George Grant

Who was George Grant?

George Parkin Grant, OC, FRSC was a Canadian philosopher, professor, and political commentator. He is best known for his Canadian nationalism, political conservatism, and his views on technology, pacifism and Christian faith. He is credited 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, Aristotle, and Augustine of Hippo, 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.