Profile

James Tully is the Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Law, Indigenous Governance and Philosophy at the University of Victoria. After completing his BA at the University of British Columbia and PhD at the University of Cambridge he taught in the departments of Philosophy and Political Science at McGill University 1977 to 1996, where he was Chair of the Philosophy department 1994 to 1996. He was Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria 1996 to 2001. In 2001 to 2003 he was the inaugural Henry N.R. Jackman Distinguished Professor in Philosophical Studies at the University of Toronto in the departments of Philosophy and Political Science and the Faculty of Law. In 2003 he returned to the University of Victoria. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the author or editor of 8 books and many articles in the field of contemporary political and legal philosophy (or theory) and its history, and in Canadian political and legal philosophy.

His work is a form of critical and historical reflection on contemporary political problems that aims to call into question sedimented ways of thinking and acting politically today and to open them to critical dialogue and change by citizens and academics. He has applied this form of critical philosophy to a number of different problems, such as property, multiculturalism, multinationalism and other forms of struggles over recognition, the colonial relationship between Euro-American and Indigenous peoples, Canadian and European constitutionalism, globalization and the environment. His current project, connected to the Trudeau Foundation, is entitled "Civic Freedom and Public Philosophy in a Globalizing Age". It is an exploration of concrete practices of freedom by which humans (individuals and groups) are able to call into question and seek to transform the non-democratic and unequal relations of meaning, power and subjectification through which they and their environment are governed.

"The Trudeau Foundation is a unique institution. At its heart is a critical dialogue among ‎the Scholars, Mentors and Fellows that – to paraphrase Pierre Trudeau - pushes each ‎participant to his or her limit and beyond. Each brings their academic research and ‎practical experience to bear on the great problems of inequality and oppression, war and ‎peace, and environmental destruction and civic responsibility facing Canada and the ‎world in the twenty-first century. This ongoing dialogue of reciprocal elucidation is ‎linked to the larger public discussion of these issues through the Foundation’s various ‎public events. In turn, the energy, insights and advances of this community-in-dialogue ‎reverberate throughout the work of the Mentors, the research and learning of the Scholars, ‎the teaching and research of the Fellows, and the broader networks of all who participate ‎in this unique pedagogical experience; creating a uniquely Canadian ethos of democratic ‎responsibility as it progresses."‎

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