
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
1993
Journal Article
Animal souls, metempsychosis, and theodicy in seventeenth-century English thought
Harrison, Peter (1993). Animal souls, metempsychosis, and theodicy in seventeenth-century English thought. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 31 (4), 519-544.
1993
Journal Article
The Neo-Cartesian revival: A response
Harrison, Peter (1993). The Neo-Cartesian revival: A response. Between the Species, 9 (2), 71-76.
1992
Journal Article
Descartes on animals
Harrison, Peter (1992). Descartes on animals. Philosophical Quarterly, 42 (167), 219-227. doi: 10.2307/2220217
1991
Journal Article
Do animals feel pain?
Harrison, Peter (1991). Do animals feel pain?. Philosophy, 66 (255), 25-40. doi: 10.1017/s0031819100052827
1990
Book
'Religion' and the Religions in the English Enlightenment
Harrison, Peter (1990). 'Religion' and the Religions in the English Enlightenment. 1st ed. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/cbo9780511627972
1989
Journal Article
Theodicy and Animal Pain
Harrison, Peter (1989). Theodicy and Animal Pain. Philosophy, 64 (247), 79-92. doi: 10.1017/s0031819100044053
1986
Journal Article
Correlation and Theology: Barth and Tillich Re-examined
Harrison, Peter (1986). Correlation and Theology: Barth and Tillich Re-examined. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 15 (1), 65-76. doi: 10.1177/000842988601500106
1986
Journal Article
Karl Barth and the non-Christian religions
Harrison, Peter (1986). Karl Barth and the non-Christian religions. Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 23, 207-224.
Funding
Supervision
Availability
- Emeritus Professor Peter Harrison is:
- Available for supervision
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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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