
John TeehanHofstra University · Department of Religion
John Teehan
Ph.D.
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33
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216
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
September 1998 - January 2016
Education
September 1986 - May 1992
September 1985 - December 1986
Publications
Publications (33)
To secure the scientific credibility of its theoretical foundations, CSR needs to update its cognitive model. Seminal work in CSR, and much contemporary research, employs a model of cognition that is subject to mounting criticism (i.e., cognitivism). The most significant of these critiques come from 4E cognition. This paper focuses on enactive cogn...
Reply to Commentaries on Toward an embodied CSR
The commentaries revealed several recurring themes, most prominent being my arguments against Representationalism and Predictive Processing. These require a more extensive treatment, but I will begin with a general, yet foundational topic: the evolutionary context of both cognition and religion. A fai...
The cognitive science of religion sets out a naturalistic account of religion, in which religious phenomena are grounded in evolved cognitive and moral intuitions. This has important implications for understanding religious systems and the practice of theology. Religions, it is argued, are moral worldviews; theology, rather than a rational justific...
The Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) is developing a sophisticated naturalistic account of religion, grounded in empirical research. However, there are limitations to establishing an empirical basis for theories about religion’s role in human evolution. Computer modeling and simulation offers a way to address this experimental constraint. A case...
ABSTRACT
A cognitive scientific approach to religion reveals the moral role of religion in human evolutionary history and provides insight into the continuing influence of religion in human affairs. While morality can be understood and justified apart from any religious foundation, religion
cannot be separated from its moral function. After setting...
Morality from an evolutionary perspective is a code of conduct that regulates behavior within a group in order to promote social cohesion and stability. Both religion and secularism are grounded in the same moral psychology. How should the distinction between secular and religious ethics be assessed? Religious morality is a latecomer to the natural...
and Keywords The relationship between religion and morality is a subject of widespread interest and intense debate: Is morality a product of religion? Can one be moral without religion? Can moral claims be justified outside of a religious context? These are important questions that have been subject to much investigation by theologians and philosop...
The problem of evil is a central issue in the philosophy of religion, for countless believers and skeptics alike. The attempt to resolve the dilemma of positing the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, creator while recognizing the presence of evil in the world has engaged philosophers and theologians for millennia. This article will not see...
Setting the TaskThe Moral BrainThe First Layer: Kin SelectionThe Second Layer: Reciprocal AltruismA Third Layer: Indirect ReciprocityA Fourth Layer: Cultural Group SelectionA Fifth Layer: The Moral EmotionsConclusion: From Moral Grammar to Moral Systems
Religion is one of the most powerful forces running through human history, and although often presented as a force for good, its impact is frequently violent and divisive. This provocative work brings together cutting-edge research from both evolutionary and cognitive psychology to help readers understand the psychological structure of religious mo...
Setting the TaskThe Evolution of the Religious MindConceptualizing the AlmightyThe Moral Function of Gods
evolution and mind;evolutionary process and its application - to history of human beings;Darwin - possibility of approaching study of human mind from a whole new perspective;moving toward Freudian and behaviorist psychological paradigms - forestalling Darwinian method to human mind;evolutionary psychology - behavior, belief, emotions, thinking, and...
Setting the TaskConstructing the ChristSetting the Boundaries: Christian and/or Jew?The Third Race: Christians as In-GroupPutting on Christ: Christianity's Signals of CommitmentLoving Your Neighbor and Turning the Other Cheek
Setting the TaskVarieties of Religious ExpressionsIf There Were No God …Religion, Ethics, and Violence: An AssessmentResponding to Religion, Ethics, and Violence: Some ProposalsConclusions
Setting the TaskDevoted to Destruction: Sanctified Violence and JudaismThe Blood of the LambA Case Study in the Evolved Psychology of Religious Violence: 9/11
Setting the TaskConstructing YahwehThe Ten Commandments: An Evolutionary InterpretationConclusion: The Evolved Law
I propose that religious ethical traditions can be understood as cultural expressions of underlying evolutionary processes. I begin with a discussion of evolutionary theories of morality, specifically kin selection and reciprocal altruism, and then discuss some recent work on the evolution of religion, setting out those features of religion that pr...
In debates concerning evolutionary approaches to ethics the Naturalistic Fallacy (i.e., deriving values from facts or "ought" from "is") is often invoked as a constraining principle. For example, Stephen Jay Gould asserts the most that evolutionary studies can hope to do is set out the conditions under which certain morals or values might have aris...
In this article I reevaluate Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy from a post–Darwinian perspective. Taking an evolutionary approach to human reasoning and incorporating some recent work on the science of the emotions, I argue that the Kantian bifurcation of reason and emotion, which underlies his moral philosophy, is no longer tenable. Kant's practica...
If evolution has equipped us for a xenophobic morality, denying that fact by postulating for humanity a transcendent essence is, in my view, the intellectual equivalent of an ostrich burying its head in the sand to escape danger. That we are unhappy with the logic of evolution says nothing about the validity of that logic. If natural xenophobes is...
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 16.3 (2002) 225-238
Evolution has been a controversial theory since before Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Darwin's own apprehension concerning the impending outcry over his work is well known. Almost one hundred and fifty years later, evolution seems to have lost little of its power to stir up resis...
We are living in the midst of one of the greatest periods of intellectual discovery in the history of religious studies. Scholars
from anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience and philosophy are developing a cognitive science of religion
which promises to revolutionize and profoundly deepen our understanding of religion. Scholar...