Peter Harrison (historian) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Peter Harrison
FAHA
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Harrison in 2010
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| Born | 29 November 1955 |
| Nationality | Australian |
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| Thesis | "Religion" and the Religions in British Thought (1989) |
Peter D. Harrison, born in 1955, is a smart Australian researcher. He is a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame in Australia. He is also a Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy at the University of Queensland. This means he is a retired professor who still has a special connection to the university.
Contents
Peter Harrison's Career Journey
Peter Harrison has studied a lot! He earned a special degree called a DLitt from the University of Oxford. He also has a PhD from the University of Queensland. Plus, he has master's degrees from Yale and Oxford.
Early Life and Education
He grew up in the countryside of Queensland, Australia. He went to Bundaberg State High School. His journey in academics started at Bond University. This university is on Australia's Gold Coast. For many years, he was a professor there. He taught history and philosophy.
Working at Top Universities
From 2007 to 2011, he was a special professor at the University of Oxford. This role was called the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion. While at Oxford, he was a fellow at Harris Manchester College. He also directed the Ian Ramsey Centre. He still holds a senior research fellowship there.
In 2015, he became the first director of a new institute. This was the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. He retired from this position in 2023. He has also been a visiting professor at other famous universities. These include Yale University and the University of Chicago.
Awards and Recognition
Peter Harrison is a respected member of several important groups. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is also a member of the International Society for Science and Religion. In 2003, he received the Centenary Medal. This award recognizes people who have contributed to Australian society.
In 2011, he gave the famous Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh. These talks were later published as a book. The book was called The Territories of Science and Religion. It won the Aldersgate Prize in 2015. In 2014, he received an Australian Laureate Fellowship. This allowed him to do a five-year research project. It looked into science and how society becomes less religious. In 2019, he gave the Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford.
In 2023, he became a Professor Emeritus at the University of Queensland. In the same year, he joined the University of Notre Dame, Australia. He is now a Professorial Research Fellow there.
Peter Harrison's Main Ideas and Writings
Peter Harrison is well-known for his important writings. These writings are about religion and how modern science began. He has some interesting ideas about these topics.
How the Bible Influenced Science
He believes that how people understood the Bible changed over time. These changes had a big effect on how modern science grew. He also thinks that the Bible story of the Fall was important. It played a key role in developing experimental science. Experimental science is about doing tests and observations.
Understanding "Science" and "Religion"
His earlier work looked at how people thought about religion. He argued that the idea of "religions" as sets of beliefs and practices is quite new. He says this idea first appeared in the 1600s.
In his 2011 Gifford Lectures, he talked about this again. He suggested that our current ideas of "science" and "religion" are also new. He believes they are Western inventions. This means that how science and religion relate today is partly because of how we define them. He thinks that to understand their relationship better, we need to rethink these definitions. It's not just about comparing scientific and religious ideas. It's about how we think of science and religion themselves.
New Ideas on Western Values and Beliefs
He also argues that the idea of Western values is quite recent. He says it came about in the 1900s. Even though people often trace it back to ancient times, he believes it's a newer concept.
In 2017, Peter Harrison showed something interesting about a famous quote. The quote is Credo quia absurdum. People often thought it was said by an early Christian writer named Tertullian. But Harrison proved that it was actually misattributed. It was used in the early modern period to argue against religion.
His Bampton Lectures from 2019 were published as a book in 2024. The book is called Some New World. In it, he explores how modern society became less religious. He suggests that the idea of a natural world separate from a supernatural world is unique to Western thought. He believes this distinction is important for how we think about nature today. However, he argues it's not always needed for religious belief itself.
Selected Books by Peter Harrison
- Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age, Cambridge University Press, 2024. ISBN: 978-1009477222
- After Science and Religion: Fresh Perspectives from Theology and Philosophy. with John Milbank, Cambridge University Press, 2022. ISBN: 1316517926.
- New Directions in Theology and Science: Beyond Dialogue. with Paul Tyson, Routledge, 2022. ISBN: 1032073225.
- Science Without God? Rethinking the History of Scientific Naturalism. with Jon Roberts, Oxford University Press, 2019. ISBN: 9780198834588.
- Narratives of Secularization. Routledge 2018. ISBN: 978-1138563568.
- The Territories of Science and Religion. University of Chicago Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0226184487. (The Gifford Lectures)
- Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science. with Ronald Numbers and Michael Shank University of Chicago Press, 2011. ISBN: 978-0-226-31783-0.
- The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion. Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-521-71251-4.
- The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 0-521-87559-5.
- The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science. Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN: 0-521-00096-3.
- 'Religion' and the religions in the English Enlightenment. Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN: 0-521-89293-7.
See also
In Spanish: Peter Harrison para niños
