Theorizing the Anthropology of Belief

Luke J. Matthews is a senior social scientist at the RAND Corporation. An anthropologist, Luke has studied social networks of primates, evolution of religion, and cultural processes in healthcare, social policy, and national security. Most recently, his interests center on blending ontological and evolutionary theories to understand misinformation.Paul Robertson is Senior Lecturer in Classics & Humanities at the University of New Hampshire. An expert in religion and the ancient Mediterranean, he has published books on early Christianity and Greco-Roman thought (2016), theorizing religion (2019), and tracing the history of Western selfhood through the myth of the Cyclops (2022).

“What happens when philosophy of science is applied to the murky worlds of magic, conspiracy, misinformation, alien abduction, and recovered memories? Desperately needed clarity! Matthews and Robertson show us why anthropology must integrate scientific and humanities approaches if we are to banish the murk.”– Wesley J. Wildman, Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics, Boston University“Truth matters. But how do we know what is true? From anthropology to physics and everything in between, everything hinges on the answer. Matthews and Robertson take a deep dive into the history of scientific and humanistic thought to answer one of the most profoundly important questions of all times.”– Dimitris Xygalatas, Associate Professor of Anthropology and author of Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living

• 1 The Bidirectional Relationship of Ontology and Epistemology 2 Bidirectionality in the “Ontological Turn” in Anthropology 3 Bidirectionality of Ontology-Epistemology in the Western Tradition4 Evolution, Biological Anthropology, and Archeology in Ontological Perspective 5 Quantitative Cultural Analysis within Ontological Uniqueness6 The Scientific Study of Low-Verifiability Beliefs7 An Ontology of Anthropology as Both Science and Humanities