1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910452812103321

Autore

Smith Barbara Herrnstein

Titolo

Natural reflections [[electronic resource] ] : human cognition at the nexus of science and religion / / Barbara Herrnstein Smith

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven [Conn.], : Yale University Press, c2009

ISBN

0-300-16623-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (224 p.)

Collana

The Terry lectures

Disciplina

201/.65

Soggetti

Religion and science

Cognition

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Book is adapted from the Dwight H. Terry Lectures delivered at Yale University in 2006.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-191) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Prophecies, predictions, and human cognition -- Cognitive machinery and explanatory ambitions : the new naturalism -- "The gods seem here to stay" : naturalism, rationalism, and the persistence of belief -- Deep reading : the new natural theology -- Reflections : science and religion, natural and unnatural.

Sommario/riassunto

In this important and original book, eminent scholar Barbara Herenstein Smith describes, assesses, and reflects upon a set of contemporary intellectual projects involving science, religion, and human cognition. One, which Smith calls "the New Naturalism", is the effort to explain religion on the basis of cognitive science. Another, which she calls "the New Natural Theology", is the attempt to reconcile natural-scientific accounts of the world with traditional religious belief. These two projects, she suggests, are in many ways mirror images -- or "natural reflections" - of each other. Examing these and related efforts from the perspective of a constructivist-pragmatist epistemology, Smith argues that crucial aspects of belief - religious and other - that remain elusive or invisible under dominant rationalist and computational models are illuminated by views of human cognition that stress its dynamic, embodied, and interactive features. She also demonstrates how constructivist understandings of the formation and stabilization of knowledge - scientific and other - alert us to simularities in the springs



of science and religion that are elsewhere seen largely in terms of difference and contrast. In Natural Reflections, Smith develops a sophisticated approach to issues often framed only polemically. Recognizing science and religion as complex, distinct domains of human practice, she also insists on their significant historical connections and cognitive continuities and offers important new modes of engagement with each of them--Jacket.

2.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910787080003321

Autore

Jordan Peter <1969->

Titolo

Technology as human social tradition : cultural transmission among hunter-gatherers / / Peter Jordan

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Oakland, California : , : University of California Press, , 2015

©2015

ISBN

0-520-27693-0

0-520-95833-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (425 p.)

Collana

Origins of Human Behavior and Culture ; ; Number 7

Classificazione

SOC002010SOC003000

Disciplina

303.48/3

Soggetti

Technology and civilization

Hunting and gathering societies

Technological complexity

Prehistoric peoples - Material culture

Social evolution

Social learning

Intercultural communication

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Archiving of Data Sets -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Methodology -- 3. Northwest Siberia -- 4. Pacific Northwest Coast -- 5. Northern California -- 6. Conclusions -- Appendix: Mantel Matrix Correlations -- References -- Index



Sommario/riassunto

Technology as Human Social Tradition outlines a novel approach to studying variability and cumulative change in human technology-prominent research themes in both archaeology and anthropology. Peter Jordan argues that human material culture is best understood as an expression of social tradition. In this approach, each artifact stands as an output of a distinctive operational sequence with specific choices made at each stage in its production. Jordan also explores different material culture traditions that are propagated through social learning, factors that promote coherent lineages of tradition to form, and the extent to which these cultural lineages exhibit congruence with one another and with language history. Drawing on the application of cultural transmission theory to empirical research, Jordan develops a descent-with-modification perspective on the technology of Northern Hemisphere hunter-gatherers. Case studies from indigenous societies in Northwest Siberia, the Pacific Northwest Coast, and Northern California provide cross-cultural insights related to the evolution of material culture traditions at different social and spatial scales. This book promises new ways of exploring some of the primary factors that generate human cultural diversity in the deep past and through to the present.