
Overview
Background
Peter Harrison was educated at the University of Queensland and Yale University. In 2011 he moved to Queensland from the University of Oxford where he was the Idreos Professor of Science and Religion. At Oxford he was a member of the Faculties of Theology and History, a Fellow of Harris Manchester College, and Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre. He is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Universityof Notre Dame, Australia, and a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford's Ian Ramsey Centre. He has published extensively on the philosophical, scientific and religious thought of the early modern period, and is interested in secularization theory and historical and contemporary relations between science and religion. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Oxford, Yale, Princeton, and the University of Chicago, is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion, and a corresponding member of the International Academy for the History of Science. In 2003, he recieved a Centenary Medal for 'service to Australian Society and the Humanities in the Study of Philosophy and Religion’. In 2011 he delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. He was awarded a DLitt by the University of Oxford in 2013, and delivered the Bampton Lectures at Oxford in 2019. From 2015-20 has was an Australian Laureate Fellow.
His twelve books include, most recently, Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age (Cambridge, 2024), After Science and Religion (Cambridge, 2022), co-edited with John Milbank, and The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago, 2015), winner of the Aldersgate Prize.
Availability
- Emeritus Professor Peter Harrison is:
- Available for supervision
- Media expert
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Science, The University of Queensland
- Bachelor of Arts, The University of Queensland
- Masters (Coursework), Yale University
- Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Queensland
- Doctoral Diploma, University of Oxford
- Australian Academy of the Humanities, Australian Academy of the Humanities
Research interests
-
Intellectual History, Historical Relations between Science and Religion, History of Science, Religious History, History of Philosophy
Works
Search Professor Peter Harrison’s works on UQ eSpace
2017
Journal Article
Credo quia impossibile: who said it and when?
Harrison, Peter (2017). Credo quia impossibile: who said it and when?. Notes and Queries, 64 (4), 540-542. doi: 10.1093/notesj/gjx134
2017
Journal Article
"I Believe because it is absurd": the enlightenment invention of Tertullian's Credo
Harrison, Peter (2017). "I Believe because it is absurd": the enlightenment invention of Tertullian's Credo. Church History, 86 (2), 339-364. doi: 10.1017/S0009640717000531
2017
Journal Article
Science and secularization
Harrison, Peter (2017). Science and secularization. Intellectual History Review, 27 (1), 47-70. doi: 10.1080/17496977.2016.1255460
2017
Book Chapter
Is science-religion conflict always a bad thing? Augustinian reflections on Christianity and evolution
Harrison, Peter (2017). Is science-religion conflict always a bad thing? Augustinian reflections on Christianity and evolution. Evolution and the fall. (pp. 204-226) edited by William T. Cavanaugh and James K. A. Smith. Grand Rapids, MI, United States: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
2017
Journal Article
Narratives of secularization
Harrison, Peter (2017). Narratives of secularization. Intellectual History Review, 27 (1), 1-6. doi: 10.1080/17496977.2016.1255463
2016
Journal Article
Beliefs, Lebensformen, and conceptual history
Harrison, Peter (2016). Beliefs, Lebensformen, and conceptual history. Metascience, 25 (3), 363-370. doi: 10.1007/s11016-016-0104-7
2016
Journal Article
Science, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism
Harrison, Peter (2016). Science, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. Isis, 107 (3), 587-591. doi: 10.1086/688414
2016
Journal Article
The modern invention of "science-and-religion": What follows?
Harrison, Peter (2016). The modern invention of "science-and-religion": What follows?. Zygon, 51 (3), 742-757. doi: 10.1111/zygo.12284
2016
Journal Article
Introduction: evolution and historical explanation
Harrison, Peter and Hesketh, Ian (2016). Introduction: evolution and historical explanation. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 58, 1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.12.010
2016
Journal Article
Angels on pinheads and needles' points
Harrison, Peter (2016). Angels on pinheads and needles' points. Notes and Queries, 63 (1), 45-47. doi: 10.1093/notesj/gjv232
2016
Journal Article
What was historical about natural history? Contingency and explanation in the science of living things
Harrison, Peter (2016). What was historical about natural history? Contingency and explanation in the science of living things. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C :Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 58, 8-16. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.12.012
2016
Book Chapter
Religion, scientific naturalism and historical progress
Harrison, Peter (2016). Religion, scientific naturalism and historical progress. Religion and Innovation: Antagonists or Partners?. (pp. 87-99) edited by Donald A. Yerxa. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic.
2016
Book Chapter
Protestantism and the making of modern science
Harrison, Peter (2016). Protestantism and the making of modern science. Protestantism after 500 years. (pp. 98-120) edited by Thomas Albert Howard and Mark A. Noll. New York, United States: Oxford University Press.
2016
Book Chapter
The Bible and the emerging scientific world view
Harrison, Peter (2016). The Bible and the emerging scientific world view. The New Cambridge history of the Bible. (pp. 620-640) edited by Euan Cameron. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CHO9781139048781.029
2016
Book Chapter
Religion, innovation and secular modernity
Harrison, Peter (2016). Religion, innovation and secular modernity. Religion and Innovation: Antagonists or Partners?. (pp. 74-86) edited by Donald A. Yerxa. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
2016
Book Chapter
Evolution, providence, and the problem of chance
Harrison, Peter (2016). Evolution, providence, and the problem of chance. Abraham's dice: chance and providence in the monotheistic traditions. (pp. 260-290) edited by Karl W. Giberson. New York, United States: Oxford University Press.
2016
Other Outputs
Der Mythos eines bestandingen Kampf zwischen Wissenschaft und Religion
Harrison, Peter (2016). Der Mythos eines bestandingen Kampf zwischen Wissenschaft und Religion. Theologie & Naturwissenschaften.
2015
Journal Article
The History of 'Transhumanism'
Harrison, Peter. and Wolyniak, Joseph. (2015). The History of 'Transhumanism'. Notes and Queries, 62 (3), 465-467. doi: 10.1093/notesj/gjv080
2015
Book Chapter
That religion has typically impeded the progress of science
Harrison, Peter (2015). That religion has typically impeded the progress of science. Newton's apple and other myths about science. (pp. 195-201) edited by Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis. London, England: Harvard University Press. doi: 10.4159/9780674089167-026
2015
Book
The territories of science and religion
Harrison, Peter (2015). The territories of science and religion. Chicago, IL, United States: University of Chicago Press. doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226184517.001.0001
Funding
Supervision
Availability
- Emeritus Professor Peter Harrison is:
- Available for supervision
Before you email them, read our advice on how to contact a supervisor.
Supervision history
Current supervision
-
Doctor Philosophy
The Eternality of the Soul. Philosophical and Religious debates 1500-1800
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Philip Almond
-
Doctor Philosophy
An Investigation into the socio-cultural and/or religious influences on Young Earth Creationism in Queensland in the 1970s and early 1980s
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Ryan Williams, Associate Professor Tom Aechtner
Completed supervision
-
2020
Doctor Philosophy
Mortalism and the Making of Heterodoxy in Seventeenth-Century England
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Philip Almond, Dr James Lancaster
-
2019
Doctor Philosophy
Nature, the Fall, and the Secularisation of Early Modern Political Thought
Principal Advisor
-
2017
Doctor Philosophy
The Origins of the "Conflict Thesis": Draper, White, and the Protestant Tradition
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Tom Aechtner, Associate Professor Ian Hesketh
-
2016
Doctor Philosophy
Providence and Natural Causation in Early Modern England
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Philip Almond
-
2023
Doctor Philosophy
Reading Morals: Charles Darwin and the Descent of Morality
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Ian Hesketh
-
2018
Doctor Philosophy
Measuring miracles in young-earth creationism
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Tom Aechtner
Media
Enquiries
Contact Emeritus Professor Peter Harrison directly for media enquiries about:
- Early modern intellectual history
- History of science
- Philosophy and religion
- Religion and philosophy
- Religion and science
- Science and religion
Need help?
For help with finding experts, story ideas and media enquiries, contact our Media team: