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Canadian Idealism, Philosophical Federalism, and World Peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

J. Douglas Rabb
J. Douglas Rabb
Affiliation:
Lakehead University
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Extract

In their History of Canadian philosophy, The Faces of Reason, Leslie Armour and Elizabeth Trott introduce the concept “philosophical federalism” to describe a tendency shared by many of the early Canadian idealists, a willingness to attempt to understand and accommodate philosophical positions opposed to their own. In this paper I wish to examine the relationship this concept bears to another one, which many still regard as merely an Utopian ideal, that of world federalism.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , Spring 1986 , pp. 93 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1986

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References

1 Crawford-Frost, W. A., Old Dogma in a New Light (New York. NY: St. Mary's Publishing Guild, 1896), 54Google Scholar.

2 Crawford-Frost, W. A., The Philosophy of Integration: An Explanation of the Universe and of the Christian Religion, ed. Bright, James Wilson (Boston, MA: Mayhew, 1906)Google Scholar, preface. This work, along with Old Dogma and a number of shorter papers, will be republished as vol. 2 in The Frye Library of Canadian Philosophy (Winnipeg: Ronald P. Frye, 1986).

3 Rabb, J. D., “The Fusion Philosophy of Crawford-Frost”, Idealistic Studies 16/1 (1986), 77–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Crawford-Frost's religious thought is discussed in my paper “Reason and Revelation Revisited: A Canadian Perspective”, Religion and Reason, ed. Rabb, J. D. (Winnipeg, Ronald P. Frye, 1983), 2–19Google Scholar.

4 Crawford-Frost, W. A., The Way Out, §2. Pamphlets on International Cooperation, 12 (1931)Google Scholar. This is to be republished in vol. 2 of The Frye Library of Canadian Philosophy.

5 Ibid., §3.

6 Ibid., §4.

7 Ibid., §4.

8 Ibid., §3.

9 Ibid., §7.

10 Armourand, LeslieTrott, Elizabeth, The Faces of Reason: An Essay on Philosophy and Culture in English Canada 1850-1950 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981), 4Google Scholar.

11 Crawford-Frost, , Integration, 2Google Scholar.

12 Ibid., 1. Crawford-Frost acknowledges that this definition comes from Clodd, Edward, The Story of Creation: A Plain Account of Evolution (New York: Humbolt, 1888)Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., 9.

14 Crawford-Frost, W. A., A New Theory of Evolution (Baltimore, MD: University of Maryland, 1925), 9Google Scholar. This monograph is to be republished in Rabb, J. D., ed., Religion and Science in Early Canada, The Frye Library of Canadian Philosophy, vol. 1 (Winnipeg: Ronald P. Frye, 1986)Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., 10.

16 Crawford-Frost, , Old Dogma, 13Google Scholar.

17 , Crawford-Frost, The Way Out, §11, “Evolution of an Organized Humanity”Google Scholar.

18 Armour, and Trott, , Reason, 402Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., 403.

20 Stewart, H. L., “Carlyle's Place in Philosophy”, The Monist 29 (1919), 170CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Stewart, H. L., “Carlyle's Conception of Religion”, The American Journal of Theology (1917)Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., 180.

22 Ibid., 171. The fact that Carlyle's idealism can be described in terms of philosophical federalism should not be taken as counting against the whole notion of a distinctive form of Canadian philosophy. Philosophical federalism is intended only as a general description of some of the common features of Canadian philosophy and must not be taken as a criterion, much less the criterion, for class inclusion. Further, Carlyle's idealism is not typically British nor typically German. It is, if anything, typically Carlyle.

23 Stewart, H. L., The Irish in Nova Scotia (Kentville, NS: Kentville, 1949), 191Google Scholar.

24 Stewart, H. L., “Carlyle and Canada”, The Canadian Magazine of Politics, Science, Art and Literature 56/4 (1921), 320Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 321.

26 Armour, and Trott, , Reason, 404Google Scholar.

27 Charles, K. J., Total Development: Essays Towards an Integration of Marxian and Gandhian Perspectives (New Delhi, India: Vikas, 1983), 180–181Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., 94.

29 Ibid., 30.

30 Rabb, J. Douglas, “Gandhi, Marx and Peace”, World Policy 2/1 (1984), 46–47Google Scholar.

31 Charles, , Total Development, 258–259Google Scholar.

32 Rabb, , “Gandhi”, 47–48Google Scholar.

33 Charles, , Total Development, 255Google Scholar.

34 Rabb, , “Gandhi”, 45Google Scholar.

35 Armour, and Trott, , Reason, 217Google Scholar.

36 Watson, John, The State in Peace and War (Glasgow, Scotland: J. MacLehose and Sons, 1919), 55–56Google Scholar.

37 Armour, and Trott, , Reason, 239Google Scholar.