John Alexander Wilson "Jock" Gunn (1937 – March 7, 2023) was a Canadian political philosopher.

Early life and education

Gunn earned a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in politics and history from Queen's University in 1959 and a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Academic career

Appointed full professor in 1970 at Queen's University, he was head of department 1975 to 1983 and was elected to the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; , SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguishe ...

in 1983. In 2001, Gunn retired after forty years of service to the university; he was then named the Sir Edward Peacock Professor Emeritus in the Queen's University Department of Political Studies. His main academic interests included: * History of thought (chiefly British and French) * Social-science theories *

Political philosophy Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and Political legitimacy, legitimacy of political institutions, such as State (polity), states. This field investigates different ...

Death

Gunn died on March 7, 2023, at the age of 85.

Selected bibliography

* ''Politics and the Public Interest in the Seventeenth Century'' (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969). * ''Beyond Liberty and Property: The Process of Self-Recognition in Eighteenth-Century Political Thought'' ( McGill-Queen's University Press, 1983). * ''When the French Tried to Be British: Party, Opposition, and the Quest for Civil Disagreement, 1814–1848'' (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009).

References

1937 births 2023 deaths Academic staff of Queen's University at Kingston Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Canadian political philosophers 20th-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian male writers 20th-century Canadian philosophers 21st-century Canadian philosophers Alumni of the University of Oxford {{Canada-philosopher-stub