Abstract
The cognitive science of religion emphasizes the naturalness of intuitive dualism, the notion that persons are made up of bodies and minds. However, there is also cross-cultural recurrence of the idea that persons are made up of not just mind or soul, but also vitality, or life force. In this chapter, I examine evidence of vitalistic thinking in different cultures as well as from developmental and cross-cultural psychology. I focus in particular on China, where vitalism serves as the conceptual foundation of traditional Chinese medicine. I then present a summary of research examining vitalism in Chinese children’s understanding of illness causation. I discuss the findings and future research directions in terms of the Naturalness of Religion Thesis.
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- 1.
The author, Liqi Zhu (this volume), and a team of researchers at Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Psychology.
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Nyhof, M. (2017). Intuitive Foundations of Conceptions of Vitality: The Case of Chinese Children’s Understanding of Illness Causation. In: Hornbeck, R., Barrett, J., Kang, M. (eds) Religious Cognition in China. New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion , vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62954-4_9
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