Yiftach Fehige

I am a philosopher (Ph.D. obtained in 2004) and theologian (Ph.D. obtained in 2011), with a background in physics (B.Sc. obtained in 1998), and a great appreciation of historical perspectives on science and technology. Consequently, my research is decidedly interdisciplinary, aligning well with the mission of the IHPST. Originally from Germany, I have been part of the core faculty of the IHPST since 2007. The growing field of science and religion is the primary scholarly context of my research. 

I have produced work on a range of topics, including the relationship between science and religion at the intersection of “East” and “West” (as in my edited volume entitled Science and Religion: East and West, 2016); the significance of thought experiments for contemporary interactions between science and religion (as in my most recent monograph entitled Thought Experiments, Science, and Theology, 2023); and a pluralist theory of human sexuality at the boundaries of philosophy, theology and science. I have developed a neo-pragmatist theory of “trans-sexuality” with a focus on the nature of theoretical terms in scientific theories of sex and gender in my very first monograph entitled Die Geschlechtererosion des Semantischen Realismus (2006), and I offered an analysis of the nature of the sexed human body in critical engagement with the theory of emotions and the body entailed in the school of thought named “New Phenomenology” (in my book: Sexualphilosophie: Eine einführende Annäherung, 2007).

I am grateful for the generous support my work has received from various organizations, including the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Coburn Trust Faculty Exchange Fund, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Spooner Traveling Grant, the Excellence in Research Initiative Fund of the Federal State of Hessen, the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften in Frankfurt/Main, the Akademie der Weltreligionen in Hamburg, and the University of Notre Dame’s Centre for Philosophy of Religion. 

In 2013, I was appointed permanent Fellow of Victoria College in the University of Toronto, and in 2015, I was elected Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion. Through my membership in the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology, as well as my involvement in various research projects with colleagues in Germany, I maintain a strong connection to Europe in my research endeavors.

Among my most rewarding experiences at the IHPST are supervising exciting doctoral research projects pursued by our students. For example, I supervised a historical dissertation that throws new light on links between Christology and “Chymistry” in the work of Isaac Newton, and a philosophical dissertation that enhances our understanding of the scientific imagination as displayed in thought experiments. At the undergraduate level, I find equal enjoyment in teaching large lecture courses and leading extracurricular activities for smaller groups of students, such as organizing excursions to Germany to study historical sites related to the intriguing history of the interaction between science and Judaism from 1871 to the present in Germany.