publications — Samuel Loncar

Selected Scholarly & Popular Publications

C.V.

2024

Greek Mathematics and the Origins of Science: A Conversation with Vittorio Hösle. Marginalia Review of Books. Vittorio Hösle, Paul G. Kimball Professor of Arts and Letters at Notre Dame (where he is also a Faculty Fellow at the Nanovic and Kroc Institute and the Founding Director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study) shares his profound insights about science and its meaning today.

2023

The Myth of Secular Philosophy: Philosophy of Religion’s Origin and Fate. Religions 14(3).

Does Science Need History? Marginalia Review of Books. Lorraine Daston, Director Emerita of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, in conversation with Samuel Loncar.

Science is a Long Story. Marginalia Review of Books. Tom McLeish, soft matter physicist, in conversation with Samuel Loncar.

The Paradigm Shift: A New Vision of Science and Religion with Peter Harrison. Marginalia Review of Books. Peter Harrison, one of the leading scholars of science and religion, the former Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University, and co-director of our Meanings of Science Project, in conversation with Samuel Loncar

2022

Cosmic Humility: Harvard’s Avi Loeb on Extraterrestrials and The Future of Science. Marginalia Review of Books. Avi Loeb, Harvard Astrophysicist, in conversation with Samuel Loncar.

For the Life of Science: Philip Ball on Quantum Physics and The Writing Life. Marginalia Review of Books. Philip Ball in conversation with Samuel Loncar.

Poems of Fire: The Vision of Makoto Fujimura. Marginalia Review of Books. On Fujimura’s Art + Faith.

Weimar’s Lost Existence: An Introduction to Heidegger. Marginalia Review of Books. On Sein und Zeit.

Scholarship Out Of Time: Weimar’s Lost Existence. The Marginalia Review of Books. On the uncritical and anachronistic employment of major concepts to organize academic disciplines and how the scholarship they create reproduces the ideological structures and history those concepts embody and enable.

Science as a Human Story: The Royal Society Recognizes Philip Ball. Marginalia Review of Books. Philip Ball in conversation with Samuel Loncar on receiving The Royal Society’s Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal and Lecture, which is given for “excellence in a subject relating to the history, philosophy or social function of science.”

2021

Science and Religion: An Origins Story. Zygon: A Journal of Religion & Science. On the science and religion debate, offering a new framework for theorizing science and religion as part of the history of philosophy.

Christianity’s Shadow Founder: Marcion, Anti-Judaism, and the Birth of Protestant Liberalism. The Marginalia Review of Books. On Protestantism’s Anti-Judaic roots.

Brooklyn 2015 and The World Spins and Staggers. Reformed Journal. Poetry.

Is Philosophy Magic? The Roots of Reason in Parmenides. Marginalia Review of Books. On illness, madness, and the end of what we are.

2020

In Plato’s Cave. First Things. Poetry.

Science and Human Values: In Conversation with Peter Harrison. Marginalia Review of Books. On the public understanding of science and religion in the modern world.

A Small Good Thing. Marginalia Review of Books. A conversation with the editor of Books & Culture, John Wilson.

2019

The Therapy of Desire: Toward a Revolutionary Philosophy. LA Review of Books. On what is essential for living the philosophical life.

Poetry: Politics, Religion, and Peace: An Interview with Pádraig Ó Tuama . Marginalia Review of Books. On poetry in Ireland, activism, the death of god, and the work of conflict resolution.

A Quest for the Holy Grail: D.W.Pasulka’s “American Cosmic: UFO’s, Religion, Technology.” LA Review of Books. On UFO’s as a new religion of technology.

Irony in The Age of Trump. Marginalia Review of Books. On irony as a lost virtue in need of recovery.

2018

Ascending to The Cloud: Art After Humanity. Redbull Arts: Cloud of Petals by Sarah Mayohas.

Antisemitism Is Our Problem. Marginalia Review of Books. On Christianity’s antisemitic legacy.

Decolonizing Philosophy. Marginalia Review of Books. Samuel Loncar Interviews Carlos Fraenkel and Peter Adamson about Islam, Reason, and Religion.

2017

The Protestant Reformation as a Metaphysical Revolution. Marginalia Review of Books. On the intellectual revolution of the modern age.

The Wisdom of Death. Marginalia Review of Books. On Costica Bradatan’s Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers.

Racial Murder: American Memory, American Tragedy. Marginalia Review of Books. On the June 17, 2015 Charleston shooting and America’s identity, past and present.

2016

Why Listen to Philosophers? A Constructive Critique of Disciplinary Philosophy. Metaphilosophy 47(1). This article articulates a fundamental crisis of disciplinary philosophy—its lack of disciplinary self-consciousness and the skeptical problems this generates—and, through that articulation, exemplifies a means of mitigating its force.

Science vs. Religion and Other Modern Myths. Marginalia Review of Books. On Peter Harrison’s The Territories of Science and Religion, and Jerry Coyne’s Faith versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible.

Beyond Borders, America, Immigration, and the Future of Information. Marginalia Review of Books. On America, Immigration, and the Future of Information.

2015

How to Be Human in a Machine World. Marginalia Review of Books. On Geoff Colvin’s Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will. (2015)

The Vibrant Religious Life of Silicon Valley, and Why It’s Killing the Economy. Marginalia Review of Books. On Jaron Lanier’s Who Owns the Future? (2015)