Konrad Talmont-Kaminski is the Head of the Society & Cognition Unit. His research focuses on the cognitive and evolutionary basis of religion. Konrad studied at the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Ontario. He received his doctorate in philosophy from Monash University in Australia and was a fellow of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Vienna.

In 2014 he published Religion as a Magical Ideology with Routledge. In that book he argued that religions combine reliance upon cognitive by-products typical of magical beliefs and practices, as well as the function of motivating prosocial behaviour typical of ideologies. Since then, Talmont-Kaminski has pursued a number of collaborative empirical efforts to explore various aspects of the account presented in his book. Both of his current research projects are representative of these efforts

2020

  • K. Talmont-Kaminski “Primitive Theories of Religion: Evolutionism after Evans-Pritchard”, e-Rhisome 2.1, pp. 1–18 doi:10.5507/rh.2020.001
  • K. Talmont- Kaminski “Epistemic vigilance and the science/religion distinction”, Journal of Cognition and Culture 20.1-2, pp. 88-99 doi:10.1163/15685373-12340075
  • K. Talmont- Kaminski “The cognitive science of the history of science”, Religio: Revue pro religonistiku 28.1, pp. 31-36

2019

  • K. Talmont-Kaminski “Embracing apparitions for unity: Agnieszka Halemba on a Marian apparition site”, Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion 4.2, pp. 185–196 doi: 10.1558/jcsr.37552
  • K. Talmont-Kaminski “Reason”, in Graham Oppy & Joseph W. Koterski (eds.) Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA pp. 434-436
  • K. Talmont-Kaminski “Religion as a natural phenomenon”, in Graham Oppy & Joseph W. Koterski (eds.) Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA pp. 619-623

Earlier

K. Talmont-Kaminski, 2013, “For God and Country”, in Graham Oppy & Joseph W. Koterski (eds.) Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA pp. 619-623