James Doull

Who is James Doull?

James Alexander Doull 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 receive particular attention.