Paper Short Abstract:

Cognitive approaches to religion(s) often engage in generalised explanations about its/their nature and features, overlooking historical and cultural differences. The aim of this paper is to challenge these approaches, offering a more nuanced and context-based analysis of religious phenomena.

Paper Abstract:

Due to the lack of an agreed and conclusive definition of the concept of religion(s), different disciplines explore and engage in debates regarding its/their nature and features.

In the realms of anthropology, religious studies, and folklore studies, the topic of religion(s) is approached through different ethnographic instances, with limited attention to universal features of the religious experiences attested historically and geographically. Conversely, other approaches based on cognitive studies and related disciplines tend to focus on the universality and evolutionary origins of religion(s), attempting to provide explanations for the similarities and scopes of religious experiences.

Cognitive approaches to religion(s) are successful in the framework of hard sciences, due to their reliance or association to familiar scientific paradigms, such as evolutionary theory. These approaches can also rely on ethnographic data and valid arguments, showing nonetheless theoretical limits. Specifically, cognitive approaches offer a too generalised and fundamentally essentialised view on religion as a cross-cultural byproduct of human cognition (Guthrie 1993, Boyer 1994).

The aim of this paper is to challenge the limits of cognitive approaches, offering a more nuanced and context-based analysis of the concept of religion(s). I argue that the concept of religion(s) itself needs to be critically discussed and engaged, before being understood in the different cultural and historical contexts where the so-called religious phenomena are found.

In this regard, historical and ethnographic cases (specifically from Northeast India and Bhutan) will be explored and integrated in the theoretical discussions and debates about religion(s).