
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
2004
Book Chapter
Design
Harrison, Peter (2004). Design. Europe 1450-1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. (pp. II, 132-134) edited by Jonathan Dewald. New York: Simon and Schuster.
2004
Book Chapter
Noah’s flood and the Western imagination
Harrison, Peter (2004). Noah’s flood and the Western imagination. Flood: Essays across the current. (pp. 1-28) edited by Paul Thom. Lismore, NSW, Australia: Southern Cross University Press.
2004
Book Chapter
Science
Harrison, Peter (2004). Science. The encyclopedia of Protestantism. (pp. 1669-1675) edited by Hans J. Hillerbrand. New York, United States: Routledge.
2003
Book Chapter
Science, Origins of
Harrison, Peter (2003). Science, Origins of. Encyclopedia of science and religion. (pp. 779-782) edited by J. Wentzel van Huyssteen. New York, United States: Macmillan Reference.
2002
Journal Article
Voluntarism and early modern science
Harrison, Peter (2002). Voluntarism and early modern science. History of Science, 40 (1), 63-89. doi: 10.1177/007327530204000103
2002
Journal Article
Fixing the meaning of scripture: The renaissance bible and the origins of modernity
Harrison, Peter (2002). Fixing the meaning of scripture: The renaissance bible and the origins of modernity. Concilium, 294, 102-110.
2002
Journal Article
Original sin and the problem of knowledge in early modern Europe
Harrison, Peter (2002). Original sin and the problem of knowledge in early modern Europe. Journal of the History of Ideas, 63 (2), 239-259. doi: 10.2307/3654196
2001
Book Chapter
Scaling the Ladder of Being: Theology and Early Modern Theories of Evolution
Harrison, Peter (2001). Scaling the Ladder of Being: Theology and Early Modern Theories of Evolution. Religion, Reason, and Nature in Early Modern Europe. (pp. 199-224) edited by R. Crocker. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
2001
Journal Article
Curiosity, Forbidden Knowledge, and the Reformation of Natural Philosophy in Early-Modern England
Harrison, Peter (2001). Curiosity, Forbidden Knowledge, and the Reformation of Natural Philosophy in Early-Modern England. Isis, 92 (2), 265-290. doi: 10.1086/385182
2000
Book Chapter
The influence of Cartesian cosmology in England
Harrison, P. D. (2000). The influence of Cartesian cosmology in England. Descartes' Natural Philosophy. (pp. 168-192) London: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780203463017-14
1999
Journal Article
Prophecy, early modern apologetics, and Hume's argument against miracles
Harrison, Peter D. (1999). Prophecy, early modern apologetics, and Hume's argument against miracles. Journal of the History of Ideas, 60 (2), 241-256. doi: 10.2307/3653854
1999
Journal Article
Prophecy, Early-Modern Apologetics, and Hume’s Argument against Miracles
Harrison, Peter (1999). Prophecy, Early-Modern Apologetics, and Hume’s Argument against Miracles. Journal of the History of Ideas, 60 (2), 241-256. doi: 10.2307/3653854
1999
Journal Article
Subduing the earth: Genesis 1, early modern science, and the exploitation of nature
Harrison, Peter D. (1999). Subduing the earth: Genesis 1, early modern science, and the exploitation of nature. The Journal of Religion, 79 (1), 86-109. doi: 10.1086/490346
1998
Journal Article
The virtues of animals in seventeenth-century thought
Harrison, Peter (1998). The virtues of animals in seventeenth-century thought. Journal of the History of Ideas, 59 (3), 463-485. doi: 10.2307/3653897
1998
Book Chapter
Reading the passions: The fall, the passions, and dominion over nature
Harrison, Peter (1998). Reading the passions: The fall, the passions, and dominion over nature. The soft underbelly of reason: The passions in the seventeenth century. (pp. 49-78) edited by Stephen Gaukroger. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.
1998
Book
The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science
Harrison, Peter (1998). The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science. 1st ed. Cambridge , UK: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/cbo9780511585524
1996
Journal Article
God and Animal Minds
Harrison, Peter (1996). God and Animal Minds. Sophia, 35 (2), 67-78.
1995
Journal Article
Newtonian Science, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature
Harrison, Peter (1995). Newtonian Science, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature. Journal of the History of Ideas, 56 (4), 531-553.
1995
Journal Article
British Views on Religion and Religions in the Age of William and Mary: A Response to David A. Pailin
Harrison, Peter (1995). British Views on Religion and Religions in the Age of William and Mary: A Response to David A. Pailin. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 7 (2), 273-281. doi: 10.1163/157006895X00441
1994
Journal Article
Book Reviews
Wring, James F., Guzman, Gregory G., Goldschmidt, Arthur, Harris, Brice, Collins, Robert O., Mullins, William H., Glasco, Laurence A., Andrew, John A., Millard, Andre, Fairchild, Jack, Salmond, John A., Jonas, Manfred, Hauptman, Laurence M., Scherzer, Kenneth A., De Leon, David, Tillson, Albert H., Casdorph, Paul D., Klunder, Willard Carl, Armstrong, Thom M., Hartsfield, Larry, Story, Ronald, Konek, Carol Wolfe, Chesson, Michael B., Carlson, Paul H., Holloran, Peter C., Pfeffer, Paula F., Ballard, Michael B., Rutland, Robert Allen, Larson, John Lauritz ... Clark, Charles E. (1994). Book Reviews. Historian, 56 (3), 543-620. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6563.1994.tb01326.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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