Grant, George (George Parkin), 1918-1988 : George Grant was a philosopher and public intellectual, and author of several books of philosophy and public affairs, including Lament for a Nation. He was born in 1918 to a prominent Canadian family; his father, William L. Grant, was a historian and Principal of Upper Canada College, and his mother, Maude Parkin, was the daughter of Sir George Parkin, an author and educator. Grant was educated at Queen's University and Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. From 1947 to 1984, he was a professor of philosophy, religion and political science at Dalhousie and McMaster universities. He died 27 September 1988.
Grant associated at Oxford in 1940 with a group of British pacifists, with whom he joined the ambulance corps, a form of war service available to conscientious objectors. During the blitz in 1940 and 1941, he was an Air Raid warden when one of his east-end shelters suffered a direct hit with heavy casualties. Grant suffered an emotional breakdown and subsequently experienced a profound spiritual awakening. He returned to Canada in 1943 and, when restored to health, became Secretary of the Canadian Association for Adult Education. In this role from 1943 to 1945, he wrote a regular column in its journal and broadcast the "Citizens' Forum: Of Things to Come" series on CBC Radio. When he returned to Oxford in 1945, he left his legal studies for a doctorate in theology and philosophy-writing a thesis on the Scottish theologian John Oman. While at Oxford, he met and married Sheila Veronica Allen, a committed pacifist, who was studying literature. They moved to Halifax in 1947 to take up his position as a professor of philosophy at Dalhousie University. He later accepted a position in the Department of Religion at McMaster University in 1960, where he taught for the next 20 years, returning to Dalhousie in 1980.
Grant's first book, Philosophy in the Mass Age (1959), began as a series of lectures for CBC Radio, bringing philosophy to a popular audience. His 1965 book, Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism, stirred controversy for its critique of the Liberal government, arguing that its policies would lead to Canada's assimilation into the American military and economic empire. Along with his opposition to nuclear arms and the Vietnam War, Lament linked him with more closely with the Canadian left (political scientist Gad Horowitz coined the phrase "Red Tory" to describe his views). In Technology and Empire: Perspectives on North America (1969), he analyzed and criticized modern life, technology, and religious, university, and political structures. With it, he began a long-time collaboration with Dennis Lee and Anansi Press. His major works after 1970 were less overtly political and more philosophical and theological, reflecting his response to the works of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Simone Weil. His next book, Time as History (1971), the 1969 CBC Massey Lectures, analyzed the thought of Nietzsche and the modern conception of time as history. English-Speaking Justice (1978) began as the 1974 Josiah Wood Lectures at Mount Allison University. His last book to appear during his lifetime, a collection of related essays, Technology and Justice (1986), explored questions of faith, justice, and technology in the modern age.
Grant was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1964; won the Chauveau Medal in 1981; and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1981. He received honorary doctorates from ten Canadian universities. A festschrift, Modernity and Responsibility: Essays for George Grant, edited by Eugene Combs, appeared in 1983. After his death in 1988, his widow Sheila Grant worked closely with scholars to bring out reprints of his books and develop new publishing projects. William Christian wrote George Grant: A Biography (1993) and edited his Selected Letters (1996); he and Sheila Grant edited The George Grant Reader (1998); and Arthur Davis edited George Grant and the Subversion of Modernity (1996). The University of Toronto Press published the four-volume Collected Works of George Grant (2000-2009), edited by Arthur Davis, Henry Roper, and Peter Emberley.
