Time as History

by George Parkin Grant

In Time as History, a collection of his 1969 Massey lectures, George Grant reviews the thought of Nietzsche and concludes that the conception of time as history is not one in which it is possible to live a fully human life. Grant was the first Canadian philosopher to pay serious attention to the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, and his analysis of the German philosopher forms the central focus of the lectures.

William Christian has restored material from the broadcast version of the lectures. His introduction places Grant's interest in Nietzsche in the perspective of Grant's developing analysis of technology and draws extensively on Grant's unpublished notebooks and lectures.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Technology

82 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

George Parkin Grant 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 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, 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.

Reviews

[Jona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grant credits (or rather blames) the contemporary notion of historicity as infinite linearity to Nietzche. Problematizing notions in new and old ways interwoven in his distinct approach makes Grant an important read not only for his insights but also for his out-sights as the latter allow a glimpse at the way human thought can wrap around a problem in quasi-sustainability, both pointing to vaiable solutions while at the same time locking the problem in personal bias and wishful thinking. It is curious how his interpretations of Nietzche sometimes hit the mark and sometimes simply skim over essential aspects of his pholisophy. Nietzche, like Grant, is a complex multifaceted thinker that embodies the potential for limited readings. Grant manages to do just that while at the same time opening important new avenues of meditating on Nietzche's thought.

[Robert Hudder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would love to tell you what this Massey Lecture was about but I am not sure that I can. It is about George Grant's interpretation of Nietzsche and time as history. What I do understand is that Grant was still deeply Christian and a lot of his argument works against nihilism in that he still believes in good and evil.

Now, this was also given during the Vietnam war and there was a lot of grappling with how Western thought got us to this point. A lot of this seems like an angst and anger or confusion about what is happening.

I read this more impressionistic than critical. There is an argument suggesting that this new version of equality or social justice cannot exist without God. As in all men are equal before God. I guess when someone can't believe in morality beyond God then I have a hard time following the rest of the argument.

The conversation afterwards with Malik was illuminating in that Malik suggested that there wasn't enough particulars in the talk. People weren't named and it was all too general. Malik suggested that the New World needs to embrace its history and continuation of Europe.

I was talking to someone the other day and I was saying that our problem is more that we aren't embracing the nihilism and our deaths. It is this that allows us to live in a perpetual now. Now is a narcissist. Grant was coming up with another way of arriving at the same point about the great now.

I doubt either of us is right. I am humbly, less right that he his. He had spent his life studying these questions. I am sure that his reading of philosophers on a deep level has given him some insight that is flavoured by his faith. Then again Nietzsche was also coming from that.

To be fair, I only read some of Thus Spake... I will be getting to it later this year probably. Maybe that will wipe the skepticism and scales from my eyes but I think I will not be moved.

[Siddiq Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grant writes in a congenial style worthy of his subject. His elucidation of the existential crisis of modern man in the dissolution of existing conditions brought about by his own action in time, of the two reactions to this crisis he saw among his contemporaries in the last men and the nihilists, and of what he posited as the only authentic response in the acceptance of our own essentially essenceless historical nature, our unique position as "beings whose being is in not having a being", as Simone de Beauvoir put it, our predicament as the species whose praxis is autopoesis -- a response which he recognised awaited future generations who were better equipped than those in his (and indeed most in our own) day to face reality.

Grant fails to mention, strangely, Nietzche´s conception of infinite cyclical time, from which his conception of "amor fati", and possibly his final insanity.

As a Christian theologan, he balks the challenge posed by a recognition of time as history in favor of retreat into eternity. This does not compare favourably with fellow Christian theologian Thomas Berry, a thinker far more original (although perhaps a less compelling writer) and relevant to our time, who posits time as history precisely as the only crucible in which any meaning may be forged that affirms life, nature, and the realm of the flesh rather than negates it as in mainstream christianity and almost all other religious traditions.

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to a recording of this book presented as a series of 5 lectures for the 1969 CBC Massey Lectures. I love this annual presentation of lectures because of the variety of topics and for the chance to exercise my brain in different ways. Unfortunately this year’s lectures were beyond my powers of comprehension. I really tried. George Grant’s teaching style is far too complex for the average bear. I wonder how the listening public of 1969 received the CBC radio shows?

[Esioan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first reading of Grant and I have to say this was scarily timely. Considering it was written in 1965, the discussion of transhumanism and the West's conquest of nature demonstrates the author's foresight. I could take or leave some of the literary analysis of Nietzsche and time, but when he focuses on the destructiveness of anti-Platonic modern thinking (à la positivism, empiricism, etc) I'm hooked.

[Jerry Wall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Memory and history and how to think when we sum up history, and how to consider what we choose
to call history

[Marco den Ouden · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a transcript of Grant's Nietzsche lectures and includes an interview with Grant at the end. An interesting and intriguing take on Nietzsche.

[Wyatt Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant discussion of Nietzsche and the general notion of historicism, or history as time, which marks our age.

[فلاح رحيم · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sincere and relevant now more than ever.