This workshop has two related elements. First, we will discuss different ways of approaching the history of ideas and, more specifically, the history of philosophical and religious ideas. One focus of this discussion will be the role played by normative considerations - moral and religious commitments, or advocacies of social justice - in the way we conduct our historical investigations. A second element will be an account of Harrison’s own approach to the history of ideas, which usually involves a significant component of conceptual history. We will look at specific examples of the history of concepts such as ‘religion’, ‘science’, and ‘belief’, and consider what that history might imply for our present deployment of those notions. These examples also take us back to the question of how to manage normative issues in the conduct of history.

Core Readings:

• Peter Harrison, The Territories of Science and Religion, Chicago, 2015, ch. 1
• Peter Harrison, Some New World, Cambridge, 2024, ch. 2.
• Peter Harrison, ‘Normativity and the Critical Functions of Genealogy’, Modern Theology, 39 (2023), 682-707.

Supplementary Readings:

• Jonathan Catlin, ‘The Berkeley School: Critical Theory, Political Economy, and the Future of Intellectual History’ JHI blog, Feb. 2026.
• Peter Gordon, ‘What is Intellectual History?’
• Peter Harrison, ‘Critical Theories and the Question of Values’, Zygon 60 (2026), 1299–308