Where is the counterintuitive agent in Judaism

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Where is the counterintuitive agent in Judaism?

• Tamás Biró
• ACLC,
• University of Amsterdam
• Groningen Centre for Religion Cognition

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E. Thomas Lawson Robert N. McCauley

• Lawson McCauley, 1990. Rethinking Religion,
  Connecting Cognition and Culture
• Foundations of the Cognitive Science of Religion
• Model of rituals, based on Chomskyan syntax
• McCauley Lawson, 2002 Bringing Ritual to Mind,
  Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms
• Which predicts better the arousal connected to
  rituals? Ritual form (LMcC, 1990) or frequency
  (Whitehouse, 1995)?

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The fate of a scientific model

• Prediction ? corroboration/falsification/improveme
  nt
• Can LMcC 1990 / McCL 2002 be applied to
  Judaism?
• I am afraid not very much
• Open question what about other religions?
• Fritz Staals ritual structures Mikhail on UMG

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Overview

• Introduction to / own reading of / elaboration on
  LawsonMcCauleys model of ritual form
• Back to the linguistic model
• Introducing new roles, new structures, negation
• LMcC Implementation to religious rituals
• Implementation to Judaism

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Linguistics syntaxsemantics interface
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Linguistics syntaxsemantics interface
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Linguistics syntaxsemantics interface
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Thematic roles (Theta-roles)

• Semantic arguments of the action
• Agent (logical subject)
• Patient (logical direct object)
• Instrument
• Further semantic roles
• Recipient (logical indirect/dative object
  LMcC p125)
• Location, time
• Experiencer
• Etc.

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Frequent confusion ontological categories
thematic roles
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Thematic roles for action representation

• So far linguistic arguments to introduce them
  (arguments from specific languages and from
  cross-linguistic comparison).
• My hypothesis Linguistic observations reflect a
  deeper cognitive phenomenon the mental
  representation of actions and states-of-affair in
  the world.
• Need to be demonstrated even beyond religion.

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Axioms of Human Cognition 1

• Axiom AHC 1
• (1a) (Object Agency Filter) Agentive roles can
  be filled only by (some!) agentive categories.
• (1a) Only agentive categories can bring about
  changes in the world.
• (1b) (Agent Overdetection) Agentive roles are
  preferably filled by ontological agents (humans
  and CIAs, but not by natural forces).

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Action representation formalism

• (LawsonMcCauley, mixture of different linguistic
  formalisms.)
• John broke the window.

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Axioms of Human Cognition 2

• The hammer broke the window.
• The window was broken by the hammer.
• John broke the window using the hammer.
• Axiom AHC 2
• (2a) Agentive categories being able to perform
  action X can enable other categories to act as
  instrument, or as secondary agents in performing
  action X.
• (2b) Otherwise, non-agentive categories cannot
  act as instruments.

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Action representation formalism

• The hammer broke the window.

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Enabling an instrument

• Presupposition (explicit or implicit)
• The hammer was moved
• by John (an agent)
• by folk-gravitation (an agentive natural force)
• by a robot an object acting as a secondary agent
• Because the robot was
• designed by a human (an agent)
• activated by folk-electricity (an agentive
  natural force)

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Enabling an instrument

• The hammer moved by John broke the window.

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Lawson McCauley on religious rituals

• Religious ritual if and only if at least one slot
  is filled by a counterintuitive agent (CIA)
• or an agent/instrument enabled by a CIA.
• The shortest chain of enabling counts (PSI).
• Special agent rituals vs. others (PSA).
• Balanced ritual systems need both.
• Tedium if no special agent rituals.

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Application to post-Temple Judaism

• Special agent rituals in Judaism?
• Circumcision?
• Bar mitzvah?
• Wedding?
• Special patient rituals?
• Ritual bath?
• What about most commandments?
• Positive vs. negative commandments

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New thematic relations negation

• Presupposed enabling action
• Cf Mum told us to take a coat whenever its cold.

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Co-indexing and predication

• Dont light fire on Shabbat!

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Summary

• An overview of Lawson McCauley 1990 from a
  different perspective
• Thematic roles as elements of action
  representation system.
• Axioms of cognition
• Implementing L McC 1990 to Judaism need to
  improve the model (what about other religions?)
• New thematic roles
• Negation, co-indexing

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Thank you for your attention!

• Tamás Biró
• http//www.birot.hu
• Download this presentation from the Archive for
  Religion Cognition
• http//www.csr-arc.com