ABSTRACT
Scholars of a relatively new discipline, the cognitive science of religion (CSR), are proposing new approaches to religion which challenge long-standing methodologies in anthropology and sociology as well as Classics. In their view, the human mind is supplied with an array of mental tools which give rise to religious beliefs and practices as by-products of normal cognition. After surveying the geographical and chronological boundaries of our investigation, we turn to the dual-process model, a fundamental cognitive principle which helps to explain why the Greeks were not distressed by what we often perceive as logical inconsistencies in their religion (e.g. between the local and Panhellenic personas of the gods). We then consider the dual-process model in the context of appropriate materials and methods for studying Greek religion, and conclude with the “minimally counterintuitive concept,” another key idea in CSR. The illustrative essays examine strategies for conceptualizing the unlimited Greek pantheon, the interaction between Homer’s Hera and the Hera(s) of cult, and the nature of reciprocity, an adaptive feature of human social behavior which is also fundamental to Greek religion.
