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RELIGIOUS COGNITION AS INTERPRETED EXPERIENCE: AN EXAMINATION OF IAN BARBOUR'S COMPARISON OF THE EPISTEMIC STRUCTURES OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Author(s) -
Rottschaefer William A.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9744.1985.tb00596.x
Subject(s) - cognition , theism , epistemology , cognitive science of religion , psychology , religious belief , religious experience , social psychology , sociology , philosophy , neuroscience
. Using as a model contemporary analyses of scientific cognition, Ian Harbour has claimed that religious cognition is neither immediate nor inferential but has the structure of interpreted experience. Although I contend that Barbour has failed to establish his claim, I believe his views about the similarities between scientific and religious cognition are well founded. Thus on that basis I offer an alternative proposal that theistic religious cognition is essentially inferential and that religious experience is in fact the use of inferentially acquired religious beliefs to interpret ordinary nonreligious experiences.