human thinking abilities. From a simple material formations working as a conceptual support of a thinking process to a specifically designed cognitive artefacts allowing accomplishment of certain task, minimizing the cognitive effort, paper discusses the ways material environment shapes and canalizes human mental abilities. Among areas of experimental research affiliated to a study of religions paper presents: (1) material priming studies; (2) research of suggestibility; (3) and ethnographic research of divination practices. As experimental and ethnographic researches indicate material artefacts are a vital constituent of cultural practices of cognition. |
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