A LITERARY TRINITY FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND RELIGION
John A. Teske
Zygon December 3, 2025 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2010.01096.x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Tribalism Empathy Externalism Causality Social neuroscience |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that the cognitive sciences contribute to religion-and-science discussions through three narrative perspectives—first-person (consciousness), second-person (relationality), and third-person (healing tribalisms)—each with distinct epistemic roles and insights. |
Abstract
The cognitive sciences may be understood to contribute to religion‐and‐science as a metadisciplinary discussion in ways that can be organized according to the three persons of narrative, encoding the themes of consciousness, relationality, and healing. First‐person accounts are likely to be important to the understanding of consciousness, the “hard problem” of subjective experience, and contribute to a neurophenomenology of mind, even though we must be aware of their role in human suffering, their epistemic limits, and their indirect causal role in human behavior and subsequent experience. Second‐person discussions are important for understanding the empathic and embodied relationality upon which an externalist account of mind is likely to depend, increasingly uncovered and supported by social neuroscience. Third‐person accounts can be better understood in uncovering the us/them distinctions that they encode and healing the dangerous tribalisms that put an interdependent and communal world increasingly at risk.
Comparable studies
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| How do the brain's time and space mediate consciousness and its different dimensions? Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC). | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The phenomenology of deep brain stimulation-induced changes in OCD: an enactive affordance-based model. | 2013 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Looking for the Self: Phenomenology, Neurophysiology and Philosophical Significance of Drug-induced Ego Dissolution | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |