Bakhurst, David

David Bakhurst

David Bakhurst

George Whalley Distinguished University Professor and John and Ella G. Charlton Professor of Philosophy

Philosophy

Arts and Sciences

bakhurst@queensu.ca

613-533-6000 x77037

Watson Hall 330

Education
  • BA (hons), Keele University
  • British Council Visiting Student, Moscow State University
  • DPhil, University of Oxford
Specializations / Research Interests 

Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, Russian Philosophy, Philosophy of Education

Personal Website

About

David Bakhurst is George Whalley Distinguished University Professor and John and Ella G. Charlton Professor of Philosophy at Queen’s University, Ontario.  His book, Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy (Cambridge, 1991), represents the first critical history of Soviet philosophical culture. The primary research was conducted in Moscow under the mentorship of Felix Mikhailov. Since then, in addition to continuing his work on Russian thought, Bakhurst has written on epistemology, metaphysics, Wittgenstein, ethics and philosophy of education. His publications include The Heart of the Matter: Ilyenkov, Vygotsky and the Courage of Thought (Brill, 2023); The Formation of Reason (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) and the edited collection, Teaching and Learning: Epistemic, Metaphysical and Ethical Dimensions (2020).  He has held visiting positions at All Souls College, Oxford; Exeter College, Oxford; UCL Institute of Education; and the Australian National University. Bakhurst is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is Executive Editor of Journal of Philosophy of Education. 

Monographs
  • The Heart of the Matter: Ilyenkov, Vygotsky and the Courage of Thought (Leiden, Brill, 2023)
  • The Formation of Reason (Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011)
  • Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1991)
Edited Books / Collections
  • (with Paul Fairfield) Education and Conversation: Exploring Oakeshott’s Legacy. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
  • (with B. Hooker and M. Little) Thinking about Reasons: Themes from the Philosophy of Jonathan Dancy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  • (with S. Shanker) Jerome Bruner: Language, Culture, Self. London: Sage, 2001.
  • (with C. Sypnowich) The Social Self. London: Sage, 1995.
Edited Journal Issues
  • (with Martin Sticker) Kant on Education and Improvement. Special Issue of Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55(6), 2021.
  • Teaching and Learning: Epistemic, Metaphysical and Ethical Dimensions. Special Issue of Journal of Philosophy of Education, 54 (2), 2020.
  • (with I. Kliger) Hegel in Russia. Special Issue of Studies in East European Thought, 65 (3-4), 2013.
Recent Journal Articles
  • "Philosophy, Activity, Life", Philosophy of Science and Technology/Философия науки и техники, 27 (12), 2022: 31-45.
  • "Education for Metaphysical Animals", Journal of Philosophy of Education, 56 (6), 2022: 812-826.
  • "Categorical Moral Requirements"/«Категорические моральные требования», Kantian Journal/Кантовский сборник, 41(1) (2022), pp. 40–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.5922/0207-6918-2022-1-2
  • "Human Nature, Reason and Morality", Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55 (6), 2021: 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12600
  • (with Martin Sticker) "Kant on Education and Improvement: Themes and Problems", Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55 (6), 2021: 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12631
  • "Après le déluge: Teaching and learning in the age of COVID”. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55 (4–5) (2021): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12616.
  • “Analysis and Transcendence in The Sovereignty of Good”, European Journal of Philosophy 28 (2020): 214–223. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12539
  • “Teaching, Telling and Technology”, Journal of Philosophy of Education 54/2 (2020): 305–318.
  • “Teaching and Learning: Epistemic, Metaphysical and Ethical Dimensions—Introduction”, Journal of Philosophy of Education 54/2 (2020): 355–267.
  • “Practice, Sensibility, and Moral Education”, Journal of Philosophy of Education 52/4 (2018): 677–694.
  • “Trouble with Knowledge”, Philosophy, 93/3 (2018): 433–453.
  • “On Lenin’s Materialism and Empirocriticism”, Studies in East European Thought 70 (2018): 107–119, DOI: 10.1007/s11212-018-9303-7.
  • “Activity, Action and Self-consciousness”, Educational Review 70/1 (2018): 91-99, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2018.1388618.
  • “Training, Transformation, and Education”, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 76 (2015): 301-327.
Recent Chapters in Books
  • "Mind, Reason, Knowledge", in R.Curren (ed.) Handbook of Philosophy of Education. Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2023, 57-68.
  • “E. V. Ilyenkov: Philosophy as the Science of Thought”, in M. Bykova, L. Steiner and M. Forster (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Russian Thought (forthcoming).
  • “Punks versus Zombies: Evald Ilyenkov and the Battle for Soviet Philosophy”, in V. Lektorsky and M. Bykova (eds.), Philosophical Thought in Russia in the Second Half of the 20th Century: A Contemporary View from Russia and Abroad. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, 53–78.
  • “The Spirit of Pragmatism in the Quads of Oxford”, in C. Misak and H. Price (eds), The Practical Turn: Pragmatism in Britain in the Long Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, 75-90.
  • (with Cheryl Misak) “Wittgenstein and Pragmatism”, in H.-J. Glock and J. Hyman (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Wittgenstein. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, 731-745.
  • “Education and Conversation”, in D. Bakhurst and P. Fairfield (eds), Education and Conversation: Exploring Oakeshott’s Legacy. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016, 5-26.
  • “Activity and the Search for True Materialism”, in V. Oittenen and A. Maidansky (eds), The Practical Essence of Man: The ‘Activity Approach’ in Late Soviet Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, 2015, 17-28.
Recent Review Articles
  • “Ilyenkov’s Passion”, Mind, Culture, and Activity 22/1 (2015): 68-73.
  • “Understanding Vygotsky: Jan Derry’s Vygotsky, Psychology and Education”, Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 5 (2015): 1-4.
  • “David Wiggins’s Sameness and Substance Renewed”, Philosophy 79/1 (2004): 133-141.
Work in progress

I am working on the concepts of habit, imagination and critical reasoning.

Media

“Philosophy’s Blindspot”, Aeon, 6 January, 2023

Interview with 3am Magazine

Teaching

(2023-2024)

  • On Sabbatical Leave
Current Supervision

4 doctoral students working respectively on Iris Murdoch, ethical particularism, Evald Ilyenkov, and philosophy of psychiatry

We remember Lorne Maclachlan

The Queen’s community is remembering D.L.C. (Lorne) Maclachlan, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy, who died Thursday, Oct. 22, in his 88th year.

Born in Denny, Scotland, a small town near Stirling, Dr. Maclachlan completed his undergraduate studies at University of Glasgow, after which he pursued graduate studies in philosophy, earning a Master’s from Yale and a PhD from Glasgow.

Big Thinking with Will Kymlicka

On October 6th, 2020, Will Kymlicka, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University, gave a talk as part of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences's Big Thinking on the Hill lecture series. Here is a description of Will's talk, "Perceptions of humanity and of membership: Two challenges of inclusion and exclusion in Canada":

Professor Grégoire Webber renewed as Canada Research Chair in Public Law and Philosophy of Law

Professor Grégoire Webber (Law, cross-appointed in Philosophy) was recently renewed as the Canada Research Chair in Public Law and Philosophy of Law, and is continuing his work to enrich our understanding of the responsibilities of government, our responsibilities to each other, and our obligation to the law. 

Jacalyn Duffin in the New York Times

Professor Jacalyn Duffin has an op-ed on medical miracles in today's New York Times: 'Pondering Miracles, Medical and Religious'. In it, she describes her medical testimony at the Vatican, as part of the canonization hearings for Marie-Marguerite d'Youville. That experience led Jackie to start studying the role of medical miracles in canonizations more generally, leading to two of her books of the past decade.

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