James Doull

James Alexander Doull (1918–2001) was a Canadian philosopher and academic who was born and lived most of his life in Nova Scotia. His father was the politician, jurist, and historian John Doull.

From the late 1940s until the mid-1980s, he taught in the Department of Classics at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He was himself educated at Dalhousie as well as at the University of Toronto, Harvard University, and the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

In 2003, the University of Toronto Press published a substantial volume containing a number of his works together with commentary provided by former colleagues and students. The appearance of this compilation, which also contains biographical details upon which this article is largely based, is perhaps among the reasons that Doull is now rather better known than he was at any point during his life. It contains writings on Greek poetry; the culture of ancient Rome; ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy; and twentieth-century politics; and certain key figures (such as Plato, Augustine, and Hegel) receive particular attention. In general the collection reflects Doull's deep conviction that the western philosophical tradition as a whole remains of great relevance and also his special interest in Hegel, with whose philosophical position Doull was in close agreement. Indeed, his Hegelian views (especially his judgement that Hegel had been successful in his attempt to articulate in the form of self-developing concepts the inner content of the Christian revelation) were no doubt a major reason that he was regarded as outside the philosophical mainstream.

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