Space, Body, and the Notion of Boundary: A Category-Theoretical Approach to Religion

Abstract

In the article the issue of sacrality is explored from the points of view of cultural anthropology and cognitive science of religion. Culture-specific contents of meaning bestowed on the notion of "sacred" are not approached as religious representations in which some theologically defined agent, metaphysical entity or otherworldly level of existence is believed to manifest itself to human beings. Instead, various attributions of sacrality are explored as representations of the general mental capacity of human beings to set apart places and sites in specific locations and points of terrain in local topography in order to mark ritual spaces and establish rules of conduct for their maintenance as well as for specific social valus and categorizations on which the inviolability of behavioral norms is based.