This article investigates the extent to which the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and Donald Davidson’s semantic holism (DSH) harmonize. We first characterize CSR, philosophical
semantics (and more specifically DSH). We then note a prima facie tension between CSR
and DSH’s view of First-Person Authority (that we know what is meant when we speak in a
way that we do not when others speak). If CSR is correct that the causes of religious belief
are located in cognitive processes in the mind/brain, then religious insiders might have no
idea what they are talking about: only the scholar of CSR would have a chance of knowing
what they ‘really’ mean. The article argues that the resolution to this problem is to take
seriously DSH’s rejection of semantic bifurcation, specifically rejecting the idea that religious and non-religious language can be sharply distinguished. We conclude by supporting
the following claims: (i) common cognitive neural/psychological processes are explanatorily
relevant in proposed meaning-theories for any discourse, and (ii) those processes need
semantic supplementation with reference to external and naturalistic factors (biological,
cultural, environmental etc.)
