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Minerva's Aviary: Philosophy at Toronto, 1843-2003
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Minerva's Aviary: Philosophy at Toronto, 1843-2003 Hardcover - 2005 - 2nd Edition

by John G. Slater

From the publisher

Philosophy has been taught at the University of Toronto, and its predecessor King's College, since 1843. While much has changed in that time, the university's Department of Philosophy remains one of Canada's preeminent institutions for philosophical instruction. In Minerva's Aviary, John G. Slater documents the history of Toronto's Philosophy Department from its founding to contemporary times.

In the early years, the teaching of philosophy at the university was an appendage to courses in religion. As time passed however, the discipline grew into the independent, largely secular subject it is today. The story of how this happened is told in terms of the people who taught in the department. Slater also recounts the histories and sometimes difficult integration of the philosophy departments that came with the smaller institutions that federated with the university around the turn of the twentieth century: Victoria University, St. Michael's College, and Trinity College.

Comprehensive and lovingly written, Minerva's Aviary is the result of decades of research by one of the department's most esteemed recent scholars. Slater's intense investigations have uncovered a complex and evolving past that shatters some established myths but also roughly mirrors what was happening in universities throughout the English-speaking world. It thus adds greatly to our understanding of the intellectual history of the last two centuries.

First line

On 24 June 1792 John Graves Simcoe (1752-1806) arrived at Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) to take up his appointment as the first lieutenant governor of the new province of Upper Canada, which had been founded the previous year and had a population of about 65,000.

Details

  • Title Minerva's Aviary: Philosophy at Toronto, 1843-2003
  • Author John G. Slater
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition number 2nd
  • Edition 2
  • Pages 550
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher University of Toronto Press, Toronto
  • Date August 20, 2005
  • Illustrated Yes
  • ISBN 9780802038708 / 0802038700
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 20th Century
    • Chronological Period: 21st Century
    • Chronological Period: 1851-1899
    • Cultural Region: Canadian
    • Geographic Orientation: Ontario
    • Locality: Toronto, Ontario
  • Library of Congress subjects University of Toronto - History, University of Toronto - Histoire
  • Dewey Decimal Code 107.117

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