The work started with elucidation and formulation of the properties of everyday beliefs - ‘paragons of belief’. Then I considered these in light of the most prominent contemporary philosophical theory of belief: belief as a mental attitude with propositional content. After that I traced how propositional religious beliefs, usually identified with doctrinal statements, function in lived religion. The goal was to see whether propositional theory fits the empirical data of sociology, psychology and cognitive science of religion. Comparison revealed massive deviations of religious beliefs from everyday beliefs and from propositional standard of belief, such as doctrinal ignorance and theological incorrectness. I concluded that propositional theory fails to provide a satisfactory account for religious beliefs, and we have to look for other candidates to exercise the distinguished properties in religious beliefs.
The next step was to revise the religious belief from embodied perspective. Doctrinal belief poses a puzzle: on the one hand, philosophy and theology often deem knowing it essential for belonging to religious traditions. Such doctrines as “God is Trinity” or “There is no self” are deemed to lie at the heart of religion. On the other hand, empirical facts as theological incorrectness and disinterest of common believers in the content of doctrines show that people often do not understand the content of doctrines and do not care about getting it right. How can we understand the role doctrines play in religious practice? Application of embodied method showed that in lived religion doctrine is often treated as a sacred artefact (for example, as an icon). It is held without proper understanding of its propositional contents, but with a reverence and a strong adherence to them. Thus, what is considered to belong to the domain of mental states and their propositional content (doctrinal belief), in lived religion is treated similarly to a material object of embodied religious practice.
In the final part of my work I brought together the most insightful ideas of embodied approaches in order to develop a new embodied framework suitable for both empirical and philosophical study of religion. Thus I proposed to base our understanding of religion not upon the content of doctrinal beliefs, but upon embodied perception of religious meaning. This allowed to shift philosophical consideration of religion from the propositional content of doctrines to religious perceptions and the embodied means of gaining them. Furthermore, it refocuses consideration of religious practices and material culture, which allows to include these into philosophical scope. One of important conclusions is that religious behavior is not always caused by propositional beliefs, but instead follows religious perceptions and is cued by material artefacts and the structure of environment. This means that some of the properties attributed to beliefs in religion can be realized by non-mental objects as artefacts and places. Therefore, the proposed embodied framework successfully accounts for the discrepancies of beliefs and practices, identified in the first part of this work.
The results of this work were presented at the following international conferences and symposiums: Open End Meeting, Birmingham 2016, Religious Diversity Cluster Frankfurt, 2016; Faithful Attitudes Manchester, May 2017.
Additionally, the results were disseminated at invited presentations at University of Lund 2017, Centre for Philosophy of Religion Leeds 2017, University of Birmingham 2016, Center for Religion and Society Uppsala University 2018.
