Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy

Experimental philosophy has blossomed into a variety of philosophical fields including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of language. But there has been very little experimental philosophical research in the domain of philosophy of religion.Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy demonstrates how cognitive science of religion has the methodological and conceptual resources to become a form of experimental philosophy of religion.

Addressing a wide variety of empirical claims that are of interest to philosophers and psychologists of religion, a team of psychologists and philosophers apply data from the psychology of religion to important problems in the philosophy of religion including the psychology of religious diversity; the psychology of substance dualism; the problem of evil and the relation between religious belief and empathy; and the cognitive science explaining the formation of intuitions that unwittingly guide philosophers of religion when formulating arguments.

Bringing together authors and researchers who have made important contributions to interdisciplinary research on religion in the last decade,Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy provides new ways of approaching core philosophical and psychological problems.

Helen De Cruz is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, VU University, Amsterdam

Ryan Nichols is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at California State University, Fullerton, USA, and Research Affiliate, Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition & Culture, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.