Original scientific paper
Towards a Cognitive-Scientific Understanding of the Experience of Sacred
Benedikt Perak
; University of Rijeka, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Cultural Studies, Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
In this article a multidisciplinary approach of cognitive sciences is employed for the analysis of a special category of human experience related to the religious understanding of the world, termed according to the History of Religion as the ‘experience of sacred’. The experience of sacred is defined as the state of consciousness with a subjective quality of integration, a specific neural correlate and functional features. Emergentist theory of consciousness provides ontologically consistent perspective offering a “natural” explanation for this type of experience without denying its subjective phenomenology. The linguistic expression of the experience is examined in the light of Johnson’s and Lakoff’s cognitive linguistic theory. The linguistic competence enabling the expression of the sacred experience is defined as the emergent property of conceptual processing of metaphorical thinking shaped by the embodied mind. This approach explains the seminal role of the experience of sacred in the formation of complex mythological and cultural models, but also points to its non discursive nature.
Keywords
cognitive science; religion; experience of sacred; mystical experience; emergence; neurotheology; conceptual metaphor
Hrčak ID:
62965
URI
Publication date:
21.7.2010.
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