Philip Clayton (philosopher)


Philip Clayton is a contemporary American philosopher of religion and philosopher of science. His work focuses on the intersection of science, ethics, and society. He currently holds the Ingraham Chair at Claremont School of Theology and serves as an affiliated faculty member at Claremont Graduate University. Clayton specializes in the philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of religion, as well as in comparative theology.

Career

As an administrator in higher education, Clayton served as Dean of the Claremont School of Theology, and as Provost and Senior Vice President of Claremont Lincoln University, which at that time was an interreligious university. He was Principal Investigator for the Science and the from 1999 to 2003.
Within the natural sciences, Philip Clayton’s research has focused on emergent dynamics in biology and on the neural correlates of consciousness in neuroscience. He has co-authored or edited a number of publications with physicists, chemists, and biologists, analyzing emerging natural systems and exploring their significance for the study of religion. He works in particular on the philosophical and religious implications of emergence theory. In this field his books include and . He was also editor of . He has also published extensively in the field of science and religion, and served as the co-editor for .
Philip Clayton received a joint PhD from Yale in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of religion. He has also held a variety of invited guest professorships at other universities, including the University of Munich, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard University. As Fulbright Senior Fellow and Humboldt Professor he studied with Wolfhart Pannenberg in Theology and in Philosophy with Dieter Henrich and :de:Lorenz Bruno Puntel|Lorenz Puntel. He later co-edited the and translated .
Philip Clayton has taught at Haverford College, Williams College, and Sonoma State University. His international lectureships include India, Great Britain, France, and China. He speaks and writes extensively on issues at the intersection of science, religion, ethics, and politics.

Authored works