Peter Harrison (historian)

thumb Peter Harrison (historian) Peter Duncan Harrison FAHA (born 1955) is a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, Australia, and Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy at the University of Queensland. Quotes about Harrison Harrison is no nostalgic reactionary. He acknowledges modernity’s gifts. But he warns against monochrome narratives of progress. One of his most provocative claims is that science, too, relies on “wikt:fides fides implicita.” …As a scholar of new religious movements, I find Harrison’s thesis electrifying. He doesn’t mention my field, but I’ll extend his argument: many new religions are a renaissance of “fides implicita.” Converts don’t join because they’ve dissected theological treatises (although some may read them later). They join because they trust a guru, a prophet, a community. Just like early Christians and Muslims. The intellectual scaffolding may come later—or not at all.So, is “fides implicita” obsolete? Has secular science vanquished religion? Harrison—and I—say: not so fast. Belief, in its ancient form as trust, is alive and well. It’s just wearing new clothes. Massimo Introvigne, "Peter Harrison’s “Some New World”: Faith, Reason, and the Afterlife of Belief", Bitter Winter (October 28, 2025) External links Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Historians of science Category:Historians from Australia Category:Academics from Australia Category:University of Oxford faculty