William Sweet | |
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| Born | 1955 (age 68–69) |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation(s) | Philosopher and University Professor |
William Sweet FRAS FRHistS FRSC (born 1955) is a Canadian philosopher, and a past president of the Canadian Philosophical Association [1] and of the Canadian Theological Society. [2]
Sweet was born in St. Albert near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, [3] and studied political science, theology, and philosophy in Canada, South Africa, France, and Germany. He completed a DEA in political science at the Sorbonne at the Université de Paris (with Luc Ferry), a PhD in philosophy at the University of Ottawa, a DTh in systematic theology at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, and a D.Ph. at the Université Saint-Paul. He also studied at Carleton University, the University of Manitoba, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and the Centre Sèvres (Faculté de Théologie de la Compagnie de Jésus, Paris). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2014, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2017. [4] In November 2021, he was elected a permanent member of the preeminent academy of philosophy in the world, the Institut international de philosophie.
Sweet specializes in political philosophy (particularly on issues of human rights); the philosophy of religion (e.g., the influence of science and technology on religion and, broadly, epistemology of religion); philosophical and systematic theology; the relation of culture and tradition to philosophical thinking (particularly, comparative Asian and Western philosophy); late 19th and early 20th century Anglo-American Philosophy (particularly, the origins of analytic philosophy and British Idealism); ethical theories and applied ethics (especially, cross-cultural ethics); and the philosophy of Jacques Maritain. [5]
Sweet is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Philosophy, Theology, and Cultural Traditions at St Francis Xavier University. He has been also a member of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at the University of Ottawa, and serves as an adjunct professor in the graduate programmes of Saint Paul University and of the Collège dominicain de philosophie et de théologie in Ottawa, Canada. Sweet was Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Religious Studies at St Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he served as the Vice President (Academic) from 2007 to 2008. [6] He has also been a Visiting Professor at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, Soochow University, Taipei, Fu Jen University, Taipei, and the Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram and the University of Pune, in India. [7]
Much of Sweet's work is in the history of modern philosophy, although he uses this as a resource and a vehicle to address contemporary issues in political philosophy, applied ethics, and the philosophy of religion. His early essays as well as his first book focused on the political philosophy of British idealist philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th century, [8] but he has published a number of papers and translations on the personalist tradition in French philosophy, particularly that of Jacques Maritain. [9] Recent research focuses on philosophical debates in the 20th century in South Africa and India, and the phenomenon of the migration of philosophical texts and traditions across cultures.
The focus of several of Sweet's articles and books in political philosophy is the theme of rights and obligations. Much of this has been historical – providing substantial and novel reassessments of British idealists such as Bernard Bosanquet but also of Maritain (who, Sweet argues, converge on a number of significant points). Sweet's view is that these traditions provide a basis for a liberal, but non-individualistic, political philosophy. He gives a brief account of a positive theory of idealist ethics in his Introductory essay to his edited volume on The Moral, Social, and Political Philosophy of the British Idealists (2009) [10] and he defends a broadly Maritainian view of dignity and human rights in a number of recent essays.
Sweet's contributions to the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology are developed over two single authored, one co-authored, and several edited books. [11] Sweet was a student of D.Z. Phillips, and much of his work has been on the epistemology of religion and the nature of religious belief. Sweet argues that much of the debate in the Anglo-American traditions concerning the relation of faith and reason is based on assumptions concerning the meaning and truth of religious beliefs – assumptions which he traces to the early 17th century. [12] Sweet argues that these accounts misrepresent or misunderstand what religious belief is, and that a more accurate account of religious belief (which requires recognizing both the descriptive and expressive character of religious beliefs), and a broadly coherentist theory of truth can be used to address a number of contemporary issues in the philosophy of religion, such as the relation of religion and science.
Sweet travels extensively, and regularly lectures or teaches in East Asia, India, and Western Europe. He has been a major contributor to the international programmes of the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy and of the World Union of Catholic Philosophical Associations and the Istituto Internazionale Jacques Maritain (of which he is Presidente d'onore).
He is the editor of Philosophy, Culture, and Traditions,Etudes maritainiennes/Maritain Studies (1994–2006, 2019 -), and an Editor of Collingwood and British Idealism Studies. He has also been editor of Bradley Studies (2005).
His work has been published in Castilian, Chinese, English, French, Gallego, German, Italian, Persian, Polish, and Vietnamese.
In the 19th century, the philosophers of the 18th-century Enlightenment began to have a dramatic effect on subsequent developments in philosophy. In particular, the works of Immanuel Kant gave rise to a new generation of German philosophers and began to see wider recognition internationally. Also, in a reaction to the Enlightenment, a movement called Romanticism began to develop towards the end of the 18th century. Key ideas that sparked changes in philosophy were the fast progress of science, including evolution, most notably postulated by Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and theories regarding what is today called emergent order, such as the free market of Adam Smith within nation states, or the Marxist approach concerning class warfare between the ruling class and the working class developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Pressures for egalitarianism, and more rapid change culminated in a period of revolution and turbulence that would see philosophy change as well.
A subset of absolute idealism, British idealism was a philosophical movement that was influential in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The leading figures in the movement were T. H. Green (1836–1882), F. H. Bradley (1846–1924), and Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923). They were succeeded by the second generation of J. H. Muirhead (1855–1940), J. M. E. McTaggart (1866–1925), H. H. Joachim (1868–1938), A. E. Taylor (1869–1945), and R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943). The last major figure in the tradition was G. R. G. Mure (1893–1979). Doctrines of early British idealism so provoked the young Cambridge philosophers G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell that they began a new philosophical tradition, analytic philosophy.
Bernard Bosanquet was an English philosopher and political theorist, and an influential figure on matters of political and social policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work influenced but was later subject to criticism by many thinkers, notably Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, William James and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Bernard was the husband of Helen Bosanquet, the leader of the Charity Organisation Society.
Percy Brand Blanshard was an American philosopher known primarily for his defense of rationalism and idealism.
Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aquinas for modern times, and was influential in the development and drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pope Paul VI presented his "Message to Men of Thought and of Science" at the close of Vatican II to Maritain, his long-time friend and mentor. The same pope had seriously considered making him a lay cardinal, but Maritain rejected it. Maritain's interest and works spanned many aspects of philosophy, including aesthetics, political theory, philosophy of science, metaphysics, the nature of education, liturgy and ecclesiology.
Giovanni Gentile was an Italian philosopher, fascist politician, and pedagogue.
Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated with modernity. It is not a specific doctrine or school, although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps to distinguish it from earlier philosophy.
Absolute idealism is chiefly associated with Friedrich Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel, both of whom were German idealist philosophers in the 19th century. The label has also been attached to others such as Josiah Royce, an American philosopher who was greatly influenced by Hegel's work, and the British idealists.
Personalism is an intellectual stance that emphasizes the importance of human persons. Personalism exists in many different versions, and this makes it somewhat difficult to define as a philosophical and theological movement. Friedrich Schleiermacher first used the term personalism in print in 1799. One can trace the concept back to earlier thinkers in various parts of the world.
John Henry Muirhead was a Scottish philosopher best known for having initiated the Muirhead Library of Philosophy in 1890. He became the first person named to the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham in 1900.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:
The study and teaching of philosophy in Canada date from the time of New France. Generally, Canadian philosophers have not developed unique forms of philosophical thought; rather, Canadian philosophers have reflected particular views of established European and later American schools of philosophical thought, be it Thomism, Objective Idealism, or Scottish Common Sense Realism. Since the mid-twentieth century the depth and scope of philosophical activity in Canada has increased dramatically. This article focuses on the evolution of epistemology, logic, the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ethics and metaethics, and continental philosophy in Canada.
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and shaping collective American identity over the history of the nation". The philosophy of the Founding Fathers of the United States is largely seen as an extension of the European Enlightenment. A small number of philosophies are known as American in origin, namely pragmatism and transcendentalism, with their most prominent proponents being the philosophers William James and Ralph Waldo Emerson respectively.
British philosophy refers to the philosophical tradition of the British people. "The native characteristics of British philosophy are these: common sense, dislike of complication, a strong preference for the concrete over the abstract and a certain awkward honesty of method in which an occasional pearl of poetry is embedded".
Gary John Dorrien is an American social ethicist and theologian. He is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and Professor of Religion at Columbia University, both in New York City, and the author of 18 books on ethics, social theory, philosophy, theology, politics, and intellectual history.
Canadian idealism is a Canadian philosophical tradition that stemmed from British idealism.
Frank Harold Cleobury was British idealist philosopher and priest.
Scottish philosophy is a philosophical tradition created by philosophers belonging to Scottish universities. Although many philosophers such as Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Thomas Reid, and Adam Smith are familiar to almost all philosophers it was not until the 19th century that the notion of 'Scottish philosophy' became recognized and highly regarded internationally. In the 20th century, however, this tradition declined as Scottish-educated philosophers left for England.
Reinhold Friedrich Alfred Hoernlé (-1943), usually referred to as Alfred Hoernlé, was a South African philosopher and social reformer.
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