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Concept
George Grant (philosopher)
Summary
George Parkin Grant (13 November 1918 – 27 September 1988) was a Canadian philosopher and political commentator. He is best known for his Canadian nationalism, political conservatism, and his views on technology, pacifism, and Christian faith. He is often seen as one of Canada's most original thinkers.
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, as well as "moderns" like Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Leo Strauss, James Doull, Simone Weil, and Jacques Ellul.
Although he is considered the main theoretician of red Toryism, he expressed dislike of the term when applied to his deeper philosophical interests, which he saw as his primary work as a thinker. Recent research on Grant uncovers his debt to a neo-Hegelian idealist tradition, Canadian idealism, that had a major influence on many Canadian scholars and Canadian political culture more broadly.
Grant was born in Toronto on 13 November 1918, the son of Maude Erskine (née Parkin) and William Lawson Grant. He 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 Robert 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. Both of his grandfathers were strong proponents of the bonds between Canada and the British Empire, and this greatly influenced their grandson. His nephew is a public intellectual and former Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian House of Commons, Michael Ignatieff. On 1 July 1947 he married Sheila Allen whom he had met at Oxford.
Grant was educated at Upper Canada College and Queen's University from which he graduated with a history degree.
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