George Santayana (bornJorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) was a Spanishphilosopher,essayist,poet, andnovelist.[2] Born inSpain, he moved to the United States at the age of eight.
As a philosopher, Santayana is known foraphorisms, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it",[3] and "Only the dead have seen the end of war",[4] and his definition of beauty as "pleasure objectified".[5] Although anatheist, Santayana valued the culture of the Spanish Catholic values, practices, and worldview, in which he was raised.[6] As anintellectual, George Santayana was a broad-rangecultural critic in several academic disciplines.
At the age of 48, he left his academic position atHarvard University and permanently returned to Europe; his last will was to be buried in the Spanish Pantheon in theCampo di Verano, Rome.
George Santayana was born on December 16, 1863, inCalle de San Bernardo ofMadrid and spent his early childhood inÁvila, Spain. His mother Josefina Borrás was the daughter of a Spanish official in thePhilippines and he was the only child of her second marriage.[7] Josefina Borrás' first husband was George Sturgis, a Boston merchant with the Manila firm Russell & Sturgis. She had five children with him; two of them died in infancy. She lived in Boston for a few years following her husband's death in 1857; in 1861, she moved with her three surviving children to Madrid. There she encountered Agustín Ruiz de Santayana, an old friend from her years in the Philippines. They married in 1862. Acolonialcivil servant, Ruiz de Santayana was a painter and minorintellectual. The family lived in Madrid and Ávila, and Jorge was born in Spain in 1863.
In 1869, Josefina Borrás de Santayana returned to Boston with her three Sturgis children, because she had promised her first husband to raise the children in the US. She left the six-year-old Jorge with his father in Spain. Jorge and his father followed her to Boston in 1872. His father, finding neither Boston nor his wife's attitude to his liking, soon returned alone to Ávila, and remained there the rest of his life. Jorge did not see him again until he enteredHarvard College and began to take his summer vacations in Spain. Although Santayana was raised and educated in the United States from the age of eight and identified as an American, he always retained a validSpanish passport.[8] Sometime during this period, his first name Jorge was anglicized to its English equivalent: George.
Santayana never married. His romantic life, if any, is not well understood. Some evidence, including a comment Santayana made late in life comparing himself toA. E. Housman, and his friendships with people who were openlyhomosexual andbisexual, has led scholars to speculate that Santayana was perhaps homosexual or bisexual, but it remains unclear whether he had any actual heterosexual or homosexual relationships.[17] Some historians would disagree with this assessment. For example, Santayana's biographer concluded that he had "an intense physical affair" withFrank Russell, 2nd Earl Russell, older brother to philosopherBertrand Russell.[18] The historian Douglass Shand-Tucci included an extensive discussion of Santayana's sexuality in his book on Boston's homosexual subculture in the late 19th century.[19]
In 1912, Santayana resigned his position at Harvard to spend the rest of his life in Europe.[9] He had saved money and been aided by a legacy from his mother. After some years inÁvila,Paris andOxford, after 1920, he began to winter inRome, eventually living there year-round until his death. During his 40 years in Europe, he wrote 19 books and declined several prestigious academic positions. Many of his visitors and correspondents were Americans, including his assistant and eventual literary executor,Daniel Cory. In later life, Santayana was financially comfortable, in part because his 1935 novel,The Last Puritan, had become an unexpectedbest-seller. In turn, he financially assisted a number of writers, includingBertrand Russell, with whom he was in fundamental disagreement, philosophically and politically.
Santayana's one novel,The Last Puritan, is aBildungsroman, centering on the personal growth of itsprotagonist, aPuritan named Oliver Alden. HisPersons and Places is anautobiography. These works also contain many of his sharper opinions andbons mots. He wrote books and essays on a wide range of subjects, including philosophy of a less technical sort,literary criticism, thehistory of ideas, politics,human nature, morals, the influence of religion on culture andsocial psychology, all with considerable wit and humour.
While his writings on technical philosophy can be difficult, his other writings are more accessible and pithy. He wrote poems and a few plays, and left ample correspondence, much of it published only since 2000. LikeAlexis de Tocqueville, Santayana observed American culture and character from a foreigner's point of view. LikeWilliam James, his friend and mentor, he wrote philosophy in a literary way.Ezra Pound includes Santayana amonghis many cultural references inThe Cantos, notably in "Canto LXXXI" and "Canto XCV". Santayana is usually considered an American writer, although he declined to become an American citizen, resided inFascist Italy for decades, and said that he was most comfortable, intellectually andaesthetically, atOxford University. Although anatheist, Santayana considered himself an "aestheticCatholic" and spent the last decade of his life in Rome under the care ofCatholic nuns.[9] In 1941, he entered a hospital andconvent run by theLittle Company of Mary (also known as theBlue Nuns) on theCelian Hill at 6 Via Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome, where he was cared for by the sisters until his death in September 1952.[20] Upon his death, he did not want to be buried inconsecrated land, which made his burial problematic in Italy. Finally, the Spanish consulate in Rome agreed that he be buried in the Pantheon of the Obra Pía Española, in theCampo Verano cemetery in Rome.[9]
Like many of the classical pragmatists, Santayana was committed tometaphysical naturalism. He believed that humancognition, cultural practices, andsocialinstitutions have evolved so as to harmonize with the conditions present in their environment. Their value may then be adjudged by the extent to which they facilitate human happiness. The alternate title toThe Life of Reason, "the Phases of Human Progress", is indicative of thismetaphysical stance.
Santayana was an early adherent ofepiphenomenalism, but also admired the classicalmaterialism ofDemocritus andLucretius. (Of the three authors on whom he wrote inThree Philosophical Poets, Santayana speaks most favorably of Lucretius). He heldSpinoza's writings in high regard, calling him his "master and model".[21]
Although anatheist,[22][23] he held a fairly benign view of religion and described himself as an "aesthetic Catholic". Santayana's views on religion are outlined in his booksReason in Religion,The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, andInterpretations of Poetry and Religion.
Santayana's famous aphorism "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" is inscribed on a plaque at theAuschwitz concentration camp inPolish translation and English back-translation (above), and on a subway placard in Germany (below).
Santayana is remembered in large part for hisaphorisms, many of which have been so frequently used as to have becomeclichéd. His philosophy has not fared quite as well. He is regarded by most as an excellentprose stylist, andJohn Lachs (who is sympathetic with much of Santayana's philosophy) writes, inOn Santayana, that his eloquence may ironically be the very cause of this neglect.
Santayana's quotes about fanaticism and forgetting the past are mentioned in theBatman: The Animated Series episode "Appointment in Crime Alley."
The quote "Only the dead have seen the end of war" is frequently attributed ormisattributed toPlato; an early example of this misattribution (if it is indeed misattributed) is found in GeneralDouglas MacArthur's Farewell Speech given to the Corps of Cadets atWest Point in 1962.[33][34]
Santayana'sReason in Common Sense was published in five volumes between 1905 and 1906 (this edition is from 1920).Although schooled inGerman idealism, Santayana was critical of it and made an effort to distance himself from itsepistemology.
1955.The Letters of George Santayana. Daniel Cory, ed. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York. (296 letters)
1956.Essays in Literary Criticism of George Santayana.Irving Singer, ed.
1957.The Idler and His Works, and Other Essays. Daniel Cory, ed.
1967.The Genteel Tradition: Nine Essays by George Santayana. Douglas L. Wilson, ed.
1967.George Santayana's America: Essays on Literature and Culture. James Ballowe, ed.
1967.Animal Faith and Spiritual Life: Previously Unpublished and Uncollected Writings by George Santayana With Critical Essays on His Thought. John Lachs, ed.
1968.Santayana on America: Essays, Notes, and Letters on American Life, Literature, and Philosophy. Richard Colton Lyon, ed.
1968.Selected Critical Writings of George Santayana, 2 vols. Norman Henfrey, ed.
1969.Physical Order and Moral Liberty: Previously Unpublished Essays of George Santayana. John and Shirley Lachs, eds.
1979.The Complete Poems of George Santayana: A Critical Edition. Edited, with an introduction, by W. G. Holzberger. Bucknell University Press.
1995.The Birth of Reason and Other Essays. Daniel Cory, ed., with an Introduction by Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr. Columbia Univ. Press.
2009.The Essential Santayana. Selected Writings Edited by the Santayana Edition, Compiled and with an introduction by Martin A. Coleman. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
2009.The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy and Character and Opinion in the United States (Rethinking the Western Tradition), Edited and with an introduction byJames Seaton and contributions byWilfred M. McClay,John Lachs,Roger Kimball, and James Seaton, Yale University Press.
2021.Recently Discovered Letters of George Santayana / Cartas recién descubiertas de George Santayana, Edited and with an introduction by Daniel Pinkas translated byDaniel Moreno, and a Prologue by José Beltrán.
Unmodernized, critical editions of George Santayana's published and unpublished writing.The Works is edited by the Santayana Edition and published by The MIT Press.
1986.Persons and Places. Santayana's autobiography, incorporatingPersons and Places, 1944;The Middle Span, 1945; andMy Host the World, 1953.
2019 (1910).Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe, Critical Edition, Edited by Kellie Dawson and David E. Spiech, with an introduction by James Seaton
2023 (1913).Winds of Doctrine, Critical Edition, Edited by David E Spiech, Martin A. Coleman and Faedra Lazar Weiss, with an introduction by Paul Forster
^Lovely, Edward W. (September 28, 2012).George Santayana's Philosophy of Religion: His Roman Catholic Influences and Phenomenology. Lexington Books. pp. 1,204–206.
^Saatkamp, Herman; Coleman, Martin (January 1, 2014). Zalta, Edward N. (ed.).The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.Archived from the original on March 18, 2019. RetrievedApril 8, 2017 – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
^John McCormick (1987).George Santayana. Paragon, NY. p. 119.
^Douglass Shand-Tucci (1995).Boston Bohemia:1881-1900. University of Massachusetts Press. p. 210.
^George Santayana (1948–1952),The Letters of George Santayana, Book Eight, p. 8:39
^"My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe, and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests." George Santayana, "On My Friendly Critics", inSoliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 1922 (from Rawson'sDictionary of American Quotations via credoreference.com). Accessed August 1, 2008.
^"Santayana playfully called himself 'a Catholic atheist', but in spite of the fact that he deliberately immersed himself in the stream of Catholic religious life, he never took the sacraments. He neither literally regarded himself as a Catholic nor did Catholics regard him as a Catholic." Kai Nielsen (July 1974), "Empiricism, Theoretical Constructs, and God",The Journal of Religion, Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 199–217 (p. 205), published by The University of Chicago Press.
^Saatkamp, Herman, "George SantayanaArchived December 2, 2013, at theWayback Machine" The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
^Whitehead, A.N. (1929).Process and Reality. An Essay in Cosmology. Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh During the Session 1927–1928, Macmillan, New York, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.
^George Santayana; William G. Holzberger (Editor). (2006).The Letters of George Santayana, Book Seven, 1941–1947. (MIT Press (MA), Hardcover, 9780262195560, 569pp.) (p. 143).
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