ABSTRACT
This chapter provides several presentations that present a solution to the problem of syncretism on very different levels. Representing the stance of social science, the anthropologist Charles Stewart points out different significant discourses on syncretism that have been active in anthropology, with decisive results in political as well as religious life. He observes that the discourse of syncretism in British anthropology, from the starting point of European colonization, was related to the negative attitude towards syncretism of the European Church. Stewart tells us that in contemporary social studies, syncretism has come back because of an increased interest in subjects such as "globalization". Luther Martin turns to the cognitive sciences to find scientific criteria that can explain the old problems of syncretism in a new way. Consequently, Martin establishes that syncretistic formations in cultural constructions may be explained from their founding in cognitive constraints. Martin proposes the Darwinian theory of natural selection as a model for the underlying mechanisms of syncretism.
