The Faces of Reason: An Essay on Philosophy and Culture in English Canada; 1850-1959

Leslie Armour · Elizabeth Trott

Dec 1981 · Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

About this ebook

The Faces of Reason traces the history of philosophy in English Canada from 1850 to 1950, examining the major English-Canadian philosophers in detail adn setting them in the context of the main currents of Canadian thought. The book concludes with a brief survey of the period after 1950.

What is distinctive in Canadian philosophy, say the authors, is the concept of reason and the uses to which it is put. Reason has interacted with experience in a new world and a cold climate to create a distinctive Canadian community. The diversity of political, geographic, social, and religious factors has fostered a particular kind of thinking, particular ways of reasoning and communicating. Rather than one grand, overarching Canadian way of thinking, there are “many faces of reason,” “a kind of philosophic federalism”.

The book has two dimensions: “ it is a continuos story which makes a point about the development of philosophical reason in the Canadian context....it is a reference work which may be consulted by readers interested in particular figures, ideas, movements, or periods.”

About the author

Leslie Armour works in a variety of fields: metaphysics and its epistemological relations, the theory of the history of philosophy (focusing on the 17th and 19th centuries), and moral, social, and economic philosophy and their relations to culture and religion. His current work includes studies on skepticism, the metaphysics of community, and the metaphysical and epistemological underpinnings of ideas of religious tolerance. Leslie Armour is a member of the editorial boards of Laval Philosophique et Theologique and The International Journal of Social Economics and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Elizabeth Trott is a full Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Ryerson University. She previously taught in the Department of Philosophy and the faculty of Education at the University of Toronto. Elizabeth Trott has written extensively about education, art and design, and Canadian philosophy and culture. She was a writer-broadcaster for CBC radio and contributed in creating programs about justice, education and early Canadian philosophers. She was a founding member of the Canadian Society for Practical Ethics and served on the Executive 1985-1990.