Natalja Deng
  • Natalja M. Deng
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I'm an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Underwood International College, Yonsei University, Seoul/Incheon*, South Korea. 
​I've been a postdoc in Cambridge (as part of Sarah Coakley's TWCF project ‘Theology, philosophy of religion, and the sciences’), at the Center for Philosophy of Religion, Notre Dame, and at eidos, the Centre for Metaphysics in Geneva.
My PhD thesis, directed by Oliver Pooley in Oxford, was entitled 'Time, experience, and the A versus B debate'. I originally studied physics at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, where I’ve also been a postdoctoral Bye-Fellow.
​​I'm currently President of the Philosophy of Time Society
(PTS), one of the member societies of the International Association for Philosophy of Time (IAPT).
Here's my CV. Email me: ​​nmdeng[at]gmail[dot]com.
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Research

I work (mostly) in metaphysics and philosophy of religion. In metaphysics, I'm interested in the B-theory and its relation to temporal experience. In philosophy of religion, one thing I've thought about is to what extent naturalists can engage in religious practice.

I also have interests in philosophy of physics, philosophy of death, and aesthetics.
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Book​

God and Time
Cambridge Elements in the Philosophy of Religion 
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Papers 

There's no time like the present: present-bias, temporal attitudes and temporal ontology (with Kristie Miller, Andrew Latham and James Norton)
forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, ed. by J. Knobe and S. Nichols

Plenty to come: making sense of Correia's and Rosenkranz's growing block 
forthcoming in Disputatio

Time, Metaphysics of 
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (published version here)

Eternity in Christian Thought
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

On 'Experiencing time': a response to Simon Prosser
Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 61(3): 281-301 (published version here)

Making sense of the growing block view
Philosophia (published version here)

What is temporal ontology?
Philosophical Studies (published version here)

Acknowledgement and the Paradox of Tragedy, with Daan Evers 
Philosophical Studies 173/2: 337-350 
 
On whether B-theoretic Atheists should Fear Death 
Philosophia 43/4: 1011-1021 (published version here)

How A-theoretic Deprivationists should respond to Lucretius 
Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1/3: 417-432 (published version here)

On Explaining Why Time Seems to Pass 
Southern Journal of Philosophy 51/3: 367-382 (published version here)

Our Experience of Passage on the B-theory 
Erkenntnis 78/4: 713-726 (published version here)
 
Fine’s McTaggart, Temporal Passage, and the A versus B debate 
Ratio 26/1: 19-34 (published version here)

'Beyond A- and B-time’ Reconsidered 
Philosophia 38/4: 741-753 (published version here)

Religion for Naturalists
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 78/2: 195-214 (published version here)
 
Agnosticism and fictionalism: reply to Le Poidevin
European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 12/3: 183

Religion for Naturalists and the Meaning of Belief
European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 11/3: 157-174

Metaphysics, Science, and Religion: a Response to Hud Hudson 
Journal of Analytic Theology Vol.5 (published version here)

Questions about ‘Internal and External Questions about God’ 
Religious Studies 48/2: 257-268 (published version here)

Response to 'Fear of Death and the Symmetry Argument'
Manuscrito 39/4: 297-304

Response to Jeffrey Bishop 
Studies in Christian Ethics 29/3 (published version here)
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Reviews and invited chapters

On metaphysical explanations of psychological asymmetries
Temporal Asymmetries in Philosophy and Psychology (2022), ed. by C. Hoerl, T. McCormack & A. Fernandes, OUP
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On timelessness and mystery
The Divine Nature: Personal and A-personal Perspectives (2021), ed. by Simon Kittle & Georg Gasser, Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion 

What Quine (and Carnap) might say about contemporary metaphysics of time
Quine, Structure, and Ontology (2021) ed. by Frederique Janssen-Lauret, OUP

One Thing After Another: Why the Passage of Time is Not an Illusion
The Illusions of Time: Philosophical and Psychological Essays on Timing and Time Perception (2019), ed. by Adrian Bardon, Valtteri Arstila, Sean Power & Argiro Vatakis, Palgrave Macmillan

Temporal Experience and the A versus B debate
Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Temporal Experience (2017), ed. by Ian Phillips 

Religion für Naturalisten
Handbuch Analytische Religionsphilosophie (2019), ed. by K. Viertbauer and G. Gasser, Metzler

Review of D. Ingram's 'Thisness Presentism: An Essay on Time, Truth, and Ontology'
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Does Physics make us Free? Review of J. T. Ismael ‘How physics makes us free’ (OUP), with Klaas Landsman
Metascience 26(1): 127-130 (published version here)

Review of 'Debates in the Metaphysics of Time', ed. by N. Oaklander
International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 29/3 (published version here)
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Recent and upcoming talks

SOPhiA-workshop, University of Salzburg/online on 'Metaphysics of Space-Time: The End of Time?’ Sept 8 2022: TBD

Keynote speech IAPT 7, Barcelona July 5-7, 2022; 3rd Online Meeting of the Eastern Hemisphere Language and Metaphysics Network (EHLM) Sept 7 2022: 'What if time were ineffable?'

Workshop on Physics, Time and Agency, TC Dublin June 28-29, 2022: 'Are Heracliteans and Parmenideans both right?'

Workshop on Time and Experience, Geneva June 8-11, 2022: 'An experience-based interpretation of the A versus B distinction'


Weekend seminar Philosophie der Physik (Schwerpunkt Zeitphilosophie), Köln/online 11 Dec 2021: 'Die Probleme der Zeitphilosophie' 

Workshop on Fictionalism, Victoria University of Wellington/online Sept/Oct 2021: 'The contours of religious fictionalism'

MindGrad Warwick 2021, Warwick/online 26 June 2021;
Departmental Colloquium, University of Macau/online March 2022: 'Temporal experience, metaphysics, and metametaphysics, or: on philosophising about temporal experience'

Joint Session 2021, Hertfordshire/online 16-18 July 2021: 'Plenty to come - making sense of Correia's and Rosenkranz's growing block'

International Association for Philosophy of Time (IAPT) 6th Annual Meeting, University of Colorado, Boulder June 23-26 2019; Joint Session, University of Durham July 19-21 2019: 'On moving past the ABCs'

Zoom workshop 'Analytic Philosophy of Religion in Asia', National Taiwan University Nov 16-18 2020: 'Religion for naturalists'

Workshop on 'The nature of God: personal and a-personal concepts of the divine', University of Innsbruck Aug 5-8 2018; God and Time III, University of Lugano Aug 23-24 2019: 'On mystery, timelessness, and being apersonal'

Joint Session, University of Oxford July 6-8 2018: 'A normative approach to temporal ontology'

First International Workshop on Time, Osaka City University Nov 3-5 2018; 19th UK and European Meeting on the Foundations of Physics, Utrecht University July 10-13 2018;
University of Innsbruck June 27 2018; Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London Jan 30 2018; Eidos 10th year anniversary celebration, University of Geneva Nov 23-24 2017: 'What is temporal ontology?'

Fine-tuning workshop, University of Oxford Oct 6 2017: 'What kind of a fine-tuner?'

Workshop on God and Time, University of Bonn Aug 12 2017: 'Eternity'

13th Syracuse Philosophy Annual Workshop and Network (SPAWN): Metaphysics, Syracuse University June 26-28 2017: 'Making sense of the growing block view'

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General audience talks and public outreach

Bridging the divide: philosophy meets science
A video on the TWCF project

How is the experience of time related to death?
Video interview, The Nature of God: Personal and a-personal concepts of the divine, Innsbruck Aug 6-8 2018 
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​Eternity (podcast)
God and Time, Bonn 2017

Can cosmological fine-tuning constitute an argument for God's existence? (video ad; slides)
TWCF Big questions about science and religion, Ely, Oct 15 2016

Philosophical questions about the arrow of time (video)
St. Cross Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics, University of Oxford, Nature of Time Conference, June 11 2016

What happened to the logical argument from evil?
Hills Road Sixth Form College Philosophy Society, Cambridge, Nov 13 2015
Teaching

My courses at Yonsei include Topics in the Philosophy of Science (UIC seminar), Metaphysics; Self, Identity, and Free Will (UIC seminar), Critical Reasoning, World Philosophy: Philosophy in the East and West, and World Philosophy: Science, Religion and Metaphysics. 

I’ve supervised General Philosophy, Metaphysics, Epistemology (1st to 4th yr undergrads in Oxford and Cambridge) and given classes in Logic (1st yr undergrads in Oxford).
 
I’ve lectured on Philosophy of Religion (1st yr undergrads in Cambridge), Philosophy of Physics (2nd and 3rd yr undergrads in Cambridge), and Philosophy of Time (3rd yr undergrads in Geneva).

In Geneva I also co-convened MA Seminars on Metaphysics and Ontology.

Other stuff...

What is it like to work as a philosopher in South Korea? (Philosophers' Cocoon)

Here's my academia page and my faculty page, and some of my philosophy colleagues: Nikolaj Pedersen, Mandel Cabrera, Bennett Holman, Michael Michael, Casey McCoy, and Frank Saunders. 

Together with our literature and history colleagues at UIC, we have been running a reading group on Eastern Classics since the start of the pandemic.

In June 2018, I organized the IAPT's fifth annual conference in Seoul, which was a lot of fun.

*Yonsei has three campuses, one in Seoul, one in Incheon (more specifically, Songdo), and one in Wonju; UIC runs classes in both Seoul and Incheon. My office is in Incheon:
Natalja Deng, Veritas Hall B Room 418, Underwood International College, Yonsei University, 85 Songdogwahak-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 21983, South Korea
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  • Natalja M. Deng