2025 Latter-day Saint Philosophy Project Workshop: Aug 29-30
Contemporary Philosophy and the Latter-day Saint Tradition
The Latter-day Saint theological tradition includes philosophically interesting commitments that are distinctive in relation to Classical Christian traditions (e.g., that God has a body of flesh and bone; God delivers new special revelation). Such distinctive commitments interact with beliefs that are shared with followers of many other Christian traditions, such as the existence and unity of God, the nature of after life, etc.
This workshop will include presentations by philosophers working on such issues. Their presentations will be work-in-progress versions of chapters to be included in the Routledge Studies on Philosophy of Religion Volume Contemporary Philosophy and the Latter-day Saint Tradition, which will be co-edited by Taylor-Grey Miller and Katharina Paxman.
Sessions will be read-ahead. Participants who register for the conference will get access to the work-in-progress papers, and sessions will be focused on improving the in-progress manuscripts.
All sessions will take place at BYU in JFSB 4010
Registration is now closed.
There is a modest registration fee of $20. Students interested in attending may request a fee waiver at the following email address: ldsphilosophyproject [at] gmail [dot] com. There will not be a publicly accessible zoom link.
There is limited seating, so registration will be limited. Priority is given on a first-come first-served basis.
Workshop Schedule: Abstracts for each talk can be found [here]
Friday Program (Aug 29)
10:00-10:50 am: Taylor-Grey Miller–Joseph Smith and the Specter of Classical Theism
11:00-11:50 am: Derek Haderlie–What Could it Mean to Say that God is Bound by Laws?
12:00-12:50am: Joseph Lawal–God an Alien or an Alien God?
Lunch
3:00-3:50pm: Bryce Gessell–Human Physiology and Latter-day Saint Religious Epistemology
4:00-4:50pm: Mike Ashfield–Bare Theism and LDS Philosophical Theology
5:00-5:50pm: Ryan Christensen–All Their Creeds
6:45pm Workshop Participant Dinner
Saturday Program (Aug 30)
10:00-10:50am: Nate Rockwood–Revelation and Testimony: justifications of Latter-day Saint beliefs in the Book of Mormon
11:00-11:50am: Kaija Mortensen–Extending Transformative Invitations
12:00-12:50am: Ryan Davis–Authority Without Dominion
Lunch
3:00-3:50pm: Eliza Wells–Latter-day Moral Agency in Theory and Practice
4:00-4:50pm: Katharina Paxman–The Sacred Nature of Shared Feeling: The Centrality of Empathy in the Latter-day Saint Tradition