Original scientific paper
Neurotheologia, Quo Vadis: Some Philosophical Problems of Neurotheology
Sebastjan Vörös
orcid.org/0000-0003-1064-5657
; University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Abstract
The article provides a critical analysis of some of the most pertinent philosophical problems of neurotheology. Neurotheology is one of the most recent and arguably the most controversial neuro(sub)discipline that purports to account for, or at least shed light on, the phenomenon of religion in neuroscientific terms. Following a very brief overview of this newly emerging (neuro)scientific discipline, two major philosophical issues are presented: the explanatory vacuity of neurotheological accounts and the inability to reflect upon, and therefore draw appropriate implications from, their epistemological and metaphysical commitments. It will be argued that both issues are at least partially dependant on the so-called modular hypothesis which has been uncritically accepted by most authors in the field and still plays a major role in neuroscience as such. At the closing of the article, some very general suggestions for an alternative approach to the study of religious experience are put forward, drawing on two complementary and interrelated approaches to consciousness and cognition, namely neurophenomenology and the “4EA models”.
Keywords
Enactivism; epistemology; neurophenomenology; neurotheology; philosophy of mind; philosophy of (neuro)science; religious experience
Hrčak ID:
129632
URI
Publication date:
19.11.2014.
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