George Grant (philosopher) - Education and Teaching

Education and Teaching

Grant was educated at Upper Canada College and Queen's University where he graduated with a History degree. He attended Balliol College at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, a trust his grandfather, George Parkin, had headed at one time. 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. research was interrupted by the war, and he was already teaching in Dalhousie University's Philosophy department when he completed his thesis, "The Concept of Nature and Supernature in the Theology of John Oman", during a year long sabbatical in 1950. Grant was a faculty member at Dalhousie twice (1947–1960, 1980–1988), York University (1960-1; he resigned before teaching) and McMaster University's Religion department (1961–1980), which he founded and led in the 1960s and early 70s. In 1977 he became an Editorial Advisor of the journal Dionysius, which published his essay Nietzsche and the Ancients: Philosophy and Scholarship in 1979.

In George Grant: A Biography his struggles as a self-taught philosopher are highlighted.

Grant was not readily accepted into the traditional academic community of scholars in Canada. Resistance was provoked by some of Grant's less 'progressive' stances, most notably the definition of philosophy he published in 1949: "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". Especially angered and upset was Fulton Anderson of the University of Toronto’s Philosophy department. Grant’s definition is telling, in that it marks his unique take on the philosophy's human perspective, 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 away from the 'unity' of the traditional academy to a 'multi-versity' comprising separate hives of undergraduate students, graduate students, professional faculties and professors (years before American Allan Bloom would become famous for similar themes).