James Tully (philosopher)

In May 2014, he was awarded the University of Victoria's David H. Turpin Award for Career Achievement in Research. In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Prize and the Thousand Waves Peacemaker Award in recognition of his distinguished career and exceptional contributions to Canadian scholarship and public life. Also in 2010, he was awarded the C. B. Macpherson Prize by the Canadian Political Science Association for the "best book in political theory written in English or French" in Canada 2008–10 for his 2008 two-volume Public Philosophy in a New Key. He completed his doctorate at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and now teaches at the University of Victoria.

In Public Philosophy in a New Key, Volume I: Democracy and Civic Freedom, and Volume II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom (2008), Tully expands his approach "to a broader range of contemporary struggles: over diverse forms of recognition, social justice, the environment and imperialism." The two volumes mark a shift toward a principal emphasis on freedom. "The primary question," Tully writes, "is thus not recognition, identity or difference, but freedom; the freedom of the members of an open society to change the constitutional rules of mutual recognition and association from time to time as their identities change." This is "civic freedom," referring to the capacity people have to participate in the constitution of their own governance relations.

Tully's 1995, Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity engages with the famous indigenous sculpture Spirit of Haida Gwaii by Bill Reid as a metaphor for the kind of democratic constitutionalism that can help reconcile the competing claims of multicultural and multinational societies. The 'strange multiplicity' of cultural diversity is embodied in the varied and assorted canoe passengers "squabbling and vying for recognition and position." There is no universal constitutional order imposed from above nor a single category of citizenship, because identities and relations change over time. This view rejects the "mythic unity of the community" imagined "in liberal and nationalist constitutionalism."

James Tully was one of the four general editors of the Cambridge University Press Ideas in Context Series. He first gained his reputation for his scholarship on the political philosophy of John Locke, and has written on constitutionalism, diversity, indigenous politics, recognition theory, multiculturalism, and imperialism. He was special advisor to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1991–1995). Over his career, Tully has held positions at Cambridge University, Oxford University, McGill University, University of Toronto, and the University of Victoria.

After completing his PhD at Cambridge University and his undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, he taught in the departments of Philosophy and Political Science at McGill University 1977–1996. He was Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria 1996–2001. In 2001–2003 he was the inaugural Henry N.R. Jackman Distinguished Professor in Philosophical Studies at the University of Toronto in the departments of Philosophy and Political Science, and in the Faculty of Law. Tully claims to have enjoyed his time at the University of Toronto, but preferred the open atmosphere and climate in British Columbia. He eventually returned to the University of Victoria in 2003, where he is now the Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Law, Indigenous Governance and Philosophy. Tully was influential in shaping the University of Victoria's Political Science department, which is renowned for its strong political theory program.

James Hamilton Tully FRSC (/ˈtʌli/; born 1946) is a Canadian philosopher who is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Law, Indigenous Governance and Philosophy at the University of Victoria, Canada. Tully is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Emeritus Fellow of the Trudeau Foundation.