This paper is a survey of the anthropological literature pertaining to the term ‘supernatural’. It considers a number of questions: Is the distinction between natural and supernatural universal? Can the distinction be applied to non-western cultures? What does the term mean as a cultural construction and as a response to reality? Finally, it examines the use of the term supernatural in the contemporary cognitive science of religion. The inspiration for the paper arose from the way that anthropologists often fail to problematise the uses and cross-cultural applicability of the term supernatural.

中文翻译：

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超自然的类别：有效的人类学术语？

本文是对与“超自然”一词有关的人类学文献的概述。它考虑了以下几个问题：自然与超自然的普遍性之间的区别吗？区别可以适用于非西方文化吗？这个术语作为文化建构和对现实的回应是什么意思？最后，它研究了超自然一词在当代宗教认知科学中的使用。该论文的灵感来自人类学家经常无法质疑“超自然”一词的使用和跨文化适用性的方式。