This book is coming out in the next month or so. I've got a chapter in it (please forgive the self-promotion). The book originated from a pair of conferences in 2020 organized by Robert Vinten having to do with Wittgenstein, naturalism, and CSR, part of the larger project at Nova University Lisbon, "Epistemology of Religious Belief: Wittgenstein, Grammar and the Contemporary World," which was directed by Nuno Venturinha and Sofia Miguens. I learned a lot being a part of the project and look forward to seeing the completed book. I believe there will be another book coming out eventually on Wittgenstein and the Epistemology of Religious Belief, having to do significantly with hinge epistemology and philosophy of religion. But that will be a post for another day.
Here's a little bit about my chapter: "Wittgenstein, Naturalism and Interpreting Religious Phenomena"
Abstract: In this chapter, I explore in what senses Wittgenstein might be taken to support as well as to oppose naturalist approaches to interpreting religious phenomena. First, I provide a short overview of some passages from Wittgenstein’s writings—especially the “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”—relevant to the issue of the naturalness of religious phenomena. Second, I venture some possibilities regarding what naturalism might mean in connection with Wittgenstein. Lastly, I explore the bearing of Wittgenstein’s remarks on religion for the interpretation of religious phenomena. Ultimately, I argue that Wittgenstein’s remarks on religion depict a way of thinking about the naturalness of religious phenomena, and that naturalistic depiction is part of the clarificatory work of philosophy. Wittgenstein reminds himself and his readers that religiosity is not something mysterious, per se; it is a core possibility within human life, one which can anchor meaningful living.
Here's what the publisher's website has to say about the book:
Description
Advancing our understanding of one of the most influential 20th-century philosophers, Robert Vinten brings together an international line up of scholars to consider the relevance of Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas to the cognitive science of religion. Wittgenstein's claims ranged from the rejection of the idea that psychology is a 'young science' in comparison to physics to challenges to scientistic and intellectualist accounts of religion in the work of past anthropologists.
Chapters explore whether these remarks about psychology and religion undermine the frameworks and practices of cognitive scientists of religion. Employing philosophical tools as well as drawing on case studies, contributions not only illuminate psychological experiments, anthropological observations and neurophysiological research relevant to understanding religious phenomena, they allow cognitive scientists to either heed or clarify their position in relation to Wittgenstein's objections. By developing and responding to his criticisms, Wittgenstein and the Cognitive Science of Religion offers novel perspectives on his philosophy in relation to religion, human nature, and the mind.
Table of Contents
Introduction, Robert Vinten (New University of Lisbon, Portugal)
1. Wittgenstein, Concepts and Human Nature, Roger Trigg (University of Warwick, UK)
2. On Truth, Language and Objectivity, Florian Franken Figueiredo (New University of Lisbon, Portugal)
3. Pascal Boyer's Miscellany of Homunculi: A Wittgensteinian Critique of Religion Explained, Robert Vinten (New University of Lisbon, Portugal)
4. The Brain Perceives/ Infers, Hans Van Eyghen (Tilburg University, The Netherlands)
5. The Imaginary Inner Inside the Cognitive Science of Religion, Christopher Hoyt (Western Carolina University, USA)
6. Cognitive Theories And Wittgenstein: Looking For Convergence Not For Divergence, Olympia Panagiotidou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
7. Wittgenstein, Naturalism, and Interpreting Religious Phenomena, Thomas Carroll (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen)
8. Natural Thoughts and Unnatural Oughts: Lessing, Wittgenstein, and Contemporary CSR, Guy Axtell (Radford University, USA)
9. Normative Cognition in the Cognitive Science of Religion, Mark Addis (London School of Economics, UK)
10. Brains as the Source of Being: Mind/Brain Focus and the Western Model of Mind in Dominant Cognitive Science Discourse, Rita McNamara (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)
11. On Religious Practices as Multiscale Active Inference: Certainties Emerging From Recurrent Interactions Within and Across Individuals and Groups, Inês Hipólito (Humboldt University, Germany) and Casper Hesp (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
