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New Titles:

• Zain Ali, Faith, Philosophy and the Reflective Muslim
• Yujin Nagasawa (ed.), Scientific Approaches to Philosophy of Religion

Forthcoming Titles:

• Istvan Aranyosi, God, Mind and Logical Space: A Revisionary Approach to Divinity
• Eric Steinhart, Your Digital Afterlives
• Gregory Dawes and James Maclaurin (eds.), Cognitive Science and Religion
• Trent Dougherty, The Problem of Animal Pain: A Theodicy for All Creatures Great and Small
• Aaron Rizzieri, Pragmatic Encroachment, Religious Belief and Practice

Series Editors:
Yujin Nagasawa (University of Birmingham, UK)
Erik Wielenberg (DePauw University, USA)

Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion is a long overdue series which will provide a unique platform for the advancement of research in this area. Each book in the series aims to progress a debate in the philosophy of religion by (i) offering a novel argument to establish a strikingly original thesis, or (ii) approaching an ongoing dispute from a radically new point of view. Each title in the series contributes to this aim by utilising recent developments in empirical sciences or cutting-edge research in foundational areas of philosophy (such as metaphysics, epistemology and ethics). The series does not publish books offering merely extensions of or subtle improvements on existing arguments. Please contact Series Editors (y.nagasawa@bham.ac.uk / ewielenberg@depauw.edu) to discuss possible book projects for the series.

On behalf of Klaas Kraay

Dear Colleagues,

I am delighted to announce the launch of a research project entitled "Theism: An Axiological Investigation".

This Templeton-funded project will support various initiatives, including one Research Fellowship for the 2013-2014 academic year.

Junior, mid-career, and senior philosophers are all welcome to apply for this position.

The successful applicant will either receive a stipend/salary or funds for teaching release.

To learn more about this project, and to see the call for applications for the Research Fellowship, please visit the project website:

http://www.ryerson.ca/~kraay/theism.html

Applications are due on June 14, 2013.

- Klaas

26th of Aug.-06th Sept. 2013 at Mainz

Philosophical Perspectives on Theological Realism

Call for Papers

In recent decades, an increasing number of philosophers in the so called "analytic tradition" have begun to produce exciting philosophical work on topics belonging traditionally to the provenance of systematic theology. The Analytic Theology Project is a multinational four-year endeavor that contributes to this development in a creative way. It funds systematic research to promote long overdue interdisciplinary cooperation among analytic philosophers and theologians. All research initiatives aim at examining the traditional questions of theology from the perspectives of contemporary Christian theology and analytic philosophy. In this way new advances at the intersection of both fields shall be explored. Moreover, the project will critically reflect on possible limits of analytic approaches and will consider the value of complementary philosophical approaches for theological research.

Among the main grant activities for achieving the goals of the project are three 10-day Summer Schools, the first of which has been carried out successfully at Munich in 2012. These seminars provide younger scholars with a survey of methods of analytic philosophy and theology as well as training in key topics in Analytic Theology. In addition the seminars aim to develop professional relationships among younger scholars in the interest of long-term collaboration and mutual intellectual support as their careers progress.

August 19-23, VU University Amsterdam

The Abraham Kuyper Center for Science and Religion at VU University Amsterdam hosts a summer seminar on science and the big questions. Experts will give lectures and engage in debates in the following areas:

* cognitive science of religion
* free will and brain research
* evolution, morality and Christian belief
* cosmology, fine-tuning, and God.

Confirmed speakers include: Patricia Churchland (UCSD), David Lahti (Queens' College, CUNY), Rodney Holder (Cambridge), Jesse Bering (New York), Johan Braeckman (Ghent U), Herman Philipse (Utrecht U), Gijsbert van den Brink (VU University Amsterdam), Michiel van Elk (U of Amsterdam), Leon de Bruin (Radboud U / VU University Amsterdam) and Tim O'connor (Indiana U).

The seminar is intended for two groups:
(1) (PhD-)students / post-docs working in the natural sciences who have an interest in positively and intelligently relating the topics they cover in their fields of study to philosophical questions and (2) (PhD-)students / post-docs in the fields of philosophy and theology who have an interest in speaking knowledgeably about the intersection between science and religion. The goal of the seminar is to create a learning environment for (PhD-)students / post-docs in which they interact with highly qualified scholars on science / religion issues so as to move beyond the easy warfare rhetoric.

Dates: August 19-23, 2013
Location: VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Costs: The fee for the seminar is 100 euros for (PhD-)students and 200 euros for others. This fee includes lunches and dinners and some surprise social activities in the beautiful old city of Amsterdam.
Application: The seminar has room for at most have 60 participants. Please send a brief statement of interest to abrahamkuypercenter@vu.nl by June 1, 2013.

More information and updates about speakers can be found on the seminar website:
www.abrahamkuypercenter.vu.nl/summerseminar

This seminar, as well as the Kuyper Center, are made possible by a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

PDF Flyer

16-17 May 2013, Christ Church, Oxford

For centuries, atheism was suppressed because of its supposed amorality. Now, New Atheists such as A.C. Grayling and Sam Harris argue that decent, liberal morality is perfectly possible without religious belief--indeed, that it is only possible without it. Others, such as Jürgen Habermas, acknowledge that Christianity has had a peculiar capacity to articulate humanist values and norms, but that these can be extracted without loss from their theological roots. This May, the McDonald Centre, together with the Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Exeter, gather ten philosophers and theologians--both believers and unbelievers--from the UK, the USA, and New Zealand to address questions such as these:

• Even if morality in general does not need religion, might specific moralities nonetheless need it?
• Might morality be better off without religion? Is it better off without any religion or only certain kinds?
• When notions of human dignity or rights are extracted from theological language, is anything important lost in translation? Are such notions really sustainable apart from a theological worldview?
• Are religious believers more, or less, moral than others? Or are such questions philosophically irrelevant?

Speakers include: David Baggett (Liberty), Julian Baggini (The Philosophers' Magazine), Nigel Biggar (Oxford), John Cottingham (Reading), John Hare (Yale),Terrence Irwin (Oxford), Michael Hauskeller (Exeter), Tim Mulgan (Auckland), Keith Ward (Oxford), Mark Wynn (Leeds).

Register online now as space is limited: http://groupspaces.com/mcdonaldcentre/item/414088

When: 16-17 May 2013
Where: University of Oxford
Cost: £50 (students £30), including lunch

The University of Notre Dame will host the second Midwest Annual Workshop in Metaphysics (MAWM), September 14-15, 2013. We invite and encourage all interested parties to attend! MAWMs are targeted workshops for Midwestern faculty and graduate students working in metaphysics. Each MAWM features 5-7 invited speakers, the majority of whom come from Midwestern institutions. They provide a venue for sharing new research and building community among metaphysicians in the region. For more information and to register for the workshop, visit the website: http://mawms.org/Workshops/2013/

On May 9-11, 2013 the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame will host the fifth annual Logos Workshop. This will be the first Logos Workshop featuring an open registration. We invite all interested parties to register and attend the workshop in May. Please visit our website for more information, including speakers and paper titles: http://philreligion.nd.edu/events-and-calendar/annual-logos-workshop/logos-2013/.

Call for Papers
Workshop on Religious Epistemology and the Safety Condition for Knowledge
Oxford University 12 & 13 June 2013


The New Insights and Directions in Religious Epistemology project at Oxford University invites the submission of papers related to the application of the safety condition for knowledge to any question in the philosophy of religion or analytic theology.

Keynote Speakers: Timothy Williamson (Oxford)
Duncan Pritchard (Edinburgh)

Papers should be suitable for blind review and be no longer than 4000 words in length. Submissions should be accompanied by a cover letter including the name, affiliation, and contact details of the author.

Papers should be submitted to giorgia.carta@philosophy.ox.ac.uk.

Submission deadline is 15 April, 2013.

Partial funding is available to support travel and accommodation expenses for speakers.

Further details of the New Insights project can be found at www.newinsights.ox.ac.uk

This workshop is made possible by the John Templeton Foundation

The British Society for the Philosophy of Religion
2013 Conference
Atheisms

Oriel College, Oxford, Wednesday 11th - Friday 13th September 2013.

Keynote Speakers: Dr. Pamela Anderson (Oxford), Professor Stephen R. L. Clark (Liverpool), Professor Owen Flanagan (Duke), and Professor Robin Le Poidevin (Leeds)

********
Call for Papers

Buddhists, Epicureans, Christians, Pantheists, Materialists, Liberal Humanists, Transhumanists, Nietszcheans and Idolaters have all at different times been content to be called "atheists", and even the most ardent of "New Atheists" will insist that they need have no "positive" beliefs, except to reject whatever God or notion of God it is that they oppose. There need therefore be no one doctrine or way of life identified as "Atheism". The question is rather what forms of life and thought are to be reckoned "atheistical" and why they might (or might not) seem attractive.

Nor need the rejection of whatever God or Gods are in question always be a matter of intellectual conviction rather than politics (as anti-clericalism) or broadly "spiritual" practice (requiring the rejection of any authority superior to the individual's own will, or to the State's judgement).

If you would like to present a paper, please send an abstract of a maximum of 250 words to me (andrew.moore@theology.ox.ac.uk) by the end of March, 2013. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to consider abstracts that exceed the word limit or that are submitted after the closing date (allowance being made to colleagues in other time zones). The plural form "ATHEISMS" is to be noted: papers solely directed to refutations of (and refutations of those refutations of) "the Five Ways" (for example) are discouraged, as are papers directed solely to proving the non-existence of one particular deity, without regard to the alternatives.

Papers need not be on the theme of the conference, although a preference may be shown towards selecting those that are, other things being equal. Time and space at the conference will be limited, so we shall have to be selective, even allowing for the fact that we plan to run parallel sessions and request people presenting papers to keep to half-hour slots.

In order to keep to the tight timetabling required to permit participants to hear (the whole of) as many papers as possible, papers should take ideally fifteen minutes and an absolute maximum twenty minutes to deliver, leaving ten minutes or so for discussion.

Andrew Moore
Hon. Sec. BSPR

Wednesday, 13 March, 2013:

9:30-10:00 Coffee/Registration

10:00-11:30 1st Paper: Matthew Benton (Oxford)
"Pragmatic Encroachment & Religious Knowledge"
Commentator: Tim Pickavance (Biola)

11:30-1:30 LUNCH

1:30-3:00 2nd paper: Michael Pace (Chapman)
"Pragmatic Encroachment & the Nature of Faith"
Commentator: Julien Dutant (Geneva)

3:00-3:30 COFFEE

3:30- 5:00 3rd paper: Charity Anderson (Oxford) & John Hawthorne (Oxford)
"Knowledge, Practical Adequacy, and Stakes"
Commentator: Sandy Goldberg (Northwestern)

DINNER: 7:00

THURSDAY, 14 March, 2013:

9:30-10:00 COFFEE

10:00-11:30 4th Paper: Stephen Ogden (Yale)
"A Contextualist Look at Skeptical Theism"
Commentator: Amia Srinivasan (Oxford)

11:30-1:30 LUNCH

1:30-3:00: 5th Paper Tim Pickavance (Biola) and Daniel Eaton (Texas)
"Wagering on Pragmatic Encroachment"
Commentator: Jeffrey Russell (Oxford)

3:00-3:30 COFFEE

3:30-5:00 6th Paper: Jeremy Fantl (Calgary) and Matthew McGrath (Missouri)a
"On Two Ultimately Unsuccessful Objections to
Pragmatic Encroachment"
Commentator: Jane Friedman (Oxford)

Venue: Seminar Room, 3rd Floor, Radcliffe Humanities, Woodstock Road, Oxford.
To register, email giorgia.carta@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Participants are expected to read the above papers prior to the event. Access to the conference papers will be provided to registered participants prior to the workshop.

On behalf of Klaas Kraay

God and the Multiverse: A Workshop
Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada
February 15-16, 2013

Website: www.ryerson.ca/~kraay/multiverse.html

All are welcome to attend.

Please register online at the website mentioned above.

There is no registration fee.

Brief Description:

In recent decades, there has been tremendous growth in scientific theories which postulate the existence of many universes beyond our own. Once considered outré or patently absurd, multiverse theories now appear to be gaining scientific respectability. That said, the details and implications of each one are hotly contested.

In the philosophy of religion, multiverse theories are usually discussed in connection with the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God. In its simplest form, this argument runs as follows. If certain features of the universe had been slightly different, the universe would not have been capable of generating and sustaining life. This apparent "fine-tuning", some say, is best explained by positing an intelligent designer. Critics have countered that multiverse theories undermine this argument. If there indeed are vastly many universes which vary - perhaps randomly - in the relevant parameters, they say, then it is not at all surprising that at least one universe is life-permitting. In this debate, then, multiverse theories are typically offered as naturalistic rivals to theism.

Yet, in a surprising twist, several philosophers have recently offered various reasons for thinking that, if theism is true, there are many universes. Rather than being deemed rivals to theism, then, multiverses are here deemed to be consequences of theism. Moreover, some philosophers have argued that a theistic multiverse model can even help to defend theism against prominent arguments for atheism, including the problem of evil and the problem of no best world. All of these claims are controversial, and a body of literature has recently developed around them.

This workshop aims to thoroughly assess the idea that a multiverse is, in some sense or other, to be expected if theism is true. The presenters (ten philosophers and two physicists) will consider the philosophical, scientific, and theological dimensions of this idea.

If you have questions, please contact the workshop organizer, Klaas Kraay, at kraay@ryerson.ca.

The Philosophy Department at Fordham University has announced its three-year "Varieties of Understanding" project lead by Stephen Grimm.

The project will sponsor research in psychology, philosophy, and theology that will examine the various ways in which human beings understand the world, how these various types of understanding might be improved, and how they might be combined with one another to produce an integrated understanding of the world.

For more details, and for information on how to apply for funding, please see the project website: www.varietiesofunderstanding.com

The project is supported by a 3.56 million dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation, with additional support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Fordham University, and the University of California, Berkeley.