Peter Harrison

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Senior Research Fellow and Former Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre

Peter Harrison is an Australian Laureate Fellow and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. Previously, he was the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion and Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre at the University of Oxford.  He has published extensively in the field of intellectual history with a focus on the philosophical, scientific and religious thought of the early modern period, and has a particular interest in historical and contemporary relations between science and religion. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Yale and Princeton.  In 2011 he gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, now published as The Territories of Science and Religion, and in 2019 delivered the Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford.  Author of over 100 articles and book chapters, his eight books include, most recently, Science without God? Rethinking the History of Scientific Naturalism published by Oxford University Press.

 

Academic Summary

  • DLitt, University of Oxford, 2013
  • MA, University of Oxford (by incorporation), 2007
  • PhD, University of Queensland, 1989
  • MA, Yale University, 1985
  • BA, University of Queensland (1st Class Hons), 1983
  • BSc, University of Queensland, 1976

Research Interests

  • Early Modern Intellectual History
  • History and Philosophy of Science
  • Science and Religion

Affiliations

  • Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
  • Member,  International Society for Science and Religion
  • Affiliate Member, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland

 

Publications

  • Science without God? Historical Perspectives on Scientific Naturalism, edited with Jon Roberts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
  • Narratives of Secularization (London: Routledge, 2017).
  • The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), pp. xiii +300.  (62 Reviews). Chinese, 科学与宗教的领地 tr. Butian Zhang (Commercial Press, 2016); Portuguese, Os Territórios da Ciência e da Religião, tr. Djair Filho (Viçosa: Ultimo, 2017); Greek and Spanish translations forthcoming.
  • Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), edited with Ronald Numbers and Michael Shank.
  • The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Portuguese, Ciência e Religião, tr. Eduardo Rodrigues da Cruz (São Paulo: Editora Santuário / Idéias & Letras, 2014), Spanish, Cuestiones de Ciencia y Religión, tr. Ignacio Silva (Madrid: Loyola Grupo de Comunicación, 2017).
  • The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Greek, Η Πτώση και η ανάδυση της Eπιστήμης, tr. Constantine Takis (Thessalonki:Torque, 2016), Chinese translation forthcoming.
  • The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science (Cambridge University Press, 1998), Chinese translation (Commercial Press, forthcoming, 2019).
  • ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1990).