George Grant (philosopher)

George Grant
George Grant
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Continental Philosophy, Platonism, Humanism
Main interests	Greek philosophy, History of philosophy, Political philosophy, Theology, Nihilism, Continental philosophy, Contractarianism, Philosophy of technology, Politics, English Civic Tradition
Notable ideas	Red Tory, Canadian Nationalism

George Parkin Grant OC, Ph.D, FRSC (Toronto, November 13, 1918 - Halifax, Nova Scotia, September 27, 1988) was a Canadian philosopher, teacher and political commentator, whose popular appeal peaked in the late 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for his nationalism, political conservatism, comments on technology, Christian faith, and his conservative views regarding abortion.

Academically, his writings express a complex meditation on the great books, and confrontation with the great thinkers, of Western Civilization. His influences include the "ancients" such as Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine of Hippo, as well as "moderns" like Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Leo Strauss, Simone Weil, and Jacques Ellul. Politically, he is considered the main theoretician of Red Toryism.

Family legacy

Grant came from a distinguished Canadian family of scholars and educators. His father was the principal of Upper Canada College, and his paternal grandfather George Monro Grant was the dynamic principal of Queen's University. His maternal grandfather was Sir George Parkin, also a principal at Upper Canada College, whose daughter Alice married Vincent Massey, the Canadian diplomat and first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada. His nephew is public scholar Michael Ignatieff.

Education and teaching

Grant was educated at Upper Canada College and Queen's University, and later attended the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. Upon winning the Rhodes Scholarship, he enrolled towards a degree in Law at Oxford, but after World War II ended, and Grant had experienced a deeper personal bond with Christianity, he decided to change studies. His D. Phil was in theology but he later taught in departments of Philosophy (Dalhousie), Religion (McMaster), and Political Science (Dalhousie).

Grant was not readily accepted into the traditional academic community of scholars in Canada. Notably, a definition of philosophy he published in 1949, namely that "The study of philosophy is the analysis of the traditions of our society and the judgment of those traditions against our varying intuitions of the Perfections of God" angered and upset Fulton Anderson of the University of Toronto’s Philosophy department. Grant’s definition is telling, in that it marks his unique take on the human perspective on philosophy, which did not necessarily include assumptions regarding the ‘objectivity’ of science, or the blind acceptance of the Enlightenment’s Fact-value distinction.

Throughout his career Grant was seen as a unique voice within academic institutions, and thus had strong appeal beyond the strict ‘community of scholars'. In fact, Grant criticized the trend in universities to move from the ‘unity’ of the traditional academy to a ‘multi-versity’ of separate hives of students, graduate students and professors years before American Allan Bloom would become famous for similar themes.

Politics and philosophy

In 1965, he published Lament for a Nation which regretted what he claimed was Canada's inevitable absorption by the United States. Grant articulated a political philosophy which was becoming known as Red Toryism which promoted the collectivist and communitarian aspects of an older English conservative tradition, which stood in direct opposition to the individualist traditions of liberalism, and subsequently neo-liberalism.

The subjects of his books, essays, public lectures and radio addresses (frequently on CBC Radio in Canada) quite frequently combined philosophy, religion, and political thought. Grant strongly critiqued what he believed were the worst facets of modernity, namely unbridled technological advancement and a loss of moral foundations to guide humanity. What he proposed in place of the modern spirit was a synthesis of Christian and Platonic thought which embodied contemplation of the 'good.'

An extraordinary public communicator, his first book, Philosophy in the Mass Age (1959), began as a series of CBC lectures. In it he posed the question of how human beings could reconcile moral freedom with acceptance of the view that an order existed in the universe beyond space and time. In 1965, furious that the Liberal government had accepted nuclear weapons, he published Lament for a Nation. This short work created a sensation with its argument that Canada was destined to disappear into a universal and homogeneous state whose centre was the United States. Technology and Empire (1969), a collection of essays edited by poet and friend Dennis Lee, deepened his critique of technological modernity and Time as History, his 1969 Massey Lectures, explained the worsening predicament of the West through an examination of the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. Grant's works of the 1960s had a strong influence on the nationalist movement of the 1970s, though many of the New Left were uncomfortable with Grant's conservatism, his conventional Anglican Tory beliefs and Christian-Platonist perspective.

Grant's last work was Technology and Justice (1986), which he prepared together with his wife. Concluding from his three decades-long meditation on French philosopher Simone Weil's works, he declared that there were fundamental moral and spiritual flaws in Western civilization, consigning it to a fate of inevitable collapse. Nevertheless, Grant stated he believed a better civilization could eventually replace it.

At the time of his death in 1988, Grant was seen as the exemplar Red Tory in Canada; and while he eventually came to transcend the temporal world of politics, his toryism has continued to define the framework for a gentle and thoughtful Nationalism in Canada.

Honours

In 1981, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for having "become a major force in Canadian intellectual life" [1] and was also awarded the Royal Society of Canada's Pierre Chauveau Medal. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

List of works

The Empire, Yes or No? Ryerson Press, (1945).
Philosophy in the Mass Age. CBC, (1959)
Lament for a Nation : the Defeat of Canadian Nationalism. McClelland & Stewart, (1965).
Time as History. CBC, (1969).
Technology and Empire : Perspectives on North America. Anansi, (1969)
English-speaking Justice. Mount Allison University, (1974).
Grant, G.P. (1976). The computer does not impose on us the ways it should be used. In W. Christian & S. Grant (Eds.), The George Grant reader. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
Technology and Justice. Anansi, (1986).
George Grant : selected letters edited, with an introduction by William Christian. University of Toronto Press, (1996).
The George Grant Reader. William Christian and Sheila Grant (editors). University of Toronto Press, (1998)
Collected works of George Grant. Arthur Davis (editor). University of Toronto Press, (2000)

Works as subject

Athens and Jerusalem: George Grant’s Theology, Philosophy, and Politics. Angus, Ian, Ronald Dart and Randy Peg Peters (editors). University of Toronto Press, (2006)
George Grant in Process: Essays and Coversations. Larry Schmidt (editor). House of Anansi Press, (1978).
Modernity and Responsibility : essays for George Grant. Eugene Combs, (editor). University of Toronto Press, (1983).
George Grant: A Biography. William Christian, University of Toronto Press, 1994.
George Grant in Conversation. David Cayley. Anansi, (1995).
Two theological languages by George Grant and Other essays in honour of his work. Wayne Whillier, (editor) E. Mellen Press (1990).

Articles on subject

Andrew, E. (1988). George Grant on technological imperatives. In R. Beiner, R. Day, & J. Masciulli (Eds.), Democratic theory and technological society. Armonk, NY: Sharpe.
Angus, I. (1987). George Grant’s Platonic rejoinder to Heidegger. Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellon.
Athanasiadis, H. (2001). George Grant and the theology of the Cross. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
Badertscher, J. (1978). George P. Grant and Jacques Ellul on freedom in technological society. In L. Schmidt (Ed.), George Grant in process: Essays and conversations. Toronto, Canada: Anansi.
Barros, J. (1986). No sense of evil: Espionage, the case of Herbert Norman. Toronto, Canada: Deneau.
Cayley, D. (1995). George Grant in conversation. Toronto, Canada: Anansi.
Christian, W. (1993). George Grant: A biography. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
Davis, A. (Ed.). (1996). George Grant and the subversion of modernity. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
Ellul, J. (1965). The technological society (John Wilkerson, Trans.). New York: Vintage.
Flinn, F. (1981). George Grant’s critique of technological liberalism. Doctoral thesis, St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto.
Horowitz, G. (1990). Commentary. In P. C. Emberley (Ed.), By loving our own: George Grant and the legacy of Lament for a nation. Ottawa, Canada: Carleton University Press.
Kroker, A. (1984). Technology and the Canadian mind. Montreal, Canada: New World Perspectives.
Lee, D. (1990). Grant’s impasse. In P. C. Emberley (Ed.), By loving our own: George Grant and the legacy of "Lament for a Nation." Ottawa, Canada: Carleton University Press.
Mathie, W. (1978). The technological regime: George Grant’s analysis of modernity. In L. Schmidt (Ed.), George Grant in process: Essays and conversations. Toronto, Canada: Anansi.
McHughen, A. (2000). Pandora’s picnic basket: The potential and hazard of genetically modified foods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rigelhof, T. L. (2001). George Grant: Redefining Canada. Montreal, Canada: XYZ Publishers.
Siebert, J. W. H. (1988). George Grant’s troubled appropriation of Martin Heidegger on the question concerning technology. Master’s thesis, St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto.
Umar, Y. K. (Ed.). (1991). George Grant and the future of Canada. Calgary, Canada: University of Calgary Press.

References

Christian, William (2005). "Grant, George Parkin". Retrieved Oct. 31, 2005.

External links

A 40th anniversary retrospective of the Lament
Review of Collected Works of George Grant by by Alan Mendelson in University of Toronto Quarterly.