Bruce Gilbert Email & Phone Number

Bruce Gilbert has a Ph. D from the Department of Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University His recent book, The Vitality of Contradiction: Hegel, Politics and the Dialectic of Liberal-Capitalism (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014), won the Biennial Book Prize of the Canadian Philosophical Association. It articulates the philosophical arguments for a society that is politically but also economically and culturally democratic. He has a cross appointment at Bishop’s, teaching in both the Department of Philosophy and the Liberal Arts Program. Dr. Gilbert’s research, most broadly speaking, engages dialectical philosophy in the spheres of ethics, society, politics, ecology and religion. If dialectic names the process by which humanity learns, then freedom is not merely choice, but is rather our capacity to develop increasingly sophisticated forms of relationship with each other and our environment. Dr. Gilbert also engages in empirical research on this topic, focusing on social movements in Brazil, especially on the Movement of Landless Rural Workers of Brazil (MST), a large and very successful social movement which occupies under-utilized land in order to create self-sufficient farming cooperatives. The MST now has some 1.5 million members and its own university near São Paulo. Dr. Gilbert is also Professeur Associé at the Université de Sherbrooke and the Université de Laval.

• 

  Pennsylvania State University

  Philosophy