Dr. Andrew Tebbutt
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Education
Ph.D., University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M.A., Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M.A., B.A., Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Associated Academic Programs
Philosophy“I find it exciting to teach philosophy at Trinity, a school committed both to academic rigor and to equipping students to bring their studies to bear on all aspects of their life and work.”
Dr. Andrew Tebbutt’s work is mainly centered on the general questions of how religious community provides a formative context in which persons develop, and how this formative work plays out in the context of public dialogue and public spaces. “I am inspired by the call to pursue faithful citizenship and scholarship in a world characterized by a plurality of viewpoints and backgrounds.”
“I am interested in the social, political, and historical ‘worlds’ that shape and enable our identities as persons, and I therefore think about religion and faith in terms of the task that each of us faces to critically appropriate what has shaped us as we relate to others in our broader culture and in public.”
What drew him to Trinity:
As a philosophy teacher, Tebbutt is particularly drawn to Trinity’s mission to engage with students around “the enduring issues and questions of human experience.” His passion is to work with students as they develop their own powers of analysis and reflection in response to those questions.
“My teaching uses classic and contemporary sources in Western philosophy to create opportunities for students to develop a critical self-awareness of the realities that shape their everyday lives, providing them with philosophical tools to become thoughtful and engaged learners.”
Research interests:
Tebbutt’s research explores “the significance of ethical and religious community for the development of personal identity, drawing on German idealist philosophy, phenomenology, and contemporary social and political philosophy.” Much of his recent work engages current debates about the legitimacy of religious contributions to public discourse by drawing attention to the pre-political significance of religious and ethical development for the formation of public responsibility.
His current book project is focused on the “efficacy of forgiveness as a model for interreligious dialogue, through an analysis of the intersection of forgiveness and religion in G. W. F. Hegel’s philosophy. In this and in other work, I seek to offer an alternative to political discourse that narrowly intellectualizes confrontations between diverse religious and nonreligious commitments in the public sphere.”
- + Expertise
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Dr. Andrew Tebbutt’s work is mainly centered on the general questions of how religious community provides a formative context in which persons develop, and how this formative work plays out in the context of public dialogue and public spaces. “I am inspired by the call to pursue faithful citizenship and scholarship in a world characterized by a plurality of viewpoints and backgrounds.”
“I am interested in the social, political, and historical ‘worlds’ that shape and enable our identities as persons, and I therefore think about religion and faith in terms of the task that each of us faces to critically appropriate what has shaped us as we relate to others in our broader culture and in public.”
What drew him to Trinity:
As a philosophy teacher, Tebbutt is particularly drawn to Trinity’s mission to engage with students around “the enduring issues and questions of human experience.” His passion is to work with students as they develop their own powers of analysis and reflection in response to those questions.
“My teaching uses classic and contemporary sources in Western philosophy to create opportunities for students to develop a critical self-awareness of the realities that shape their everyday lives, providing them with philosophical tools to become thoughtful and engaged learners.”
Research interests:
Tebbutt’s research explores “the significance of ethical and religious community for the development of personal identity, drawing on German idealist philosophy, phenomenology, and contemporary social and political philosophy.” Much of his recent work engages current debates about the legitimacy of religious contributions to public discourse by drawing attention to the pre-political significance of religious and ethical development for the formation of public responsibility.
His current book project is focused on the “efficacy of forgiveness as a model for interreligious dialogue, through an analysis of the intersection of forgiveness and religion in G. W. F. Hegel’s philosophy. In this and in other work, I seek to offer an alternative to political discourse that narrowly intellectualizes confrontations between diverse religious and nonreligious commitments in the public sphere.”