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A Night for the Ages
The writer and physician Oliver Sacks once described 2019 Templeton Prize laureate Marcelo Gleiser as having “a spaciousness of mind large enough to embrace both primordial creation myths and the latest advances in contemporary astronomy and cosmology.” It would thus be difficult to think of a more fitting venue than the one where Gleiser received his prize on May 29 in the Egyptian Wing of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hundreds of attendees braved a heavy spring rainstorm to ascend the Met’s front steps and file past the colossal, nearly 4,000-year-old statue of a seated Middle Kingdom pharaoh, past…
‘Character Through Community’: $15M Initiative to Strengthen Character-Focused Programs
The John Templeton Foundation is pleased to announce a new funding competition in the Character Virtue Development department, with a total of $15 million available for projects. In the “Character Through Community” Request For Proposals (RFP), we seek to assist organizations that are well-positioned to strengthen their understanding and implementation of character development through communities of practice. By “character,” we mean the thoughts, attitudes, and motivations that guide a person’s behavior. These qualities are sometimes called strengths of heart, mind, and will, and include virtues such as gratitude, generosity, curiosity, humility, and self-control. By “communities of practice,” we mean groups…
Gods in Minds: The Science of Religious Cognition
Sir John Templeton was enthusiastic about using the tools of scientific inquiry to help us understand the nature of religious belief. At present, however, scientific descriptions of how people think about God and gods are fragmented across subdisciplines of the psychological, cognitive, and social sciences. Although there is obvious overlap in research interests, scholars in these areas have tended to remain isolated within their own disciplines. As a result, our understanding of how current findings fit together is impoverished, and there is little sense of an integrated and global conception of how God or gods are represented in mind. This…
Conversations with Grantees: Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman
Please note: The information in this article reflects our strategic priorities at the time of writing and may change over time. To confirm our current funding interests, please view our Funding Areas. In this conversation with grantee Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman, founding director of Sinai and Synapses, he speaks about the importance of intellectual humility, the Scientists in Synagogues program, bringing together science and religion, and how to nurture constructive — not destructive — conversations. "Imagine if, when we have disagreements, if we have different perspectives, that those conversations actually move us forward." Watch to learn more: This interview is…
John Templeton Foundation Approves $85 Million in New Programs
Please note: The information in this article reflects our strategic priorities at the time of writing and may change over time. To confirm our current funding interests, please view our Funding Areas. In June 2019, the Board of Trustees of the John Templeton Foundation approved 57 funding requests with an approximate total value of $85 million, marking its most recent wave of philanthropic activity. “We’re delighted to move forward with approving these requests, which represent a range of our philanthropic interests as well as our strategic priorities over the next five years,” said Heather Templeton Dill, President of the…
John Templeton Foundation Announces New Director of Philosophy & Theology Department
Dr. Alexander Arnold joined the Foundation in 2012 as a Program Officer, where he helped develop and oversee grants in Philosophy & Theology. Sir John Templeton’s vision for these disciplines was to pursue new concepts about fundamental natural, human, and divine realities, especially through substantive and critical engagement with the sciences. In this role, Dr. Arnold assisted in articulating the Foundation’s emerging interests in research on Science-Engaged Theology and Intellectual Humility. He also helped create innovative programs for philosophers and theologians to cross-train in empirical science. In his new role as Director, Philosophy & Theology, Dr. Arnold will oversee philanthropic…
The Purpose of the John Templeton Foundation
By Heather Templeton Dill As President of the John Templeton Foundation, I am often asked to explain what we do and why it’s important. Answering this question isn’t always simple: the John Templeton Foundation gives away roughly $150 million a year in funding to support research and catalyze conversations around the world. These projects cross discplines—from astrophysics, evolutionary biology, and genetics, to philosophy, psychology, and economics. We fund Tibetan Buddhist monks studying science and Harvard astronomers uncovering the most mysterious objects in the universe. Our work seems to elude easy description. But underlying everything the John Templeton Foundation does, there…
Templeton Ideas Challenge
Update (Dec. 3, 2020): Congratulations to our 2020 Ideas Challenge winners! Over 250 unique ideas were submitted from applicants across the United States this year. View the winners here! Ancient philosophers such as Aristotle viewed living things as pursuing various ends or goals. Today, our mainstream biological sciences seldom use such concepts in their explanatory theories, though biologists often use descriptive language that imputes purposiveness to living systems, and some scholars have expressed dissatisfaction with the neglect of goal-directed processes in an otherwise comprehensive theoretical framework. Life itself seems to make use of a variety of strategies that achieve its…
Director, Religion, Science, and Society
Reporting to Vice President/Chief Programs Officer, the Director, Religion, Science, and Society will be responsible for creating and maintaining strategic grant programs that seek to understand the religious and spiritual dimensions of human experience and apply those insights to society in meaningful and practical ways.
Into the Unknown: Foundation Reports from the Edge of Physics
Four new scientific reviews tackle the origins of space, time, and the universe—and the mystery of why the cosmos seems ideally suited for human life. What happened before the Big Bang? Is our cosmos precisely tuned to foster life? Is time an illusion? What are the building blocks of reality? On Friday, November 12, science think-tank the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) will publish the first in a new series of reports that unravel these and other perplexing questions. “These reports cover some of humanity’s deepest and oldest questions about where we come from, who we are, the fate of the…
