Minerva's Aviary: Philosophy at Toronto 1843-2003 (review)

Minerva's Aviary is defined as much by what it is not as by what it is. What it is not is a history of philosophical thinking at the University of Toronto. We learn, for example, that F.H. Anderson (1944–63) was an autocratic and abusive head, but we are given little inkling as to how he conceived of philosophy and of what contributions, if any, he made to it. Of his successor, T.A. Goudge (who was employed in the department between 1938 and 1975), John G. Slater agrees with Goudge's own assessment that he was temperamentally unsuited for administration ('In my opinion, truer words were never spoken'). But Goudge was the author of two well-received books, one on the great American philosopher Charles S. Peirce, the other on evolution, which won the Governor-General's Literary Award for non-fiction. It is natural to wonder what Goudge's views were about these matters, and whether they carried any influence in the outer world of philosophical scholarship. When at Toronto, William Dray was deservedly reputed to be the pre-eminent analytical philosopher of history, but, although Dray is mentioned by Slater, this fact is neither recorded nor explained. Similarly, during his many years at Toronto, David Gauthier would become the leading contractarian moral theorist of his generation. Gauthier, too, is mentioned, but his philosophical distinction is only hinted at.

Still in the category of what Minerva's Aviary is not, it would be instructive to compare it with James Franklin's Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia (2003). Franklin's is a book of intellectual history. It tells us what philosophers in that country thought, it traces their principal intellectual influences, and it gives the reader some sense of how Australia came to be a power-house in twentieth-century English-speaking philosophy – something that couldn't be said of either Toronto or Canada at large. This gives rise to the obvious question: why, although 'because of its size, Toronto's faculty can offer its students a much richer set of courses than comparable American universities only about half its size can mount,' has Canadian philosophy not attained the distinction and heft of Australia's accomplishment?

We come now to what Minerva's Aviary is. It is a scrupulously detailed record – an archive, really – of the department's membership in the 160 years since 1843. Interwoven into that record are various developmental themes. One learns of the breaking away of early religious and political control; one learns of the stupendous, if gradual enlargement of the department from its original one-person status; and of the transition in departmental governance from the top-down styles of George Brett (1879–1944) and Fulton Anderson – two of the department's most influential presences – to the democratizations that occurred under Goudge's chairmanship, which were continued by Slater himself and his successors. There is also some discussion of the transformation of the Toronto department from one that emphasized close readings of the classical texts to one that concentrates on the analysis and resolution of philosophical problems currently in fashion. John Slater handles these themes extremely well. He has a nice eye for the personal dynamics that flowed through these transformations. Here he treats his readers to gossip of high order and shrewd observance; and, like those who are good at this sort of thing, Slater doesn't forbear to allow us to know that he thoroughly detested Anderson – without benefit of serving under him – just as he was extremely fond of Goudge.

Much as some readers will delight in what the book offers, the reader who is interested in the place of philosophy in Canada and in the state of Canadian universities more generally will be disappointed not to have been given a better idea of what philosophy was like at Toronto and, even more pressingly, what it is like now. This makes of Minerva's...