Arthur Davis – författare

George Grant''s mystique as a public philosopher is due in part to the seemingly contradictory political stances he took through the years. His opposition to the Vietnam war and his linking of liberalism with technological progress and imperialism brought him favour among the political left during the 1960s. Then, in the following decade, his opposition to abortion earned him allies on the political right, despite his rejection of limitless capitalist growth and free trade with the US. This collection of original essays reveals the complex philosophic, artistic, and religious sources underlying Grant''s public positions of nationalism, pacifism, and conservatism.

The collection begins with Grant''s previously unpublished writing on Céline. This is a bold and vigorous Grant, writing on a topic about which he is passionate and deeply informed. Grant''s own work is followed by two pieces that explore his devotion to Céline, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Weil, and Strauss also receive special attention here. Many of the essays draw on manuscripts and notes left unpublished by Grant, thus contributing new perspectives to the ongoing discussion of his work.

The focus of this book is the unknown George Grant, namely, the philosophic, religious, and artistic inspiration behind his well-known public positions. Here we discover the great modern thinkers who animated Grant, and whose writings occupied him for much of his life.

More than a decade after his death, George Grant continues to stimulate, challenge, and inspire. During his lifetime he influenced a broad cross-section of Canadians, urging them to think more deeply about matters of social justice and individual responsibility. He wrote on subjects as diverse as technology, abortion, Canadian politics and nationalism, and the war in Vietnam, and was claimed equally by rightist and leftist causes.

Grant''s legacy includes six books and more than two hundred articles, as well as numerous broadcast transcripts, extensive correspondence, and a wealth of unpublished lectures, essays, and notes. In this projected eight-volume series, Grant''s published and unpublished writings, including his complete correspondence, will be brought together for the first time. The texts are annotated, and each volume includes an introduction to the period that it covers. The series will not only make it possible to see the whole pattern of Grant''s thought, but will also invite a reconsideration of the nature and importance of his work.

Volume I covers Grant''s intellectual development through his student years. Included are his early reviews, a brief journal written as he recovered from tuberculosis in 1942, and his earliest social and political writings about Canadian and international affairs. The most important of Grant''s formative years were those spent at Oxford after the war, culminating in the writing of his DPhil thesis on the Scottish philosopher John Oman. In this dissertation, published here in full, we see the main themes of Grant''s thought worked out for the first time.