Background
Pascal Robert Boyer was born in France.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
200 avenue de la République 92000 Nanterre, France
Pascal Boyer received a Master in Ethnology from Paris University in 1979, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnology from this university in 1983.
St Johns St CB2 1TP Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
In 1984-1986, Pascal Boyer studied at St. John's College.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
2005
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
2005
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
200 avenue de la République 92000 Nanterre, France
Pascal Boyer received a Master in Ethnology from Paris University in 1979, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnology from this university in 1983.
St Johns St CB2 1TP Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
In 1984-1986, Pascal Boyer studied at St. John's College.
Pascal Boyer, anthropologist and educator.
(Tradition is a central concept in the social sciences, bu...)
Tradition is a central concept in the social sciences, but it is commonly treated as unproblematic. Dr. Boyer insists that social anthropology requires a theory of tradition, its constitution, and transmission. He treats tradition "as a type of interaction which results in the repetition of certain communicative events," and therefore as a form of social action. Tradition as Truth and Communication deals particularly with oral communication and focuses on the privileged role of licensed speakers and the ritual contexts in which certain aspects of tradition are characteristically transmitted. Drawing on cognitive psychology, Dr. Boyer proposes a set of general hypotheses to be tested by ethnographic field research. He has opened up an important new field for investigation within social anthropology.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521024668/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2
1990
(How are religious ideas presented, acquired and transmitt...)
How are religious ideas presented, acquired and transmitted? Confronted with religious practices, anthropologists have typically been content with sociological generalizations, informed by vague, intuitive models of cognitive processes. Yet the modern cognitive theories promise a fresh understanding of how religious ideas are learned; and if the same cognitive processes can be shown to underlie all religious ideologies, then the comparative study of religions will be placed on a wholly new footing. The present book is a contribution to this ambitious programme. In closely focused essays, a group of anthropologists debate the particular nature of religious concepts and categories and begin to specify the cognitive constraints on cultural acquisition and transmission.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052143288X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i4
1993
(The main theme of Pascal Boyer's work is that important a...)
The main theme of Pascal Boyer's work is that important aspects of religious representations are constrained by universal properties of the human mind-brain. Experimental results from developmental psychology, he says, can explain why certain religious representations are more likely to be acquired, stored, and transmitted by human minds. Considering these universal constraints, Boyer proposes an exciting new answer to the question of why similar religious representations are found in so many different cultures. His work will be widely discussed by cultural anthropologists, psychologists, and students of religion, history, and philosophy.
https://www.amazon.com/Naturalness-Religious-Ideas-Cognitive-Religion-ebook/dp/B003XU76BK/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Pascal+Boyer&qid=1585990393&sr=8-3
1994
(Many of our questions about religion, says renowned anthr...)
Many of our questions about religion, says renowned anthropologist Pascal Boyer, are no longer mysteries. We are beginning to know how to answer questions such as "Why do people have religion?" Using findings from anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, Religion Explained shows how this aspect of human consciousness is increasingly admissible to coherent, naturalistic explanation. This brilliant and controversial book gives readers the first scientific explanation for what religious feeling is really about, what it consists of, and where it comes from.
https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Explained-Evolutionary-Origins-Religious-ebook/dp/B009TCW076/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Pascal+Boyer&qid=1586176477&sr=8-1
2001
(Pascal Boyer argues that religion is largely an illusion....)
Pascal Boyer argues that religion is largely an illusion. The anthropologist traces religion's cognitive and evolutionary aspects. By "religion" he means a kind of existential and cognitive "package" that includes views about supernatural agency (gods), notions of morality, particular rituals and sometimes particular experiences, as well as membership in a particular community of believers. The package, however, does not really exist as such. Notions of supernatural agents, of morality, of ethnic identity, or ritual requirements and other experience, all appear in human minds independently. This implies that there is no such thing as a conflict between science and religion. Boyer takes the reader onto a journey through science and the dissolution of religion.
https://www.amazon.com/Fracture-Illusion-Dissolution-Religion-Naturwissenschaft/dp/3525569408/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Pascal+Boyer&qid=1586176477&sr=8-5
2010
(A watershed book that masterfully integrates insights fro...)
A watershed book that masterfully integrates insights from evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and more to explore the development and workings of human societies "There is no good reason why human societies should not be described and explained with the same precision and success as the rest of nature." Thus argues evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer in this uniquely innovative book. Integrating recent insights from evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and other fields, Boyer offers precise models of why humans engage in social behaviors such as forming families, tribes, and nations or creating gender roles. In fascinating, thought-provoking passages, he explores questions such as: Why is there a conflict between groups? Why do people believe low-value information such as rumors? Why are there religions? What is social justice? What explains morality? Boyer provides a new picture of cultural transmission that draws on the pragmatics of human communication, the constructive nature of memory in human brains, and human motivation for group formation and cooperation.
https://www.amazon.com/Minds-Make-Societies-Cognition-Explains/dp/B07HNPQS24/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Pascal+Boyer&qid=1586176466&refinements=p_72%3A2661618011&rnid=2661617011&sr=8-1
2018
anthropologist educator scientist
Pascal Robert Boyer was born in France.
Pascal Boyer received a Master in Ethnology from Paris University in 1979, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnology from this university in 1983. In 1984-1986, he studied at St. John's College.
In 1986-1990, Pascal Boyer worked as a Junior Research Fellow in Anthropology and in 1990-1993 - as Senior Research at King's College, Cambridge. In 1993-1998, he was a Senior Researcher and in 1998-2000 - a Director of Research at the National Centre for Scientific Research, Lyon, France. In 2013-2015, Boyer was a visiting professor at the University of Lyon, France. He was a visiting professor at the University of California and Santa Barbara.
He taught different courses, including "Religious Symbolism," "Literacy and oral tradition," "Literacy and oral tradition in a cognitive perspective," ''Psychology of Religion," "Cognition and Culture," "Domain Specificity in Conceptual Development," Human Evolutionary Psychology," "Autobiographical Memory," "Human Nature in Genes and Cultures," "Topics in Cognitive Development," "Cognition and Culture," "Introduction to the Study of Memory."
From 2000, Pascal Boyer has been working as Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis. He teaches classes on psychology and anthropology.
Boyer was a contributor to books, including The M.l.T. Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, 1999, and Debated Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Ethnography, 2001; to research journals, including Cognitive Development, Philosophical Psychology, American Behavioral Scientist, and Anthropological Theory Today.
Boyer's first book-length work to concentrate specifically on religion is "The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion." In it, Pascal Boyer explains how similarities in world religions are due to the limitations of the human brain, and then he uses cognitive psychology to explain religious differences between various cultures. In "Tradition as Truth and Communication: A Cognitive Description of Traditional Discourse," Boyer explains how tradition and ritual function in society.
Pascal Boyer received numerous fellowships, including Templeton Fellow (2008), Sage Research Fellow (2008), Guggenheim Fellow (2011), and grants. He has a lot of publications, including books, articles, and chapters. He has many years of teaching experience; the University of South Africa gave Pascal Boyer Visiting Professor Award.
(A watershed book that masterfully integrates insights fro...)
2018(How are religious ideas presented, acquired and transmitt...)
1993(The main theme of Pascal Boyer's work is that important a...)
1994(Many of our questions about religion, says renowned anthr...)
2001(Tradition is a central concept in the social sciences, bu...)
1990(Pascal Boyer argues that religion is largely an illusion....)
2010Pascal Boyer advocates the idea that human evolution resulted in specialized capacities that guide our social relations, culture, and predilections toward religious beliefs. Boyer proposes that these cognitive mechanisms make the acquisition of "religious" themes, like concepts of spirits, ghosts, ancestors or gods, highly transmissible within a community. Ideas common to all religions include belief in gods and ghosts, the idea of an eternal soul, the belief that some people can communicate with gods and spirits, and the belief that performing rituals can have an effect on a person's spiritual state. Cultural transmission - the method by which beliefs are passed from one generation to the next - do not sufficiently explain the stability of religious ideas across time. In "Religion Explained," Boyer elaborates on his theory of how and why the world's major religions have evolved and credits the idea of an omniscient being on the biological architecture of the brain. He seeks to create new theories concerning tradition, rituals, and other cultural performances, an area he believes has been overlooked by most anthropologists. Contrary to popular belief, he sees most traditions as important to their practitioners not because of their actual meaning, but because they are conveyed with a sense of authority. Boyer's most recent work bears on the early development of concepts of agency and personhood (what makes persons and animals different from inert objects) and on early mathematical concepts, as well as on the specifically human neural structures that support such competencies. He also uses psychological and anthropological techniques to describe the interaction between "collective memory," how people in a group remember their past, and "individual memory," in particular autobiographical memory.
Pascal Boyer exudes the naturally inquisitive personality of a true scientist - he asks as many questions as he answers.
Pascal Boyer's second child was born in 2005.
