Peter Forrest (philosopher)
Peter Forrest (born 1948 in Liverpool, England) is an Australian philosopher. He was educated at Ampleforth College. His undergraduate work was at the Balliol College, Oxford, in mathematics, and he gained a PhD in mathematics from Harvard.[1] After moving to Australia he gained an MA in philosophy at the University of Tasmania, then in 1984 a PhD at the University of Sydney, where he was influenced by philosophers David Stove and David Armstrong. He was Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England from 1987 to 2010.
In the philosophy of religion, Forrest's books God Without the Supernatural and Developmental Theism defend a speculative view of God which resembles traditional theism in regarding God as an entity beyond the world, having creative powers, but also takes God not to violate natural laws and to develop from a state of pure power to a state of pure love.
In the philosophy of time, Forrest defends the growing block theory, according to which the present and the past are real, but not the future.[2]
He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
He is married, with four children.
Books
- 1986, The Dynamics of Belief: A Normative Logic, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0631146199;
- 1988, Quantum Metaphysics, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0631163719;
- 1996, God Without the Supernatural: A Defense of Scientific Theism, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press ISBN 978-1-876492-08-3;
- 2007, Developmental Theism: From Pure Will to Unbounded Love, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 9780199214587;
- 2012, The Necessary Structure of the All-Pervading Aether, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, ISBN 9783110325928.
References
- ↑ P.R.H. Forrest in Mathematics Genealogy Project.
- ↑ P. Forrest, The real but dead past: a reply to Braddon-Mitchell, Analysis 64 (4) (2004), 358–362.
