My original studies were in the area of German and Russian language and literature at Merton College Oxford, followed by a DPhil on the work of Paul Celan, a German Jewish poet who wrote remarkable poems about the Holocaust, at Wolfson College Oxford. Life has taken me to many different places, and I have had the opportunity to teach at universities in Germany, Russia, Italy, USA and China. I held the chair of Christian Doctrine at King's College London from 2004-2017, where I remain an Emeritus Professor. From 2017 I moved to a post in China, and from 2018-21, held a Senior International Research Chair in Science, Ethics, and Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China, Beijing. It was during this time in China that I was drawn to thinking more seriously about the interdisciplinary study of our current malaise as a species on planet earth. How can we re-stabilize ourselves as a planetary species in the face of the challenges of climate change? Increasingly it has seemed to me that we need to draw upon a wide range of disciplines in order to find new ways forward. Interdisciplinarity is one thing however, but properly integrating different disciplines, such as evolutionary science, social neuroscience, philosophy and social science on the other, is another. It is with respect to this integration that I feel I have profited from my time at King's. Theology is an academic discipline which, as a matter of principle, has to engage in depth with different historical periods and different cultures (and their possibilities). It also has to ask far-reaching questions concerning human transformation, on the large scale. It is difficult to imagine more useful skills-sets than these in our present environment. And if 'theology' offers a very disciplined, open and intense engagement with questions concerning what makes us human, across different time periods, then it can also be said to be inherently political in its concern with the nature of change.
In my present work I benefit greatly from an advisory role as ethicist in ‘Virtual Times’, which investigates and explores different uses of AI in contemporary neuroscience from the perspective of the construction and use of time (and its critical role in the formation of relationship, as well as medical interventions). VT is supported by the EU Horizon 2020 programme.
In my present work I benefit greatly from an advisory role as ethicist in ‘Virtual Times’, which investigates and explores different uses of AI in contemporary neuroscience from the perspective of the construction and use of time (and its critical role in the formation of relationship, as well as medical interventions). VT is supported by the EU Horizon 2020 programme.
NEW ARTICLES
2021: 'Science, Philosophy and the Authority of the Early Franciscan Summa Halensis: Learning from the Past for the sake of the Future', in Lydia Schumacher, ed., The Legacy of Early Franciscan Thought, De Gruyter, 373-97.
2020: 'Grace in Evolution', in Celia Deane-Drummond and Agustín Fuentes, eds., Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology. Dialogues in Humility, Wisdom and Grace, Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York, 228-42.
2018: Confucianism in the Perspective of Global Science—A Review of 'Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century'
Front. Philos. China 2018, 13(1): 150–163
DOI 10.3868/s030-007-018-0010-2
2021: 'Science, Philosophy and the Authority of the Early Franciscan Summa Halensis: Learning from the Past for the sake of the Future', in Lydia Schumacher, ed., The Legacy of Early Franciscan Thought, De Gruyter, 373-97.
2020: 'Grace in Evolution', in Celia Deane-Drummond and Agustín Fuentes, eds., Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology. Dialogues in Humility, Wisdom and Grace, Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York, 228-42.
2018: Confucianism in the Perspective of Global Science—A Review of 'Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century'
Front. Philos. China 2018, 13(1): 150–163
DOI 10.3868/s030-007-018-0010-2
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