For the information of those who might be interested:

The following book has just been published:

Ilkka Pyysiainen & Veikko Anttonen (eds.), Current Approaches in the Cognitive Science of Religion (London & New York: Continuum). 277 pp.  Soon available in bookstores, both in cloth and paperback.

Table of contents:

Ilkka Pyysiäinen
Introduction: Cognition and Culture in the Construction of Religion

Veikko Anttonen
Identifying the Generative Mechanisms of Religion: The Issue of Origin Revisited

Stewart Guthrie
Animal Animism: Evolutionary Roots of Religious Cognition

Pascal Boyer
Why Do Gods and Spirits Matter at All?

Justin L. Barrett
Dumb Gods, Petitionary Prayer, and the Cognitive Science of Religion

Ilkka Pyysiäinen
Religion and the Counter-Intuitive

Harvey Whitehouse
Implicit and Explicit Knowledge in the Domain of Ritual

E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley
Cognitive Constraints on Religious Ritual Form: A Theory of Participants’ Competence with Religious Systems

Jesper Sørensen
“The Morphology and Function of Magic” Revisited

Jeppe Sinding Jensen
The Complex Worlds of Religion: Connecting Cultural and Cognitive Analysis

Pertti Saariluoma
Does Classification Explicate the Contents of Concepts?

Matti Kamppinen
Explaining Religion – Cognitive and Evolutionary Mechanisms



Ilkka Pyysiainen, Ph.D.
Research Fellow
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
Department of Comparative Religion
P.O. Box 59 (Unioninkatu 38 E)
FIN-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
FINLAND
Tel. 358-(0)9-191 21646
GSM 358-(0)40-7646452