Staff profile

After teaching at the Universities of London and Cambridge, Chris Insole took up his post at Durham in 2006, becoming Professor of Philosophical Theology and Ethics in 2013. Between 2018 and 2021, he was Head of Department. He has published extensively on realism and anti-realism, religious epistemology, the relationship between theology, metaphysics, and political philosophy, and on the thought of Immanuel Kant. His books include his two major studies of Kant’s philosophy of religion (Oxford, 2020 and 2013). Since 2016, his research has moved into a more contemporary and constructive key, engaging with the category of natural theology. He is exploring the possibility of re-conceiving natural theology as a type of negative theology. He is the PI for a two-year funded project on 'Negative Natural Theology: Freedom and the Limits of Reason'. This project is part of the major international initiative funded by the Templeton Religion Trust, 'Widening Horizons in Philosophical Theology'. See https://philosophical-theology.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/projects/ 

Professor Insole is also the Lead Investigator for a major five-year programme, called ‘Redeeming Autonomy: Agency, Vulnerability, and Relationality’, funded and hosted by the Australian Catholic University, with co-investigators Dr David Kirchhoffer (ACU), Professor Jennifer Herdt (Yale), Professor Kristin Heyer (Boston), and Professor Yves De Maeseneer (Leuven). The programme brings together philosophers, theologians, social scientists, historians, anthropologists, policy-makers, political philosophers, lawyers, and literary scholars, in order to investigate the use and misuse of the concept of rational self-government, in contested, urgent, and concrete areas such as end-of-life legislation, disability, immigration, trauma, gender, and political sovereignty. The premise of the programme is that the notion of rational self-government does not belong exclusively within a Kantian and secular framework, but can be found in ancient and medieval sources, as well as in alternative modern frameworks, many of which are more receptive to, and shaped by, religious influences and commitments.

• Natural Theology and Philosophy of Religion
• Thomas Nagel
• Derek Parfit
• Kant
• Realism and Anti-Realism
• Theology and Political Philosophy

Authored book

• Insole, C. J. (2020). Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law. Oxford University Press
• Insole, C. (2016). The Intolerable God: Kant's Theological Journey. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co
• Insole, C. J. (2013). Kant and the Creation of Freedom: a Theological Problem. Oxford University Press
• Insole, C. J. (2006). The Realist Hope: a Critique of Anti-Realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology. Ashgate Publishing
• Insole, C. (2005). The Politics of Human Frailty: a Theological Defence of Political Liberalism. University of Notre Dame Press

Chapter in book

• Insole, C. J. (2021). Theology and Politics: the Intellectual History of Liberalism. In A. Rowlands, A. Daughton, & E. Phillips (Eds.), T&T Clark Reader in Political Theology. T&T Clark/Bloomsbury
• Insole, C. J. (2017). Realism and Anti-Realism. In W. J. Abraham, & F. D. Aquino (Eds.), Oxford Handbook to the Epistemology of Testimony. Oxford University Press
• Insole, C. (2012). Edmund Burke and the Natural Law. In C. Insole, & D. Dwan (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Edmund Burke. Cambridge University Press
• Insole, C. (2005). Political Liberalism, Analytical Philosophy of Religion and the Forgetting of History. In H. Harris, & C. J. Insole (Eds.), Faith and Philosophical Analysis: the Impact of Analytical Philosophy of Religion on the Philosophy of Religion (158-170). Ashgate Publishing

Edited book

• Insole, C., & Dwan, D. (Eds.). (2012). The Cambridge Companion to Edmund Burke. Cambridge University Press
• Insole, C. J., & Harris, H. (Eds.). (2005). Faith and Philosophical Analysis: the Impact of Analytical Philosophy on the Philosophy of Religion. Ashgate Publishing

Journal Article

• Insole, C. J. (2023). A Kantian Response to the Problem of Evil: Living in the Moral World. Religions, 14(2), Article 227. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020227
• Insole, C. J. (2019). Kant, Divinity and Autonomy. Studies in Christian Ethics, 32(4), 470-484. https://doi.org/10.1177/0953946819869168
• Insole, C. (2019). Free Belief: The Medieval Heritage in Kant’s Moral Faith. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 57(3), 501-528. https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2019.0056
• Insole, C. (2016). Kant on Christianity, Religion and Politics: Three Hopes, Three Limits. Studies in Christian Ethics, 29(1), 14-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0953946815611111
• Insole, C. (2015). A Thomistic Reading of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Searching for the Unconditioned. Modern Theology, 31(2), 284-311. https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12145
• Insole, C. J. (2014). Kant and the Creation of Freedom: a Response to Terry Godlove. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 72(3), 111-128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-014-9455-4
• Insole, C. J. (2012). A Metaphysical Kant: A Theological Lingua Franca?. Studies in Christian Ethics, 25(2), 206-214. https://doi.org/10.1177/0953946811435385
• Insole, C. (2011). Intellectualism, Relational Properties and the Divine Mind in Kant's Pre-Critical Philosophy. Kantian Review, 16(3), 399-427. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1369415411000203
• Insole, C. (2011). Kant's Transcendental Idealism and Newton's Divine Sensorium. Journal of the History of Ideas, 72(3), 413-436. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2011.0025
• Insole, C. (2011). Kant's Transcendental Idealism, Freedom and the Divine Mind. Modern Theology, 27(4), 608-638. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0025.2011.01705.x
• Insole, C. J. (2008). Two Conceptions of Liberalism: Theology, Creation and Politics in the Thought of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke. Journal of Religious Ethics, 36(3), 447-489. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9795.2008.00356.x
• Insole, C. J. (2008). The Irreducible Importance of Religious Hope in Kant's Conception of the Highest Good. Philosophy, 83(325), 333-351. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0031819108000703
• Insole, C. J. (2007). The Truth Behind Practices : Wittgenstein, Robinson Crusoe and Ecclesiology. Studies in Christian Ethics, 20(3), 364-382. https://doi.org/10.1177/0953946807082933
• Insole, C. (2006). Discerning the Theo-Political: a Response to William Cavanaugh's Re-Imagining of Political Space. Political Theology, 7(3),
• Insole, C. J. (2006). ‘Beyond glass doors... the sun no longer shining' English platonism and the problem of self-love in the literary and philosophical work of Iris Murdoch. Modern Theology, 22(1), 111-143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0025.2006.00312.x
• Insole, C. J. (2004). The Worship of Freedom: Negative and Positive Notions of Liberty in Philosophy of Religion and Political Philosophy. The Heythrop Journal, 45(2), 209-226. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2265.2004.00250.x
• Insole, C. (2004). Against Radical Orthodoxy: the Dangers of Overcoming Political Liberalism. Modern Theology, 22(1), 213-241
• Insole, C. (2002). Metaphor and the Impossibility of Failing to Speak About God. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 52(1), 35-43. https://doi.org/10.1023/a%3A1015607714523
• Insole, C. (2002). Ian Markham's Critical Realism. The Heythrop Journal, 43(3), 318-326
• Insole, C. (2001). Anthropomorphism and the Apophatic God. Modern Theology, 17(4), 475-483
• Insole, C. (2000). Why John Hick cannot, and should not, stay out of the Jam Pot. Religious Studies, 36(1), 25-33
• Insole, C. (2000). Gordon Kaufman and the Kantian Mystery. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 47(2), 101-119
• Insole, C. (2000). Seeing off the Local Threat to Irreducible Knowledge by Testimony. Philosophical Quarterly, 50(198), 44-56
• Insole, C. (1998). Kierkegaard: a Reasonable Fideist?. The Heythrop Journal, 39(4), 363-378
• Insole, C. (1998). A Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Religion - or a Philosophy of Wittgensteinian Religion?. The Heythrop Journal, 39(2), 148-157