George Santayana

George Santayana (16 December 1863 – 26 September 1952), was a philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist. Although a lifelong Spaniard, he is an American author by virtue of his Boston education and his use of English. He is perhaps best known for the oft-quoted statement "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" from Reason in Common Sense, the first volume of his The Life of Reason.

Biography

Santayana was born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana in Madrid, Spain, but spent his childhood in Ávila. His father was a diplomat, painter, and minor intellectual. Jorge was the only child of his mother's second marriage. She had three children in Boston, Santayana's cherished half siblings, by a prior marriage to a Sturgis from Boston. She returned to those children in 1869, and Jorge and his father joined them in 1872, whereupon he adopted the name George, the English variant of Jorge. His father, not finding Boston to his liking, soon returned to Ávila for good, so that from age six his parents almost always lived apart. Santayana did not see his father again until summer vacations while at Harvard.

He attended Boston Latin School and Harvard University, studying under William James, Josiah Royce, and Hugo Munsterberg, whose colleague he subsequently became. After graduating from Harvard in 1886, he studied for two years in Berlin and then returned to Harvard to teach philosophy from 1889 until an inheritance from his mother allowed him to retire in 1912. Hence he is part of the Golden Age of Harvard philosophy, along with James, Royce, Palmer, and Munsterberg. Some of his Harvard students went on to fame and glory as well, e.g. T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Walter Lippmann and Harry Austryn Wolfson. After retiring, he lived for several years in Paris and Oxford, finally settling in Rome from 1925 until his death in 1952. During his old age, the American Daniel Cory proved a valuable assistant. He never married. McCormick (1987) is his biography.

The Philosopher

While not considered a canonical pragmatist in the mold of James, Charles Peirce, Josiah Royce, or John Dewey, Santayana wrote what could arguably be considered the first full-length exposition of pragmatism: his early masterwork, the five volumes of The Life of Reason. In this work, Santayana develops pragmatist principles in a broad framework of naturalism, and examines metaphysics & epistemology, society, religion, art, and science, respectively. Like many of the classical pragmatists, and being well-versed in evolutionary theory, Santayana was committed to a naturalistic metaphysics, in which human cognition, practices, and institutions grew and developed to adapt harmoniously to their environment, and whose value could only be measured in proportion to their conduciveness to the attainment of human happiness. He was an early adherent to epiphenomenalism, but also admired the classical materialism of Democritus and Lucretius. He held the writings of Spinoza in high regard, but did not subscribe to Spinoza's rationalism or pantheism. Although an atheist, he described himself as an "aesthetic Catholic". Santayana's The Sense of Beauty is arguably the first major work on aesthetics published in America.

The Man of Letters

Santayana wrote widely on belles-lettres, philosophy, history, politics, human nature, ethics, coming of age, the subtle influence of religion on social psychology, and more, sometimes with considerable wit and humor. His only novel, The Last Puritan, is perhaps the greatest Bildungsroman in American letters, and it as well as his memoir People and Places contain many of his tarter opinions and bon mots. In his many value judgements and prejudices, Santayana was aristocratic and elitist, a curious blend of Mediterranean conservative (to be compared with Miguel Unamuno and Paul Valery), cultivated American, Olympian aloofness, and ironic detachment. His writings on technical philosophy can be difficult, but his essays, novel, memoir, and poetry contain many quotable passages. Santayana, who declined to take American citizenship and who happily resided in fascist Italy for two decades, is a major American writer. At the same time, the Hispanic world has gradually recognized him as one of its own, with Spanish translations of his work proceeding apace.

Works

The Santayana Edition.

A critical edition meeting the standards of the Modern Language Association.

The text of the critical edition on Intelex CD-ROM. With links to Web-based search & reference tools.

1979. The Complete Poems of George Santayana: A Critical Edition. Edited, with an introduction, by W. G. Holzberger. Bucknell University Press.

The balance of this edition is published by the MIT Press.

1986. Persons and Places Santayana's autobiography, incorporating the volumes Persons and Places, 1944; The Middle Span, 1945; and My Host the World, 1953.
1988 (1896). The Sense of Beauty.
1990 (1900). Interpretations of Poetry and Religion.
1994 (1935). The Last Puritan. A memoir in the form of a novel.
The Letters of George Santayana. Containing over 3,000 letters written by Santayana to more than 365 recipients, many of them discovered posthumously.
- 2001. Book One, 1868-1909.
- 2001. Book Two, 1910-1920.
- 2002. Book Three, 1921-1927.
- 2003. Book Four, 1928-1932.
- 2003. Book Five, 1933-1936.
- 2004. Book Six, 1937-1940.
- 2005. Book Seven, 1941-1947.
- 2006. Book Eight, 1948-1952.

Other works by Santayana include:

1905–1906. The Life of Reason, 5 vols. Scribner's. 1998. 1 vol. abridgement by the author and Daniel Cory. Prometheus Books. Available gratis online from Project Gutenberg
1910. Three Philosophical Poets.
1916. Egotism in German Philosophy.
1920. Character and Opinion in the United States.
1922. Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies.
1923. Scepticism and Animal Faith.
1925. Dialogues in Limbo.
1927. Platonism and the Spiritual Life.
1927–1940. Realms of Being, 4 Vols.
1933. Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy.
1936. Obiter Scripta.
1946. The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, or God in Man.
1951. Dominations and Powers.
1995. The Birth of Reason and Other Essays. Daniel Cory, ed., with an Introduction by Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr. Columbia Uni. Press.

McCormick, John, 1987. George Santayana: A Biography. Alfred A. Knopf.

External links