ABSTRACT
Recent research in Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) has produced what seem to be conflicting assessments of our concepts of and beliefs about supernatural agents such as God, spirits, and the soul. Paul Bloom has described both children and adults as "intuitive dualists" who understand humans and nonhuman animals to be composed of two entities: a body and a soul. Stewart Guthrie pioneered the line of research with his observation that it is both empirically evidenced and evolutionarily plausible that animals would develop mental modules that detect agents and traces of agency. In a later formulation of Guthrie's view, Barrett (2004) dubbed the Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device theory, or HADD. Developmental psychologist Paul Bloom reached conclusions similar to those of Guthrie through psychological rather than evolutionary considerations. Bloom claims that children are "intuitive dualists", and appears to use the terms "dualist" and "Cartesian dualist" more or less interchangeably.
