
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
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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
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
2014
Journal Article
Sentiments of devotion and experimental philosophy in seventeenth-century England
Harrison, Peter (2014). Sentiments of devotion and experimental philosophy in seventeenth-century England. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 44 (1), 113-133. doi: 10.1215/10829636-2389515
2014
Book Chapter
"Wissenschaft" und "Religion": Das Konstuieren der Grenzen
Harrison, Peter (2014). "Wissenschaft" und "Religion": Das Konstuieren der Grenzen. Theology and the Natural Sciences. (pp. 39-68) edited by Christian Tapp and Christof Breitsameter. Berlin, Germany: Walter De Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110318036.39
2014
Book
Science and Religion
Peter Harrison ed. (2014). Science and Religion. São Paulo, Brasil: Editora Santuário / Idéias & Letras.
2013
Journal Article
Stephen Gaukroger. The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1680–1760
Harrison, Peter (2013). Stephen Gaukroger. The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1680–1760. Isis, 104 (4), 843-845. doi: 10.1086/676361
2013
Book Chapter
Laws of nature in seventeenth-century England: from Cambridge Platonism to Newtonianism
Harrison, Peter (2013). Laws of nature in seventeenth-century England: from Cambridge Platonism to Newtonianism. The Divine Order, the Human Order, and the Order of Nature: Historical Perspectives. (pp. 127-148) edited by Eric Watkins. New York, NY, United States: Oxford University Press.
2012
Journal Article
Francis Bacon, natural philosophy and the cultivation of the mind
Harrison, Peter (2012). Francis Bacon, natural philosophy and the cultivation of the mind. Perspectives on Science, 20 (2), 139-158. doi: 10.1162/POSC_a_00060
2012
Book Chapter
Laws of nature, moral order and the intelligibility of the cosmos
Harrison, Peter (2012). Laws of nature, moral order and the intelligibility of the cosmos. The astronomy revolution: 400 years of exploring the cosmos. (pp. 375-386) edited by Donald York, Owen Gingerich and Shuang-Nan Zhang. Boca Raton, FL, United States: CRC Press.
2012
Book Chapter
The conflict thesis
Harrison, Peter (2012). The conflict thesis. The Lion Handbook of Science and Christianity. (pp. xx-xx) edited by Robert James Berry. Oxford, United Kingdom: Lion Hudson.
2012
Book Chapter
Early modern science and the idea of moral progress
Harrison, Peter (2012). Early modern science and the idea of moral progress. British abolitionism and the question of moral progress in history. (pp. 139-153) edited by Donald A. Yerxa. Columbia, SC, United States: University of South Carolina Press.
2012
Book Chapter
The 'Two Books'
Harrison, Peter (2012). The 'Two Books'. The Lion Handbook of Science and Christianity. (pp. 57-58) edited by R. J. Berry. Oxford, United Kingdom: Lion Hudson.
2011
Book Chapter
Adam Smith, natural theology, and the natural sciences
Harrison, Peter (2011). Adam Smith, natural theology, and the natural sciences. Adam Smith as theologian. (pp. 77-91) edited by Paul Oslington. New York, United States: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780203816417
2011
Book
Wrestling with nature : from omens to science
Harrison, Peter, Numbers, Ronald L. and Shank, Michael H. eds. (2011). Wrestling with nature : from omens to science. Chicago, United States of America: University of Chicago Press. doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318035.001.0001
2011
Book Chapter
Early Christianity
Harrison, Peter and Lindberg, David C. (2011). Early Christianity. Science and religion around the world. (pp. 67-91) edited by John Hedley Brooke and Ronald L. Numbers. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
2011
Journal Article
Adam Smith and the history of the invisible hand
Harrison, Peter (2011). Adam Smith and the history of the invisible hand. Journal of the History of Ideas, 72 (1), 29-49. doi: 10.1353/jhi.2011.a413473
2011
Book Chapter
Natural history
Harrison, Peter (2011). Natural history. Wrestling with nature: From omens to science. (pp. 117-148) edited by Peter Harrison, Ronald L. Numbers and Michael H. Shank. Chicago, IL, United States: University of Chicago Press.
2011
Book Chapter
Introduction
Harrison, Peter (2011). Introduction. Wrestling with nature: From omens to science. (pp. 1-7) edited by Peter Harrison, Ronald L. Numbers and Michael H. Shank. Chicago, IL, United States: University of Chicago Press.
2011
Journal Article
Experimental religion and experimental science in early modern England
Harrison, Peter (2011). Experimental religion and experimental science in early modern England. Intellectual History Review, 21 (4 Article No.623882) 623882, 413-433. doi: 10.1080/17496977.2011.623882
2011
Book
Wrestling with nature: From omens to science
Peter Harrison, Ronald L. Numbers and Michael H. Shank eds. (2011). Wrestling with nature: From omens to science. Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.: University of Chicago Press.
2010
Journal Article
A scientific Buddhism?
Harrison, Peter (2010). A scientific Buddhism?. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 45 (4), 861-869. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2010.01137.x
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
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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
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Doctor Philosophy
The Eternality of the Soul. Philosophical and Religious debates 1500-1800
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Philip Almond
Completed supervision
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2020
Doctor Philosophy
Mortalism and the Making of Heterodoxy in Seventeenth-Century England
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Philip Almond, Dr James Lancaster
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
Nature, the Fall, and the Secularisation of Early Modern Political Thought
Principal Advisor
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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
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2016
Doctor Philosophy
Providence and Natural Causation in Early Modern England
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Philip Almond
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
Reading Morals: Charles Darwin and the Descent of Morality
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Ian Hesketh
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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
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