James Hamilton Tully (; born 1946) is a Canadian philosopher who is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Law, Indigenous Governance and Philosophy at the University of Victoria, Canada. Tully is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Emeritus Fellow of the Trudeau Foundation.
In May 2014, he was awarded the University of Victoria's David H. Turpin Award for Career Achievement in Research. In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Prize and the Thousand Waves Peacemaker Award in recognition of his distinguished career and exceptional contributions to Canadian scholarship and public life. Also in 2010, he was awarded the C. B. Macpherson Prize by the Canadian Political Science Association for the "best book in political theory written in English or French" in Canada 2008–10 for his 2008 two-volume Public Philosophy in a New Key. He completed his doctorate at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and now teaches at the University of Victoria.
His research and teaching comprise a public philosophy that is grounded in place (Canada) yet reaches out to the world of civic engagement with the problems of our time. He does this in ways that strive to contribute to dialogue between academics and citizens. For example, his research areas include the Canadian experience of coping with the deep diversity of multicultural and multinational citizenship; relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous people; and the emergence of citizenship of the living earth as the ground of sustainable futures.
Biography
James Tully was one of the four general editors of the Cambridge University Press Ideas in Context Series. He first gained his reputation for his scholarship on the political philosophy of John Locke, and has written on constitutionalism, diversity, indigenous politics, recognition theory, multiculturalism, and imperialism. He was special advisor to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1991–1995). Over his career, Tully has held positions at Cambridge University, Oxford University, McGill University, University of Toronto, and the University of Victoria.
After completing his PhD at Cambridge University and his undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, he taught in the departments of Philosophy and Political Science at McGill University 1977–1996. He was Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria 1996–2001. In 2001–2003 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 in the Faculty of Law. Tully claims to have enjoyed his time at the University of Toronto, but preferred the open atmosphere and climate in British Columbia. He eventually returned to the University of Victoria in 2003, where he is now the Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Law, Indigenous Governance and Philosophy. Tully was influential in shaping the University of Victoria's Political Science department, which is renowned for its strong political theory program.
Political philosophy
Renewing and transforming public philosophy
Tully's approach to the study and teaching of politics is a form of historical and critical reflection on problems of political practice in the present. It is an attempt to renew and transform the tradition of public philosophy so it can effectively address the pressing political problems of our age in a genuinely democratic way. It does this by means of a dual dialogue of reciprocal and mutual learning among equals: between academics in different disciplines addressing the same problems (multidisciplinary); and between academics and citizens addressing the problems and struggles on the ground by their own ways of knowing and doing (democratic). The aim is to throw critical light on contemporary political problems by means of studies that free us to some extent from hegemonic ways of thinking and acting politically, enabling us to test their limits and to see and consider the concrete possibilities of thinking and acting differently.