- For the Colorado governor, see William Ellery Sweet
William Sweet is a Canadian philosopher. As of 2007 Sweet is the Vice President (Academic) at St Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick; he is also Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Religious Studies at St Thomas. He is also a member of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at the University of Ottawa, and serves as an adjunct professor in the graduate programmes of Saint Paul University and of the Collège dominicain de philosophie et de théologie in Ottawa, Canada. Sweet was Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Philosophy, Theology, and Cultural Traditions at St Francis Xavier University from 1990 to 2007. Sweet studied political science, theology, and philosophy in Canada, France, and Germany. He completed a DEA in political science at the Sorbonne at the Université de Paris, a PhD in philosophy at the University of Ottawa (Ph.D) and a D.Ph. at the Université Saint-Paul. He also studied at Carleton University, the University of Manitoba, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and the Centre sevres, (Faculté de Théologie de la Compagnie de Jésus, Paris). Sweet specializes in political philosophy (particularly on issues of human rights); the character of religious faith (e.g., the influence of science and technology on religion and, broadly, epistemology of religion); the relation of culture and tradition to philosophical thinking (particularly, comparative Asian and Western philosophy); late 19th and early 20th century Anglo-American Philosophy (particularly, the origins of analytic philosophy and British Idealism); ethical theories and applied ethics (especially, cross-cultural ethics); the philosophy of Jacques Maritain. He is currently the Editor of Philosophy, Culture, and Traditions and an Editor of Collingwood and British Idealism Studies. He has also been Editor of Etudes maritainiennes / Maritain Studies (1994-2006) and Bradley Studies (2005). His work has been published in English, French, German, Persian, Polish, Castilian, Gallego, and Chinese.
Major Publications
Religion and the Challenges of Science (ed., with Richard Feist) (2007)
Bernard Bosanquet and the Legacy of British Idealism (2007)
Edition of the Works of Arthur Ritchie Lord (with Errol E. Harris), 3 vols. (with introductions and critical biographies) (2006)
Philosophy of Religion [Vol. 8, Proceedings of the XXI World Congress of Philosophy, 2003] (2006)
Approaches to Metaphysics (2004)
Edition of Early Responses to British Idealism, 3 vols. (2004) [ed. with Carol A. Keene and C. Tyler]
The Philosophy of History: a re-examination (2004)
"To the Mountain": essays in honour of Professor George F. McLean , [ed. with Hu Yeping]
Husserl and Stein (2003) [ed. with Richard Feist]
Religion, Science, and Non-Science (2003)
Religious Belief: The Contemporary Debate (2003)
Philosophical Theory and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2003)
Edition of Bernard Bosanquet: Essays in Philosophy and Social Policy, (1883–1922), 3 vols. (with introductions and critical bibliographies) (2003)
Philosophy, Culture and Pluralism (2002)
Idealism, Metaphysics, and Community (2001)
British Idealism and Aesthetics (2001)
Edition of Bernard Bosanquet's The Philosophical Theory of the State and Related Essays (2001) [ed., with Gerald F. Gaus]
Edition of Natural Law: reflections on theory and practice, by Jacques Maritain (2001; corrected edition, 2003)
The Bases of Ethics (2000)
The Collected Works of Bernard Bosanquet, 20 vols. (with introductions and critical bibliographies) (1999)
Idealism and Rights: The Social Ontology of Human Rights in the Political Thought of Bernard Bosanquet (1997; paperback 2005).
