Campus
- St. George
Fields of Study
- Philosophy of Science
- Science and Technology Studies (STS)
Biography
I am a philosopher (Ph.D. obtained in 2004) and theologian (Ph.D. obtained in 2011) with a great appreciation of historical perspectives on science. This explains to some extent the pronounced interdisciplinary nature of my work. I have worked on a range of topics, including the nature of human sexuality in terms of the “New Phenomenology” of the German philosopher Hermann Schmitz (Sexualphilosophie: Eine einführende Annäherung, 2007), a neo-pragmatist theory of transexuality (Die Geschlechtererosion des Semantische Realismus, 2006), the relationship between science and religion at the intersection of “East” and “West” (Science and Religion: East and West, 2016), and the theological dimensions of thought experiments (God Re- Imagined:Thought Experiments, Science, and Religion, forthcoming).
In 2019 I began a new research project on scientific pluralism, theological monism, and human sexuality. As of 2020, the German Research Council funds a related international collaboration with Dr. Gerhard Schreiber of the TU Darmstadt, Germany. The “Excellence in Research Initiative of the Federal State of Hessen” supports an additional and related academic exchange with Professor Heiko Schulz of the University of Frankfurt, which afforded me the privilege of a research stay at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften in Bad Homburg during my recent sabbatical in 2020-21.
My research received generous support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Coburn Trust Faculty Exchange Fund (to support exchange with Professor Menachem Fisch, Tel Aviv), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Spooner Traveling Grant, and the University of Notre Dame’s Centre for Philosophy of Religion (co-PI was Professor Colleen Shantz, Toronto, Canada). In 2013 I was made Fellow of Victoria College, in 2015 I was elected Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.
Selected Publications
“Theology, Science, and Sexual Diversity: Judith Butler and Rabbinical Judaism.” In: Judith Butler and Theology, ed. by Bernhard Grümme and Gunda Werner, pp. 255-270. Berlin; New York: Transcript Verlag, 2020. (https://www.transcript- verlag.de/978-3-8376-4742-6/judith-butler-und-die-theologie/)
“A Scientific Jacob’s Ladder: The Natural Philosophy of Tom McLeish.” Metascience 29 (2020): 319-324.
“The Annus Mirabilis of 1986: Thought Experiments & Scientific Pluralism.” HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 11 (2021): 222-240.
“Atheism vs. Atheism in the Encounter between Science and Religion: A Post-Metaphysical Exploration.” Philosophy, Theology, and the Sciences 6 (2019): 183-210.
“Thought Experiments and Religion.” In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion [2017ff]
“Super Miracles & the Supreme Rationality of the Christian Faith.” Toronto Journal of Theology (2017): 39-61.
“The Role of the Imagination in Transsexual Crossing.” In: Transsexuality in Theology and Neuroscience, ed. by Gerhard Schreiber, pp. 577-595. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2016.
“Intellectual Tennis without a Net? Thought Experiments and Theology.” Theology and Science 12 (2014): 377-394.
“The Relativized A Priori and the Laboratory of the Mind: Towards a Neo-Kantian Account of Thought Experiments in Science.” Epistemologia: Italian Journal for Philosophy of Science 36 (2013): 55-73.
“Towards a Theology of Sexual Diversity: A Tightrope Walk between Christianity and Science.” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 48 (2013): 35-59.
(with James R. Brown) “Thought Experiments.” In: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [2010ff.