The founding member of the department is Greg MacLeod.  A Catholic priest, Greg started to teach at CBU’s predecessor institution, Xavier College, in 1963; he retired in 2001. Greg’s doctorate on the philosophy of action is from Louvain University. A passionate defender of liberal education, Greg ensured that the place of philosophy and religious studies was not lost in the difficult and protracted politicking that led to an independent university on Cape Breton Island. In his research, Greg now works on the theory and practice of community economic development, where he has had an enormous impact. He is a member of the Order of Canada.  Greg is a professor emeritus and an active researcher for the Tompkins Institute.

For many years, Philosophy and Religious Studies along with History were taught under the rubric of the Humanities Department.  Ken Bryson joined the Humanities Department in 1970.  He has a PhD from the University of Ottawa, and wrote his thesis on the philosophy of Emile Meyerson.  Starting in the late 70s, Ken pioneered one of the first courses in Canada on death and dying.  Ken has also been active in the overlap between philosophy and health care.  He has published a book on addiction, and has taught courses for health care professionals.  Ken recently published two books, Persons and Immortality and the Arc of the Sacred.   Although he retired in 2006, Ken continues to publish articles and to edit a Value Inquiry series on philosophy and religion for Rodopi Press. 

Richard Keshen joined the Humanities Department in 1975 when the newly named College of Cape Breton separated from St. Francis Xavier University.  Richard has a PhD from Oxford University where he was connected to the early evolution of the animal rights movement. He writes and teaches in the areas of ethics and political philosophy, and in 1996 published Reasonable Self-Esteem.  Richard initiated several courses that became part of the core programme of the new BA and BSc degrees.  These degrees were vital to the institution’s becoming the University College of Cape Breton in 1981 and finally, several decades later, Cape Breton University.  Richard is currently working on the issue of  “intractable disagreement between reasonable people”.  Along with Ann Davis and Jeff McMahan, he is editing and contributing to a volume for Oxford University Press in honour of the moral philosopher Jonathan Glover.

A seminal figure during the university’s early development was Charles MacDonald, a professor of Religious Studies.  Charles took the lead in planning the BA and several other programmes that define CBU.  Charles’s PhD is from the University of Tuebingen, where one of his supervisors was Professor Ratzinger, the current pope of the Catholic Church. Another significant figure during the university’s formative years was Jordan Bishop, whose teaching spanned History, Religious Studies, and Philosophy.  Jordan retired in the late 1980s and Charles in 2000. 

With the growth of the BA and BSc degrees, demands on CBU’s philosophers increased.  In 1987, Rod Nicholls joined the department. Rod has a PhD from Queen’s University, where he wrote his thesis on Nietzsche.  Rod has published articles on Schopenhauer, on the philosophy of technology, on aesthetics, and on pedagogical issues arising from the use of computers in the classroom.  An important contributor to theatre at CBU, Rod regularly directs plays with philosophical import.  For example, he has directed Camus’ Caligula and Brecht’s Life of Galileo.  Recently Rod directed memorable productions of plays by Samuel Beckett.  His interest in the relation between philosophy and literature has also found expression in his course Philosophy and the Meaning of Life.  Rod is currently working on a series of thematically related essays entitled Beyond Fanaticism.

Scott Stewart joined the department in 1990, and has a PhD from Waterloo on the relation between J.S. Mill’s ethics and his aesthetics.  Since coming to CBU, Scott has published steadily, particularly in the areas of philosophy and literature, the philosophy of love and sex, and biomedical ethics. This last research interest stemmed initially from his establishment of a course in ethics for nursing students when CBU began offering a BScN in 1999, and has led to his serving as ethicist on both the Ethics Committee and the Research Ethics Board at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital. Scott is currently working on a number of papers, and is also in the early stages of co-editing a textbook with Rod Nicholls in applied aesthetics and writing a book on happiness and sadness from a multidisciplinary perspective.

After the retirement of Greg MacLeod, the department was able to hire Andrew Reynolds.  Andrew specializes in the philosophy and history of science.  His hiring has added depth to our offerings in the philosophy of science, as the department continues to be active in teaching the philosophy and history of science to both BA and BSc students.  Andrew has developed our Environmental Ethics course, which expands our offerings in areas that connect philosophy, science and ethics.  Andrew’s doctorate thesis, from the University of Western Ontario, is on Charles Sanders Peirce’s philosophy of science, and he has published a book on Peirce’s philosophy, Peirce’s Scientific Metaphysics:  The Philosophy of Chance, Law and Evolution.  Along with a senior student, Andrew has produced a comprehensive web-based bibliography in the philosophy of history. He has recently begun a research project on the history and philosophy of cell theory in biology for which he has been awarded a SSHRC Grant.

When CBU acquired a nursing degree, the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies was faced with new teaching demands.  Dr. Sylvia Burrow joined the department in 2004, subsequent to academic appointments at the University of Limerick, Ireland, and the University of Utah.  Sylvia’s PhD, from Western University, is on David Hume and the role of emotions in moral reasoning.  Her published work is internationally represented, appearing in journals and book chapters; recent topics include the political structure of emotion, the relationship between emotion and autonomy, and on how emotion features in moral reflection.  She has recently published an article in Hypatia on the political structure of emotions.  She regularly participates in national and international conferences to present her work.  Sylvia’s background in biomedical ethics finds expression in teaching Biomedical Ethics and Nursing Ethics at CBU, occasional presentations to medical professionals, and in her committee work as ethicist for the Research Ethics Board at CBU.