Hi! my name is Stefani Ruper. I am a pragmatist philosopher of religion. I ask the question: why do we believe what we believe? I am particularly interested in how people form beliefs in today’s religious landscape, given the death of God, the collapse of traditional religious forms, and the pluralisation and fragilisation of belief structures.
This means I look at our context. I study history. I analyse the mood and ideas alive in our culture that drive our existential despair and sources of existential solace.
I also look at human nature. I use my background in the sciences to understand human nature from evolutionary, psychological, and sociological perspective. And I use the tools I developed while doing a PhD in religion at the University of Oxford to study human nature with philosophical sophistication. I do not reduce human beings to specific data points or scientific theories, but rather attempt to understand us as embedded in rich networks of material and affect.
I also, uniquely, take human beings to have some element of free will, through the psychological, metaphysical, and epistemological works of William James.
My current interests are on the resources available in the works of William James to shed light on both the descriptive question–why do we believe what we believe?–and the prescriptive question–what should we do about it?
William James argues that there are certain kinds of truths taht cannot be tested without first daring to consider them true, a unique argument at the locus of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. I work extensively at this meeting point, and am currentlly producing a paper clarifying James’s position on the nature of Absolute Truth and our relationship to it.
CORE PUBLICATIONS
- Truth Claims are Valid and Absolute Truth is Real: A Close Reading of William James’s Affinity for Truth against his Misinterpreters
- -(In Process)
- Rescuing Metaphysics for Pragmatists: Interpreting William James’s Pure Experience as a Metaphysical Concept that Bars Reification and Opens Discourse to Pragmatic Goods
- -(Under review at Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society)
- The Will to Experience Transcendence: A Pragmatic Analysis of Jean Wahl’s Attempt—and Failure—to Secularise Religious (Kierkegaardian) Transcendence.
- -(Under review at the Journal of Speculative Philosophy)
- Beatific Dying: How the Queer and Autotelic Affects of Saintly Suffering Invalidate Psychologically Functionalist Accounts of Religion
- -(Under review at Critical Research on Religion)
- To Naturalise is to Differentiate: How Recent Advances in Cognitive Science Provide a More Plural Basis for Theorising Religion
- -(Method and Theory in the Study of Religion; 2018)
- Metaphysics Matters: Metaphysics and Soteriology in Jerome Stone’s and Donald Crosby’s Varieties of Religious Naturalism
- -(Zygon Journal of Religion and Science; 2014)
MAJOR PROJECTS
The Oxford Pragmatism Centre
Pragmatism is one of the world’s premier schools of thought, and it’s on the rise. But Oxford has never had significant scholarship or any groups related to Pragmatism.
I set out to change that.
I founded the Oxford Pragmatism Society in January 2023:
- I convene a monthly session, at which we discuss a paper or theme.
- In Spring 2024 we will host the first ever conference in Oxford on Pragmatism, with the theme:
What is it Logical to Believe?
The Philosophy of Faith
In January 2023 I founded The Philosophy of Faith and the Association for the Philosophy of Faith.
The Philosophy of Faith is the evaluation an advocacy of faith from the basis of secular reasoning and philosophy.
The Association for the Philosophy of Faith is a group of scholars in diverse disciplines who explore and/or advocate faith amidst secular discourses and audiences explicitly. We network and learn from one another’s ideas and experiences.
We are open to all disciplines and all faiths; even while many affiliated identify with Christianity we consider faith in the modern context broadly construed.
WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO GAIN TRUTH?
The most important truths – like most important things in life – are gained only by taking risks.
Free will one small, but momentous thing: our ability to direct our attention.
Our task is thus to steer our attention towards the good, beautiful, joyous, empowering, and true.
It is to be growth-oriented.
It is help ourselves build new habits – of belief, of interpretation, of feeling, of body, of love, of life.
CREDENTIALS
Education:
High Honours BA, Dartmouth College (2010)
Master’s of Theology, Boston University (2014)
Doctor of Philosophy, University of Oxford (2020)
Academic publications:
Truth Claims are Valid and Absolute Truth is Real: A Close Read of William James’s Affinity for Truth Against his Misinterpreters (Submitted to Transactions of the Charles S Peirce Society)
Rescuing Metaphysics for Pragmatists: Interpreting William James’s Pure Experience as a Metaphysical Concept that Bars Reification and Opens Discourse to Pragmatic Goods (Under review at Transactions of the Charles S Peirce Society)
Beatific Dying: How the Queer and Autotelic Affects of Saintly Suffering Invalidate Psychologically Functionalist Accounts of Religion (Under review at Critical Research on Religion)
“To Naturalize is to Differentiate: How Recent Advances in Cognitive Science Provice a More Plural Basis for Theorizing Religion” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (30: 1) 2018.
“Metaphysics Matters: Metaphysics and Soteriology in Jerome Stone’s and Donald Crosby’s Varieties of Religious Naturalism” Zygon (49: 2) 2014.
Public Scholarship:
BBC New Generation Thinker Short-list, BBC (2020)
Naked Humanity Podcast Host (2018-2020)
Oxford Torch Summer Program (2019)
Literary Agency:
Park & Fine
Branding and Strategy Experience:
Research Associate, Harvard Business School (2021-2022)
Brand Strategy, Harvard University (2021)
Founder and director, Health to Empower organisation for women’s wellness (2012-2020)
Awards:
Ian Ramsey Centre John Templeton Foundation Grant, 2015-2017.
Institute for Religion in an age of Science Scholarship, 2013.
Carr Scholarship, 2013.
Huayu Enrichment Scholarship, 2011.
Uthman Prize for Most Outstanding Undergraduate Research, 2010.
NASA Space Grant, 2009.