Douglas Hedley profile

Teaching Officers | Reader in Hermeneutics and Metaphysics, Fellow of Clare College

Profile

Dr Douglas Hedley is co-chair of the Platonism and Neoplatonism section of the American Academy of Religion and a past Secretary of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion and past President of the European Society for the Philosophy of Religion.

In March 2002 he was Directeur d'études invité at the EPHE, Sorbonne, and from January to March 2004 he was the Alan Richardson Fellow of the Theology Department in Durham. He is, with Lieven Boeve and Wim Drees, editor of the Series 'Studies in Philosophical Theology' published by Peeters in Leuven.

In December 2006 Douglas Hedley was the Teape lecturer in India, lecturing in Bangalore, Delhi, Kalkotta and Hyderabad. He has been external examiner at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford.

Douglas Hedley studied Philosophy and Theology at Keble College, Oxford and in 1992 gained a doctorate in the Philosophy Faculty at the University of Munich under the supervision of Werner Beierwaltes. In 1993 he was awarded a post-doctoral Fellowship by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeindshaft for work on seventeenth century theology and the Cambridge Platonists.

In 1995 he taught at Nottingham University and in 1996 moved to the Divinity Faculty in Cambridge.

Books and book reviews

In 2000 Douglas Hedley published Coleridge, Philosophy and Religion: Aids to Reflection and the Mirror of the Spirit:

"Coleridge, Philosophy and Religionis a refreshing foray into speculative metaphysics going full tilt…Heartily recommended." Faith and Philosophy, 2001

"This engaging discussion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's mature philosophical theology is driven by the author's interest in the contentious issue of Coleridge's relation to German philosophy." Religious Studies Review Oct 2001

"This work is a significant contribution to Coleridge studies, particularly in light of Hedley's ability to relate both British and German philosophical traditions to Coleridge's mature theology." The Journal of Religion. 2001

"(A) formidably learned tome." Expository Times

Since then, Douglas Hedley has published Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy. Post Modern theology, Rhetoric and Truth (Ashgate, 2005, co-edited with Wayne Hankey):

"The collective impact of these essays…is devastating for Radical Orthodoxy as a movement. This work must thus feature as essential reading in the task of critically assessing Milbank and al.’s work." Theological Book Review, 2006

In 2006, he published The Human Person in God's World Studies to Commemorate the Austin Farrer centenary (SCM, 2006) with Brian Hebblethwaite:

"The papers concentrate on the contribution made by Farrer to philosophical and austerely theological understanding. They all repay careful reading. There is as elusive a quality about Farrer’s thought as about his personality, and readers will want to return to these essays as they puzzle at the mysteries that Farrer creatively illuminated. He stood in the tradition of natural theology, and for him 'man made in the image of God is primarily a rational creature' — hence this book’s title." Church Times, September 2007

"In the most attractively written of these papers, Douglas Hedley, concentrating for much of his essay on Mitchell’s development of Farrer’s ideas, praises them both for intelligent thought about the imaginative perception of Christian truth, which he places at a fruitful centre point between hard reasoning on the one hand and non-rational fideism on the other." TLS, August 2007

And in 2008, Platonism at the Origins of Modernity (Springer 2008) with Sarah Hutton, and his monograph Living Forms of the Imagination:

"This book is a clear and eloquent plea for a sacramental conception of our embodied life… If you want to know how the tradition of Christian Platonism might be articulated in the context of contemporary debate, then read this book!" Mark Wynn, University of Exeter, UK

"Living Forms of the Imaginationis a compelling, erudite articulation and defence of the indispensible cognitive value of the imagination in the philosophy of nature and God. Elegantly written, this book draws on Platonic and Romantic traditions to create a brilliant challenge to contemporary, reductive naturalists and those who advance a deflationary account of the imagination. This book is essential reading for those interested in the imagination, epistemology, naturalism, and the philosophy of religion." Charles Taliaferro, St Olaf College, Minnesota, USA

In 2011, Douglas Hedley published Sacrifice Imagined: Violence, Atonement and the Sacred (Continuum).

"Douglas Hedley calls on the resources of philosophy, theology, poetry, and art to look into the deep and difficult subject of sacrifice, suffering, and atonement. This is a remarkable, profound, and erudite new study, which no one who wants to think hard about these issues should ignore." Timothy Chappell, Professor of Philosophy, The Open University, UK

“In this impressively learned work Douglas Hedley has two related goals both of which challenge contemporary scholarship. The first and more important is to recover the role of sacrifice in the imagination, not as something purely negative but as a path towards human transformation. This he does in part through his second goal: re-establishing the significance of a largely forgotten figure, Joseph de Maistre.  Hedley plausibly argues that, so far from being merely a reactionary thinker, de Maistre offers a profound critique of much Enlightenment and modern thought. Rich in insights, the work challenges numerous contemporary orthodoxies in both philosophy and theology, and at the same time succeeds in defending the continuing relevance of the Platonist tradition. “ David Brown, FBA, Wardlaw Professor of Theology, Aesthetics and Culture, University of St Andrews, UK

More detailed information is available by looking at Douglas Hedley's CV.

Courses taught this academic year

• First year introduction to Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, paper A8
• Second year Philosophical Theology, paper B10
• Self and Salvation, paper D1(g)
• Imagination, paper D2(g)

Areas of specialisation

• Contemporary philosophy of religion
• History of Platonism-Neoplatonism
• Early modern philosophy
• Romanticism and Idealism

Research

Douglas Hedley is working on a Trilogy on the religious imagination.

• Living Forms of the Imagination is a philosophical and theological exploration of 'imagination' in religious belief. It grew out of a lecture given in Jena, developed into seminars in Paris, and was finished in Naples, the home of Vico. It is a defence of the High Romantic view of the Imagination as a 'repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM'
• The second volume, on sacrifice entitled Sacrifice Imagined: Violence, Atonement and the Sacred, was published by Continuum in 2011. This is a theme of many religions. Many critics of Christianity view it as not merely false but wicked because of its brutal and destructive component. Vico, De Maistre and Girard are key figures in the appraisal of the link between violence, sublimation of the individual will, and the sacred.
• The final volume is entitled The Iconic Imagination. Ancient and modern conceptions of truth beauty and goodness in relation to the metaphysical  idea of unity. The work brings together and develops problems from the first two volumes relating to the religious imagination.

Doctoral students

Douglas Hedley supervises the following doctoral students:

• Evan King, working on Meister Eckhart
• Simone Kotva, working on 19th Century Romantic Philosophical Theology.
• Alex Hampton, working on German romantic philosophy and theology.
• João Abreu, working on Nietzsche's Concept of Death