Mark Gardiner

This article proposes a polythetic definition of religion using Afro-Brazilian religions as prototypes: not as the correct definition, but as a thought experiment to enable theorizing beyond Christian biases that have shaped the study of religion. By using a stable-property-cluster approach to definition—addressing weaknesses in both monothetic-essentialist and family-resemblance approaches—the resulting framework emphasizes hybridity, ritual, healing, and fluid theologies/spiritologies. This shifts the focus from institutionalized, text-based, and hegemonically networked religious forms. The definition is proposed as a theoretical intervention that foregrounds the epistemological crossroads (encruzilhadas) at which scholars—in dialogue with their interlocutors—construct and deploy disciplinary categories.

The laboratory animal science community is moving toward increasing the quality of their work. There are two main reasons for that: first, the objective of improving the care and use of the animals to ensure animal well-being; and second, the general trend by animal researchers toward enhancing the quality, reproducibility, and translatability of the research outcome. Therefore, animal care and use program managers are more and more involved, by personal and/or institutional commitment, in the implementation of quality practices in all animal program areas. In addition to internal quality measures, that may or may not be imposed by regulations, there are several external quality systems that can, and have been traditionally applied, to animal care and use programs. The practical aspects of the implementation of the three most common quality systems in the animal research environment (AAALAC International, GLP, and ISO) are described.

This article investigates the extent to which the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and Donald Davidson’s semantic holism (DSH) harmonize. We first characterize CSR, philosophical semantics (and more specifically DSH). We then note a prima facie tension between CSR and DSH’s view of First-Person Authority (that we know what is meant when we speak in a way that we do not when others speak). If CSR is correct that the causes of religious belief are located in cognitive processes in the mind/brain, then religious insiders might have no idea what they are talking about: only the scholar of CSR would have a chance of knowing what they ‘really’ mean. The article argues that the resolution to this problem is to take seriously DSH’s rejection of semantic bifurcation, specifically rejecting the idea that religious and non-religious language can be sharply distinguished. We conclude by supporting the following claims: (i) common cognitive neural/psychological processes are explanatorily relevant in proposed meaning-theories for any discourse, and (ii) those processes need semantic supplementation with reference to external and naturalistic factors (biological, cultural, environmental etc.). Keywords: cognitive science of religion, cognitive theory, holism, semantics, philosophy of language, religious studies, theory of religion.

This article argues that — despite the value of distinguishing between insiders and outsiders in a contingent and relative sense — there is no fundamental insider—outsider problem. We distinguish weak and strong versions of 'insiderism' (privileged versus monopolistic access to knowledge) and then sociological and religious versions of the latter. After reviewing critiques of the sociological version, we offer a holistic semantic critique of the religious version (i.e. the view that religious experience and/or language offers sui generis access to knowledge). We argue that all evidence for mental states is overt, public, and observable, and, hence, that there can be no significant difference in the access to knowledge of insiders and outsiders

Putnam's Model-Theoretic argument purports to show that, contrary to what the metaphysical realist is committed to, an epistemically ideal theory which satisfies all operational and theoretical constraints can be guaranteed to be true. He draws the additional antirealist conclusion that there can be no single privileged relation of reference. I argue that the very possibility of a so-called ideal theory satisfying all operational constraints presupposes a determinate relation of reference, and hence Putnam must assume precisely what he denies.

The methodology implicit in empirically grounded social scientific studies of religion naturally allies with forms of semantic holism. However, a well known argument which questions whether holism in general is consistent with the fact that languages are learnable can be extended into an epistemological one which questions whether holism is consistent with an empirical methodology. In other words, there is question whether holism, in fact, makes social science possible. I diagnose the assumptions on which that objection rests, pointing out that they are not necessary for semantic holism per se. I argue that a form of semantic holism along the lines advocated by W. V. O. Quine and Donald Davidson can avoid the objection. Moreover, when seen in this light, it has the resources to withstand an even deeper methodological problem. In so doing, though, several important but overlooked implications for the study of religion emerge.