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MULTICULTURALISM AS A DISCOURSE OF DISGUISE: A POSSIBLE CANADIAN SOLUTION
John Watson and Rational Adaptations
John Watson arrived from Scotland at Queen’s University in Kingston,
Ontario in 1872. He was a follower of Kant and Hegel, and a student of
Edward Caird. Watson extended the concept of other, from referencing
other human beings, to include a complex collection of determinant beings,
such as objects, selves and systems. Watson argued that each ‘self’ is a self
in a community (not in opposition to a set of others) and comes to know
‘others’ as selves in communities. The dialectic of self and other became that
of community and communities. When survival is the goal, sharing ideas
with communities whom one has been taught to reject, can be necessary,
even if one hates having to ask for help. What was even more difficult was
the perpetual change of life in early Canada. The increase and interaction of
multiple communities was ongoing. If one is adapting, one has to continue to
change old habits and learn new ways.
The clashing together of multiple interpretations of reality inspired the
philosophers to rethink their educational inheritances. Idealist theorizing
served them well.
Watson began to modify the Hegelian dialectic of rational argument to
include interpretation, imagination, creativity and speculation. Watson found
Hegelian logic too limiting for Canadian settings. When facing a disagreement
with multiple and disconnected communities, perhaps one about whose
religion should be in schools, or where to build a school, negotiating through
rational logic as if opponents would recognize a deductive conclusion, would
not always work. In short, improvisation (a somewhat exaggerated version
of Hegelian synthesis) was the mental skill required. For example, with
full awareness of ongoing religious disputes, Watson did not try to defend
Christianity. He set out arguments to reinterpret the concept of God in ways
that multiple religious communities could accept.” Watson proposed ‘rational
religion’ sustained by an ‘invisible church’. Nature, the powerful opposition to
all selves in communities could be understood. If God is present in all things,
then “the self does not stand opposed to nature, because nature is recognized
to be a mode in which reason, as the essence of the self, is expressed.”'®
Watson’s students not only travelled to Ottawa to help set up the nation¬
state and the civil service, they also travelled to remote communities where one
building served as the gathering location for multiple religions on the weekend,
7 E. Trott, F.H. Bradley and the Canadian Connection, in James Bradley (ed.), Philosophy After
FH. Bradley, Bristol, Thoemmes, 1996. This article explores Watson on religion, 57-72.
18 John Watson, The Interpretation of Religious Experience, the Gifford Lectures, 1910-12,
Part Second Constructive, Glasgow, Maclehose, Vol. 2, 1912, 128.
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