Philosopher, poet, literary and cultural critic, George Santayana is aprincipal figure in Classical American Philosophy. His naturalism andemphasis on creative imagination were harbingers of importantintellectual turns on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a naturalistbefore naturalism grew popular; he appreciated multiple perfectionsbefore multiculturalism became an issue; he thought of philosophy asliterature before it became a theme in American and European scholarlycircles; and he managed to naturalize Platonism, update Aristotle,fight off idealisms, and provide a striking and sensitive account ofthe spiritual life without being a religious believer. His Hispanicheritage, shaded by his sense of being an outsider in America,captures many qualities of American life missed by insiders, andpresents views equal to Tocqueville in quality and importance. Beyondphilosophy, only Emerson may match his literary production. As apublic figure, he appeared on the front cover ofTime (3February 1936), and his autobiography (Persons and Places,1944) and only novel (The Last Puritan, 1936) were thebest-selling books in the United States as Book-of-the-Month Clubselections. The novel was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and EdmundWilson rankedPersons and Places among the few first-rateautobiographies, comparing it favorably to Yeats’s memoirs,The Education of Henry Adams, and Proust’sRemembrance of Things Past. Remarkably, Santayana achievedthis stature in American thought without being an American citizen. Heproudly retained his Spanish citizenship throughout his life. Yet, ashe readily admitted, it is as an American that his philosophical andliterary corpuses are to be judged. Using contemporaryclassifications, Santayana is the first and foremost Hispanic-Americanphilosopher.

• 1. Biography
• 2. Philosophy, Literature, and Culture
• 3. Development of Santayana’s Philosophy
• 4. Naturalism
• 5. Ethics, Politics, and the Spiritual Life
• Bibliography
  • Primary Sources
  • Secondary Sources
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Biography

Santayana’s heritage is rooted in the Spanish diplomatic societywith its stress on high education and familiarity with the worldcommunity. He was born in Madrid, Spain, on 16 December 1863. Hisfather, Agustín Santayana, was born in 1812. The father studiedlaw and practiced for a short time before entering the colonialservice for posting to the Philippines. While studying law,Agustín served an apprenticeship to a professional painter ofthe school of Goya and a number of his paintings remain in the privatepossession of the family. He translated four Senecan tragedies intoSpanish, wrote an unpublished book about the island of Mindanao, hadan extensive library, and made three trips around the world. In 1845,he became the governor of Batang, a small island in the Philippines.He took over the governorship from the recently deceased JoséBorrás y Bofarull, who was the father of JosefinaBorrás, later to become Agustín’s wife in 1861 andthe mother of George Santayana. His mother, Josefina Sturgis (formerlyJosefina Borrás y Carbonell), was born in Scotland and was thedaughter of a Spanish diplomat. Previously she married George Sturgis(d. 1857), a Boston merchant, whose early death left her alone withchildren in Manila. There were five children from this first marriage,three of whom survived infancy. She promised her first husband toraise the children in Boston where she moved her family. During aholiday in Spain, Josefina met Agustín again, and they weremarried in 1861. He was fifty years of age and she was probablythirty-five. In 1863, Santayana was christened Jorge AgustínNicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás. His half sister,Susan, insisted that he be called “George,” after herBoston father. Santayana, in turn, always referred to his sister inthe Spanish, “Susana.”

1863–1886. Santayana lived eight years inSpain, forty years in Boston, and forty years in Europe. In hisautobiography,Persons and Places, Santayana divides his lifeinto three phases. The background (1863–1886) encompasses hischildhood in Spain through his undergraduate years at Harvard. Thesecond period (1886–1912) is that of the Harvard graduatestudent and professor with a trans-Atlantic penchant for traveling toEurope. The third period (1912–1952) is the retired professorwriting and traveling in Europe and eventually establishing Rome ashis home.

The family moved from Madrid to Ávila where Santayana spent hisboyhood. In 1869, Santayana’s mother left Spain in order toraise the Sturgis children in Boston, keeping her pledge to her firsthusband. In 1872, his father realized the opportunities for his sonwere better in Boston, and he moved there with his son. Finding Bostoninhospitable, puritanical, and cold, the father returned alone toÁvila within a few months. The separation between father andmother was permanent. In 1888 Agustín wrote to Josefina:“When we were married I felt as if it were written that I shouldbe reunited with you, yielding to the force of destiny. Strangemarriage, this of ours! So you say, and so it is in fact. I love youvery much, and you too have cared for me, yet we do not livetogether” (Persons and Places, 9).

Until his father’s death (1893), Santayana regularlycorresponded with his father and he visited him afterSantayana’s first year at Harvard College. In Boston,Santayana’s family spoke only Spanish in their home. Santayanafirst attended Mrs. Welchman’s Kindergarten to learn Englishfrom the younger children, then he was a student at the Boston LatinSchool, and he completed his B.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard College(1882–1889), including eighteen months of study in Germany on aWalker Fellowship. His undergraduate years at Harvard reveal anenergetic student with an active social life. He was a member ofeleven organizations includingThe Lampoon (largely as acartoonist), theHarvard Monthly (a founding member), thePhilosophical Club (President), and the Hasty Pudding.

Some scholars conclude that Santayana was an active homosexual basedon allusions in Santayana’s early poetry (McCormick,49–52) and Santayana’s association with known homosexualand bisexual friends. Santayana provides no clear indication of hissexual preferences, and he never married. Attraction to both women andmen seems apparent in his undergraduate and graduate correspondence.The one documented comment about his homosexuality occurs when he wassixty-five. After a discussion of A. E. Housman’s poetry andhomosexuality, Santayana remarked, “I think I must have beenthat way in my Harvard days — although I was unconscious of itat the time” (Cory,Santayana: The Later Years, 40).Because of Santayana’s well-known frankness, many scholarsconsider Santayana a latent homosexual based on this evidence.

1886–1912. Santayana received his Ph.D. fromHarvard in 1889 and became a faculty member at Harvard University(1889–1912) and eventually a central figure in the era nowcalled Classical American Philosophy. He was a highly respected andpopular teacher, and his students included poets (Conrad Aiken, T. S.Eliot, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens), journalists and writers (WalterLippmann, Max Eastman, Van Wyck Brooks), professors (Samuel EliotMorison, Harry Austryn Wolfson), a Supreme Court Justice (FelixFrankfurter), many diplomats (including his friend Bronson Cutting),and a university president (James B. Conant). He retired from Harvardin 1912 at the age of forty-eight and lived the remainder of his lifein England and Europe, never returning to the U.S. and rejectingacademic posts offered at a number of universities, including Harvard,Columbia, and Cambridge.

Santayana cherished academic life for its freedom to pursueintellectual interests and curiosity, but he found that many aspectsof being a professor infringed on that freedom. Faculty meetings anduniversity committees seemed primarily to be partisan heat over falseissues, so he rarely attended them. The general corporate andbusinesslike adaptation of universities was increasingly lessconducive to intellectual development and growth. He expressed concernabout the evolving Harvard goal of producing muscular intellectuals tolead America as statesmen in business and government. Were not delightand celebration also a central aspect of education? He wrote to afriend in 1892, expressing the hope that his academic life would be“resolutely unconventional” and noted that he could onlybe a professorper accidens, saying that “I wouldrather beg than be one essentially” (GS to H. W. Abbot,Stoughton Hall, Harvard, 15 February 1892. Columbia).

In 1893, Santayana experienced ametanoia, a change of heart.Gradually he altered his style of life from that of an active studentturned professor to one focused on the imaginative celebration oflife. In doing so, he began planning for his early retirement, findinguniversity life increasingly less conducive to intellectual pursuitsand delight in living. Three events preceded hismetanoia:the unexpected death of a young student, witnessing his father’sdeath, and the marriage of his sister Susana. Santayana’sreflections on these events led to the ancient wisdom that acceptanceof the tragic leads to a lyrical release. “Cultivateimagination, love it, give it endless forms, but do not let it deceiveyou. Enjoy the world, travel over it, and learn its ways, but do notlet it hold you … . To possess things and persons in ideais the only pure good to be got out of them; to possess themphysically or legally is a burden and a snare (Persons andPlaces, 427–28).”

Increasingly, naturalism and the lyrical cry of human imaginationbecame the focal points of Santayana’s life and thought.Pragmatism, as developed by Peirce and James, was an undercurrent inhis naturalism, particularly as an approach to how we ascertainknowledge, but there are aspects of his naturalism more aligned withEuropean and Greek thought that presage developments in the latetwentieth century. His naturalism had its historical roots primarilyin Aristotle and Spinoza and its contemporary background inJames’s pragmatism and Royce’s idealism. His focus on andcelebration of creative imagination in all human endeavors(particularly in art, philosophy, religion, literature, and science)is one of Santayana’s major contributions to American thought.This focus, along with his Spanish heritage, Catholic upbringing, andEuropean suspicion of American industry, set him apart in the HarvardYard.

Santayana’s strong interest in literature and aesthetics isevident throughout this early period, but by 1904, his attentionturned almost fully to philosophical pursuits. During this period hispublications include:Lotze’s System of Philosophy(dissertation),Sonnets and Other Verses (1894),TheSense of Beauty (1896),Lucifer: A Theological Tragedy(1899),Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (1900),AHermit of Carmel, and Other Poems (1901),The Life ofReason (five books, 1905–1906),Three PhilosophicalPoets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe (1910).

In May 1911, Santayana formally announced his long-planned retirementfrom Harvard. President Lowell asked him to reconsider. By nowSantayana was a highly recognized philosopher, cultural critic, poet,and teacher, and his desire to be free from academic confinement wasalso well known. Lowell indicated he was open to any arrangement thatprovided Santayana the time he desired for writing and for travel inEurope. Initially Santayana agreed to alternate years in Europe andthe U.S., but in 1912, his resolve to retire overtook his sense ofobligation to Harvard. The year before his retirement, he hadpresented at least six lectures at a variety of universities includingBerkeley, Wisconsin, Columbia, and Williams. His books were sellingwell and his publishers were asking for more. Two major universitieswere courting him. At forty-eight, he left Harvard to become afull-time writer and to escape the academic professionalism thatnurtured a university overgrown with “thistles of trivial andnarrow scholarship.”

1912–1952. As Santayana sailed for Europe, hismother died, apparently of Alzheimer’s disease. Always attentiveto his family, Santayana visited her weekly, then daily, during hislast years at Harvard. Knowing his mother’s death was imminent,he arranged for Josephine, his half sister, to live in Spain withSusana, who previously had married a well-to-do Ávilan. Aninheritance of $10,000 from his mother, coupled with his steady incomefrom publications and his early planning, made retirement easier. Hearranged for his half brother, Robert, to manage his finances with theagreement that upon Santayana’s death, Robert or his heirs wouldreceive the bulk of Santayana’s estate. Hence, in January 1912,at age forty-eight, Santayana was free from the constraints ofuniversity regimen and expectations and, more importantly, free towrite, to travel, and to choose his residence and country.

Santayana’s book publications after leaving Harvard isremarkable:Winds of Doctrine (1913),Egotism in GermanPhilosophy (1915),Character and Opinion in the UnitedStates (1920),Soliloquies in England and LaterSoliloquies (1922),Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923),Dialogues in Limbo (1926),Platonism and the SpiritualLife (1927), the four books ofThe Realms of Being(1927, 1930, 1938, 1940),The Genteel Tradition at Bay(1931),Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy (1933),The Last Puritan (1935),Persons and Places (1944),The Middle Span (1945),The Idea of Christ in theGospels (1946),Dominations and Powers (1951), andMy Host the World (1953, posthumous).

Harvard attempted to bring him back to the United States, offering himseveral professorships beginning in 1917. As late as 1929, he wasoffered the Norton Chair in Poetry, one of Harvard’s mostrespected chairs. In 1931, he received an invitation from BrownUniversity, and Harvard later asked him to accept the William JamesLecturer in Philosophy, a newly established honorary post. ButSantayana never returned to Harvard or to America. Believing that theacademic life was not a place for him to cultivate intellectualachievement or scholarly work, Santayana also refused academicappointments both at Oxford University and Cambridge University.

At first, Santayana planned to reside in Europe, and after numerousexploratory trips to several cities, he decided on Paris. However,while he was in England, World War I broke out and he was unable toreturn to the mainland. First, he lived in London and then primarilyat Oxford and Cambridge. After the war, he was more of a travelingscholar, and his principal locales included Paris, Madrid,Ávila, the Riviera, Florence, and Rome. By the late 1920s, hesettled principally in Rome, and during the summers, he oftenretreated to Cortina d’Ampezzo in Northern Italy to write and toescape the heat. Because of his success as a writer, he assistedfriends and scholars when they found themselves in need of financialsupport. For example, when Bertrand Russell was unable to find ateaching post in the U.S. or England because of his views regardingpacifism and marriage, Santayana displayed a characteristic generosityin his plan to make an anonymous gift to Bertrand Russell of the$25,000 royalty earnings fromThe Last Puritan, at the rateof $5,000 per year, in the letter to George Sturgis (15 July 1937).Despite the fact that he and Russell disagreed radically bothpolitically and philosophically, his memory of their earlierfriendship and his regard for Russell’s genius moved him tocompassion for Russell’s financial plight.

The rise of Mussolini in the 1930s initially seemed positive toSantayana. He viewed the Italian civil society as chaotic and thoughtMussolini might bring order where needed. But Santayana soon noted therise of a tyrant. Trying to leave Italy by train for Switzerland, hewas not permitted to cross the border because he did not have theproper papers. With most of his funds coming from the United Statesand England, his case was complicated by his Spanish citizenship andhis age. He returned to Rome, and on 14 October 1941 he entered theClinica della Piccola Compagna di Maria, a hospital-clinic run by aCatholic order of nuns, where he lived until his death eleven yearslater. This arrangement was not unusual. The hospital periodicallyreceived distinguished guests and cared for them in an assisted-livingenvironment. Santayana died of cancer on 26 September 1952.

Santayana asked that he be buried in unconsecrated ground, affirminghis naturalism to the end. However, the only such cemetery ground inRome was reserved for criminals. The Spanish Consulate at Rome wouldnot permit Santayana to be buried in such a place and provided the“Panteon de la Obra Pia espanola” in the Campo Veranocemetery as a suitable burial ground, turning it into a memorial forthe lifelong Spanish citizen. At the graveside, Daniel Cory read linesfrom Santayana’s “The Poet’s Testament,” apoem affirming his naturalistic outlook:

I give back to the earth what the earth gave,
All to the furrow, nothing to the grave.
The candle’s out, the spirit’s vigil spent;
Sight may not follow where the vision went.

In the United States, Wallace Stevens commemorated his teacher in“To an Old Philosopher in Rome.”

Total grandeur of a total edifice,
Chosen by an inquisitor of structures
For himself. He stops upon this threshold,
As if the design of all his words takes form
And frame from thinking and is realized.

2. Philosophy, Literature, and Culture

Throughout his life, Santayana’s literary achievements areevident. As an eight-year-old Spaniard, he wroteUnmatrimonio (A Married Couple), describing the trip of a newlymarried couple that meets the Queen of Spain. Later in Boston, hewrote a poetic parody ofThe Aeneid; “A Short Historyof the Class of ‘82”; and “Lines on Leaving theBedford St. Schoolhouse.” His first book,Sonnets and OtherVerses (1894), is a book of poems, not philosophy. And, until theturn of the century, much of his intellectual life was directed to thewriting of verse and drama. He was a principal figure in makingmodernism possible but was not a modernist in poetry or literature.His naturalism and emphasis on constructive imagination influencedboth T. S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens. Eliot’s notion of the“objective correlative” is drawn from Santayana, andStevens follows Santayana in his refined naturalism by incorporatingboth Platonism and Christianity without any nostalgia for God ordogma.

Santayana was among the leaders in transforming the American literarycanon, dislodging the dominant Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes,Bryant canon. Santayana’s essay “The Genteel Tradition inAmerican Philosophy” (presented to the Philosophical Union ofthe University of California in 1911) greatly affected Van WyckBrooks’sAmerica’s Coming-of-Age, a book that setthe tone for modernism. Brooks drew on Santayana’s essay,adapting Santayana’s idea of two Americas to fit his notion ofan America split between highbrow and lowbrow culture.

By the turn of the century, Santayana’s interests largelycentered on his philosophical inquiries, and although he neverabandoned writing poetry, he no longer considered it his central work.Even so, some of his most moving poetry came later and was inspired bythe trench warfare and casualties of World War I: “APremonition: Cambridge, October, 1913”; “The UndergraduateKilled in Battle: Oxford, 1915”; “Sonnet: Oxford,1916”; and “The Darkest Hour: Oxford, 1917.”Throughout his life, even near death, he recited and translated longfragments of Horace, Racine, Leopardi, and others.

The relationships between literature, art, religion and philosophy areprominent themes throughout Santayana’s writings.The Senseof Beauty (1896) is a primary source for the study of aesthetics.Philip Blair Rice wrote in the foreword to the 1955 Modern Libraryedition: “To say that aesthetic theory in America reachedmaturity withThe Sense of Beauty is in no way anoverstatement. Only John Dewey’sArt as Experience hascompeted with it in the esteem of philosophical students of aestheticsand has approached its suggestiveness for artists, critics and thepublic which takes a thoughtful interest in the arts.”Santayana’s groundbreaking approach to aesthetics is emphasizedin Arthur Danto’s “Introduction” to the 1988critical edition. Danto writes that Santayana brings “beautydown to earth” by treating it as a subject for science andgiving it a central role in human conduct, in contrast to thepreceding intellectualist tradition of aesthetics. “Theexaltation of emotion and the naturalization of beauty —especially of beauty — imply a revolutionary impulsefor a book it takes a certain violent act of historical imagination torecover” (Sense of Beauty, xxviii). This naturalisticapproach to aesthetics is expanded in his philosophical explication ofart found inThe Life of Reason: Reason in Art (1905).

In 1900, Santayana’sInterpretations of Poetry andReligion develops his view that religion and poetry areexpressive celebrations of life. Each in its own right is of greatvalue, but if either is mistaken for science, the art of life is lostalong with the beauty of poetry and religion. Science providesexplanations of natural phenomena, but poetry and religion are festivecelebrations of human life born of consciousness generated from theinteraction of one’s psyche (the natural structure and heritabletraits of one’s physical body) and the physical environment. Asexpressions of human values, poetry and religion are identical inorigin. Understanding the naturalistic base for poetry and religionand valuing their expressive character enable one to appreciate themwithout being hoodwinked: “poetry loses its frivolity and ceasesto demoralise, while religion surrenders its illusions and ceases todeceive” (172). Interestingly, his father expressed similarviews in his letters to his son, providing the genesis of hisson’s reflections, and this conclusion is expressed as late asthe 1946 publication ofThe Idea of Christ in the Gospelswhere Santayana presents the idea of Christ as poetic and imaginative,contrasted with attempts at historical, factual accounts of the Christfigure. The impact of Santayana’s view was significant, andHenry James (after readingInterpretations of Poetry andReligion) wrote that he would “crawl across London”if need be to meet Santayana.

Three Philosophical Poets (1910) was the first volume of theHarvard Studies in Comparative Literature. Santayana employs anaturalistic account of poetry and philosophy, attempting to combinecomparative structures with as few embedded parochial assumptions aspossible while making explicit our material boundness to particularworlds and perspectives. His analyses of Lucretius, Dante, and Goetheare described by one biographer as “a classical work and one ofthe few written in America to be genuinely comparative in conceptionand execution, for its absence of national bias and its intellectual,linguistic, and aesthetic range” (McCormick, 193).

Initially, Santayana appears optimistic about the youthful America. Inhis Berkeley lecture, “The Genteel Tradition in AmericanPhilosophy,” he declared “the American Will inhabits thesky-scraper; the American Intellect inhabits the colonialmansion.” (“The Genteel Tradition in AmericanPhilosophy,” Triton Edition, vol. VII. P. 129.) Europeantranscendentalism and Calvinism are the American intellectualtraditions, but they no longer suit the American drive for success inindustry, business, and football. Hence, the youthful willfulness ofthe country has outrun the old wits, but there remains a chance forwisdom and energy to be coupled in a future coherent and richtradition, and he sees the beginnings of such a tradition inJames’s pragmatism.

Within a decade, he is less optimistic.Character and Opinion inthe United States (1920) is his valediction to America. Itincludes frank, intellectual portraits of his Harvard colleagues andof American culture. From his residence in Cambridge, he praises theEnglish emphasis on social cooperation and personal integrity andcontrasts them with America where “You must wave, you mustcheer, you must push with the irresistible crowd; otherwise you willfeel like a traitor, a soulless outcast, a deserted ship high and dryon the shore … . This national faith and morality arevague in idea, but inexorable in spirit; they are the gospel of workand the belief in progress. By them, in a country where all men arefree, every man finds that what most matters has been settledbeforehand” (211).

Santayana’s standing as a literary figure reached its zenithwith the publication ofThe Last Puritan (1936).The LastPuritan is Santayana’s only novel, and it was aninternational success. It was compared positively with Goethe’sWilhelm Meister, Pater’sMarius, andMann’sThe Magic Mountain. Its provenance lies in the1890s when Santayana began a series of sketches on college life that,broadened through his experience and travel, resulted inThe LastPuritan. Essentially, it is about the life and early death of anAmerican youth, Oliver Alden, who is sadly restricted by hisPuritanism. Santayana draws a sharp contrast with the European Mario,who delights in all matters without a narrow moralism. Mario is acarefree, naturally gifted and likeable young man who by Americanstandards appears too focused on the peripheral aspects of life:travel, opera, love affairs, and architecture. And the Americanperspective is embodied in the tragic hero, Oliver Alden, who is thelast Puritan. He does what is right, based on his duties to hisfamily, school, and friends. Life is a slow, powerful flow of tasksand responsibilities. He is intelligent and knows there is more thanobligation, and he senses his guilt at not being able to achieve thenatural abundant life, but knowing this only nourishes his Puritanismand causes him to feel guilty about being guilty. In a charming scenein the novel, Oliver introduces Mario to Professor Santayana atHarvard. Oliver is a dedicated student and football player, thoroughlya first rate American taking matters seriously and doing his best.After only a short visit with the Professor, Mario, it is decided bySantayana, does not need to take a course from the Professor. Marioalready has the natural, instinctual approach of a cultivated person.Oliver, on the other hand, knows he must work to achieve his goal,which will be only a succession of goals, and ends tragically.Santayana’s Hispanic and Catholic background play a central rolein his critique of American life: too bound by past traditions andobligations that are not understood or rooted in one’s ownculture.

The fear that Santayana’s autobiography would be lost ordestroyed during World War II, led Scribner’s, the publisher, toconspire with the U.S. Department of State, the Vatican, and theSpanish government to bring the manuscript of the first part(Persons and Places) out of Romesub rosa, despitethe Italian government’s refusal to allow any mail to the U.S.The manuscript for the second part (The Middle Span, 1945)also was conveyed surreptitiously to New York. The third part (MyHost the World, 1953) was published after Santayana’sdeath. His autobiography provides the basis for understanding thedevelopment of his philosophy

3. Development of Santayana’s Philosophy

In his autobiography,Persons and Places, Santayana describesthe development of his thought as a movement from the idealisms ofboyhood to the intellectual materialism of a traveling student, andfinally to the complete, naturalistic outlook of the adult Santayana.He emphasizes the continuity of his life and beliefs, contrasting whatmay appear to be disparate views with the overall unity of histhought: “The more I change the more I am the same person”(Persons and Places, 159).

As a young man of the nineteenth century, he was influenced by theidealism of the age and of his age, but he claims to have always beena realist or naturalist at heart.

But those ideal universes in my head did not produce any firmconvictions or actual duties. They had nothing to do with the wretchedpoverty-stricken real world in which I was condemned to live. That thereal was rotten and only the imaginary at all interesting seemed to meaxiomatic. That was too sweeping; yet allowing for the rashgeneralisations of youth, it is still what I think. My philosophy hasnever changed. (Persons and Places, 167)

Hence he notes, that in spite “of my religious and otherday-dreams, I was at bottom a young realist; I knew I was dreaming,and so was awake. A sure proof of this was that I was never anxiousabout what those dreams would have involved if they had been true. Inever had the least touch of superstition” (Persons andPlaces, 167). Santayana cites poems, “To the Moon”and “To the Host,” written when he was fifteen or sixteen,as revealing this early realism, and he quotes from memory one stanzaof “At the Church Door” where the realistic sentiment isthe same (Persons and Places, 169).

By the time he was a traveling student seeing the world in Germany,England, and Spain his “intellectual materialism” wasfirmly established with little change in his religious affections.

From the boy dreaming awake in the church of the ImmaculateConception, to the travelling student seeing the world in Germany,England, and Spain there had been no great change in sentiment.

I was still “at the church door”. Yet in belief, in theclarification of my philosophy, I had taken an important step. I nolonger wavered between alternative views of the world, to be put on ortaken off like alternative plays at the theatre. I now saw that therewas only one possible play, the actual history of nature and ofmankind, although there might well be ghosts among the characters andsoliloquies among the speeches. Religions, all religions, andidealistic philosophies, all idealistic philosophies, were thesoliloquies and the ghosts. They might be eloquent and profound. LikeHamlet’s soliloquy they might be excellent reflective criticismsof the play as a whole. Nevertheless they were only parts of it, andtheir value as criticisms lay entirely in their fidelity to the facts,and to the sentiments which those facts aroused in the critic.(Persons and Places, 169)

The full statement and development of his materialism did not occuruntil later in his life. It was certainly in place by the time ofScepticism and Animal Faith (1923) but not fully so at thetime ofThe Life of Reason (1905). The influence of theHarvard philosophers, particularly James and Royce is evident inSantayana’s thought, but he was hardly a mere follower and oftenadvanced his philosophy more along European and Greek lines ratherthan the American tradition, which he thought was both too derivativeand too tied to the advancement of business and capitalism.

The move from Harvard marked not only a geographical shift but aphilosophical one as well. Henry Levinson inSantayana,Pragmatism, and the Spiritual Life provides a well-balancedaccount of this gradual but distinctive move from the Harvardphilosophical mentality. Leaving Harvard also meant that Santayanaabandoned the view of a philosopher as a public, philosophicalstatesman and of language as being representative. This philosophicalturn placed makes him a forerunner of many issues in the next twocenturies. Removing himself, literally and philosophically, from theAmerican scene, Santayana increasingly came to believe that the“brimstone” sensibility of pragmatism was wrong-headed(Character and Opinion in the United States, 53). A majoraspect of this sensibility was the view that philosophers must beengaged fundamentally in social and cultural policy formulation, andif they are not, they are not pulling their civic weight. In thisfashion, Santayana believes the pragmatists came to belie “thegenuinely expressive, poetic, meditative, and festive character oftheir vocation” (Levinson,165). A condition that James tookseriously in his “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,”suggesting that the world of practical responsibility fosters ablindness to multiplural ways of living that can only be escaped bycatching sight of “the world of impersonal worths as such”— “only your mystic, your dreamer, or your insolent loaferor tramp can afford so sympathetic an occupation” (James,Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some ofLife’s Ideals, 141). Interestingly, America’simperialistic actions toward the Philippines during theSpanish-American War sparked James’ remarks; this was a war thathad a much deeper ancestral and historical aspect for Santayana andled to his poem, “Young Sammy’s First Wild Oats.”Whether connected or not, Santayana later came to identify himself asan intellectual vagabond or tramp, not isolated in the specificperspectives of an ideology, hosted by the world, and devoted tospiritual disciplines that “appear irresponsible to philosophershoping to command representative or some otherwise privilegedauthority at the center of society” (Levinson, 167).

Building on his naturalism, institutional pragmatism, social realism,and poetic religion, Santayana on leaving Harvard moves even fartherfrom the role of philosophical statesman by removing therepresentative authority of language from the quest for acomprehensive synthesis, by narrowing the line between literature andphilosophy (as he had earlier done between religion and poetry), andby wrestling more with the influence of James than of Emerson.Santayana’s stay in Oxford during the Great War led to hisfamous counter to Wilson’s war to end all wars: “Only thedead have seen the end of war.” (Soliloquies in England andLater Soliloquies, 102)

Santayana’s message is clear: The epistemological project thatRussell’sProblems epitomizes is diseased. The renewedquest to establish unmediated Knowledge of Reality simply leads to“intellectual cramp” (Soliloquies, 216).Philosophy has itself become spirituallydisordered byblinding its practitioners from their traditional and proper task,which is to celebrate the good life. If the spiritual disciplines ofphilosophy are to thrive, philosophers have to take off the bandagesof epistemology and metaphysics altogether, accept the finite andfallible status of their knowledge claims, and get on with confessingtheir belief in the things that make life worth living (Levinson,204).

Leaving Harvard and America enabled Santayana to develop hisnaturalism.

4. Naturalism

Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923) introducesSantayana’s mature naturalism. In summary, he maintains thatknowledge and belief are not the result of reasoning. They areinescapable beliefs essential for action. Epistemologicalfoundationalism is a futile approach to knowledge. A more promisingapproach is to discern the underlying belief structures assumed inanimal action and imposed by natural circumstances. The foundationsfor this approach are rooted in Aristotle’s concept of activityand the pragmatic approach to action and knowledge. Explanations ofnatural events are the proper purview of scientists, whileexplications of the meaning and value of action may be the propersphere of historians and philosophers. Even so, both scientificexplanations and philosophical explications are based in the naturalworld. Meaning and value are generated by the interaction of ourphysical makeup, which Santayana calls “psyche,” and ourmaterial environment.

Santayana’s critique of epistemological foundationalism is asunique as his heritage. With Spanish irony, he structures his argumentafter Descartes’Meditations but arrives at ananti-foundationalist conclusion. Drawing attention to what is given inan instant of awareness (the smallest conceivable moment ofconsciousness), he maintains that any knowledge or recognition foundin such an instant would have to be characterized by a concept (or“essence” to use Santayana’s term). Concepts cannotbe limited to particular instances; rather the particular object isseen as an instance of the concept (essence). Thus, pursuing doubt toits ultimate end, one is confined by the “solipsism of thepresent moment.” That is, in a single instant of awareness therecan be no knowledge or belief, since both require concepts not boundedby a moment of awareness. Hence, the ultimate end of doubt, aninstance of awareness, is empty. It is the vacant awareness of a givenwithout a basis for belief, knowledge or action. Santayana concludesthat if one attempts to find the bedrock of certainty, one may resthis claim only after he has, at least theoretically, recognized thatknowledge is composed of instances of awareness that in themselves donot contain the prerequisites for knowledge, e.g., concepts,universals, or essences. That both skepticism and proofs againstskepticism lead nowhere is precisely Santayana’s point.

Philosophy must beginin medias res (in the middle ofthings), in action itself, where there is an instinctive and arationalbelief in the natural world: “animal faith.” ForSantayana, animal faith is the arational basis for any knowledgeclaims. It is the nether world of biological order operating throughour physical, non-conscious being generating beliefs that are“radically incapable of proof” (Scepticism,35).

In rising out of passive intuition, I pass, by a vital constitutionalnecessity, to belief in discourse, in experience, in substance, intruth and in spirit. All these objects may conceivably be illusory.Belief in them however, is not grounded on a prior probability, butall judgements of probability are grounded on them. They express arational instinct or instinctive reason, the waxing faith of an animalliving in a world which he can observe and sometimes remodel.(Scepticism, 308–309)

He describes these prejudices as “animal” in an effort toemphasize our biological base and community. This emphasis is similarto Wittgenstein’s reference to convictions that are beyond beingjustified or unjustified as “something animal” (OnCertainty 359). Ours is a long-standing primitive credulity, andour most basic beliefs are those of an animal creed: “that thereis a world, that there is a future, that things sought can be found,and things seen can be eaten” (Scepticism 180).

Santayana (like Hume, Wittgenstein, and Strawson) holds there arecertain inevitable beliefs; they are inescapable given nature and ourindividual physical history. And like Wittgenstein, he maintains thatthese beliefs are various and variable. They are determined by theinterplay between environment and psyche, i.e., between our naturalconditions and the inherited, physical “organisation of theanimal” (the psyche). That we now inescapably believe inexternal objects and the general reliability of inductive reasoning,for example, is a result of physical history and the naturalconditions of our world and ourselves. Since these beliefs arerelative to our physical histories, if our history and biologicalorder had been different, our natural beliefs would also bedifferent.

The environment determines the occasions on which intuitions arise,the psyche — the inherited organisation of the animal —determines their form, and ancient conditions of life on Earth nodoubt determined which psyches should arise and prosper; and probablymany forms of intuition, unthinkable to man, express the facts and therhythms of nature to other animal minds (Scepticism, 88).

By displacing privileged mentalistic accounts with his pragmaticnaturalism, Santayana challenges then prevailing structures in bothAmerican and English philosophies.

Santayana explicates the primary distinguishable characteristics ofour knowledge in his four-bookRealms of Being. Believingthat philosophical terminology should have historical roots, Santayanaemployed classical terminology for these characteristics: matter,essence, spirit, and truth. And although these terms are central tomany philosophical traditions, he views his work as “a revisionof the categories of common sense, faithful in spirit to orthodoxhuman tradition, and endeavouring only to clarify those categories anddisentangle the confusions that inevitably arise …”(Realms 826).

Within Santayana’s naturalism, the origins of all events in theworld are arbitrary, temporal, and contingent. Matter (by whatevername it is called) is the principle of existence. It is “oftenuntoward, and an occasion of imperfection or conflict inthings.” (Realm of Matter, v) Hence, a “sourmoralist” may consider it evil, but, according to Santayana, ifone takes a wider view “matter would seem a good …because it is the principle of existence: it is all things in theirpotentiality and therefore the condition of all their excellence orpossible perfection.” (Realm of Matter, v) Matter isthe non-discursive, natural foundation for all that is. In itself, itis neither good nor evil but may be perceived as such when viewed fromthe vested interest of animal life. Latent animal interests convertmatter’s non-discernible, neutral face to a smile or frown. But“moral values cannot preside over nature.” (Realm ofMatter, 134) Principled values are the products of naturalforces: “The germination, definition, and prevalence of any goodmust be grounded in nature herself, not in human eloquence.”(Realm of Matter, 131) From the point of view of origins,therefore, the realm of matter is the matrix and the source ofeverything: it is nature, the sphere of genesis, the universalmother.

“Essence” is Santayana’s term for concepts andmeanings. He draws on Aristotle’s notion of essence but removesall capacities for producing effects. An essence is a universal, anobject of thought, not a material force. However, consciousness of anessence is generated by the interaction of a psyche and the materialenvironment. Hence, matter remains as the origin of existence and thearena of action, and the realm of essence encompasses all possiblethought.

“Truth,” if some disinterested observer could ascertainit, would constitute all the essences that genuinely characterize thenatural world and all activities within it. Since all living beingshave natural interests and preferences, no such knowledge of truth canexist. All conscious beings must ascertain belief about truth based onthe success of actions that sustain life and permit periods of delightand joy.

Santayana uses the term “spirit” to mean consciousness orawareness. As early as 19 April 1909, Santayana wrote to his sisterthat he was writing a brand new system of philosophy to be called“The realms of Being” — “not the mineralvegetable and animal, but something far more metaphysical, namelyEssence, Matter, and Consciousness. It will not be a long book, butvery technical.” When the book was published in the 1930s, hehad added his notion of truth and substituted “spirit” for“consciousness.” From his perspective, the substitutiondid not alter the meaning of consciousness but rather captured anentire tradition of philosophical and religious inquiry as well asborrowed associated ideas from eastern religions. But to theconsternation of traditional views, many found the identity of spiritwith consciousness a troublesome idea. And so they should, for withthis identity Santayana removes the spiritual from the field of agencyas well as from being an alternative way of living. Santayana’sapproach is therefore in direct contrast with those who think ofspirit as causing action or as fostering a particular lifestyle.Following the tracks of Aristotle, he makes the spiritual life oneform of culminating experiences arising from fulfilling activity.

Awareness evolved through the natural development of the physicalworld, and he demurs to scientific accounts for explanations of thatdevelopment. Almost poetically, he sees spirit as emerging in momentsof harmony between the psyche and the environment. Such harmony istemporary, and the disorganized natural forces permit spirit to arise“only spasmodically, to suffer and to fail. For just as thebirth of spirit is joyous, because some nascent harmony evokes it, sothe rending or smothering of that harmony, if not sudden, imposesuseless struggles and suffering” (Birth of Reason, 53).Accepting the world’s insecure equilibrium enables one tocelebrate the birth of spirit. Reasoning, particularly reasoningassociated with action, is a signal of the nascent activities of thepsyche working to harmonize its actions with the environment, and ifsuccessful, reason permits individual and social organization toprosper while spirit leads to the delight of imagination andartistry.

Some commentators characterize Santayana as an epiphenomenalist, andthere are some commonalities, specifically the view that spirit is notefficacious. But there also are considerable differences. Santayanadoes not characterize his view as one-way interactionism, primarilybecause he does not think of spirit as an object to be acted upon.Spirit is rather a distinguishable aspect of thought, generated inactivity, and may be viewed more as a relational property. Santayanasometimes speaks of spirit and essence as supervening on materialevents. But lacking the distinctions of contemporary philosophy, it isdifficult to characterize Santayana’s philosophy of mindaccurately. His view of consciousness is more celebrational, asopposed to being a burden or eliciting action. Spirit is“precisely the voice of order in nature, the music, as full oflight as of motion, of joy as of peace, that comes with an evenpartial and momentary perfection in some vital rhythm”(Birth of Reason, 53).

Santayana’s account of spirit and essence may lead one to wonderhow Santayana can be included as a pragmatist, and this classificationis accurate only if one includes an extended notion of pragmaticnaturalism. For Santayana, explanations of human life, includingreason and spirit, lie within the sciences. The nature of truth simplyis correspondence with what is, but since humans, nor any otherconscious being, are able to see beyond the determinant limits oftheir nature and environment, pragmatism becomes the test of truthrather than correspondence. In short, the nature of truth iscorrespondence while the test of truth is pragmatic. If an explanationcontinues to bear fruit over the long run, then it is accepted astruth until it is replaced by a better explanation. In this,Santayana’s account of pragmatic truth is more closely alignedwith Peirce’s conception than that of James or Dewey, includinga tripartite account of knowledge consisting of the subject, symbol,and object. Pragmatism is properly focused on scientific inquiry andexplanations, and it is severely limited, even useless, in spiritualand aesthetic matters. Pragmatism is rooted in animal life, the needto know the world in a way that fosters successful action. If all lifewere constituted only by successful or unsuccessful activities,one’s fated circumstances would govern. But consciousness makesliberation possible and brings delight and festivity in materialcircumstances.

Santayana’s anti-foundationalism, non-reductive materialism, andpragmatic naturalism coupled with his emphasis on the spiritual lifeand his view of philosophy as literature anticipated many developmentsin philosophy and literary criticism that occurred in the latter halfof the twentieth century, and these served as a challenge to the morehumanistic naturalisms of John Dewey and other American naturalists.These views also provide the foundation for his view of ethics,political philosophy, and the spiritual life.

5. Ethics, Politics, and the Spiritual Life

Santayana’s moral philosophy is based on his naturalism. Mostcommentators classify Santayana as an extreme moral relativist whomaintains that all individual moral perspectives have equal standingand are based on the heritable traits and environmental circumstancesof individuals. This naturalistic approach applies to all livingorganisms. Nature does not establish a moral hierarchy of goodsbetween animal populations nor between individual animals. However,this same moral relativism is also the basis for Santayana’sclaim that the good of individual animals is clear and is subject tonaturalistic or biological investigation.

Two tenets of his ethics are (1) the forms of the good are diverse,and (2) the good of each animal is definite and final. The moralterrain of animals, viewed from a neutral perspective, places allanimal interests and goods as equal. Each good stems from heritablephysical traits and is shaped by adaptations to the environment.Concluding that the “forms of the good are divergent,”Santayana holds that the good for each animal may differ, depending onthe nature of the psyche and the circumstances, and may be differentfor an individual animal in different times and environments. There isno one good for all, or even for an individual.

Seen as a whole, animal goods are not logically or morally ordered,they are natural, morally neutral forces. But no living being canobserve all interests with such neutrality. Situated in a particularplace and time with heritable traits, all living beings have interestsoriginating from their physiology and physical environment. ForSantayana, one may reasonably note that a neutral observer could viewall moral perspectives as equal, but such a view must be balanced bythe understanding that no animal stands on neutral ground. There is apolarity between the ideal neutral, objective understanding ofbehavior on the one hand and the committed and vested interest ofparticular living beings on the other hand. One may recognize thatevery animal good has its own standing, and one may respect thatideal, but “the right of alien natures to pursue their properaims can never abolish our right to pursue ours” (Personsand Places, 179).

Santayana’s second moral insight is that for each animal thegood is definite and final. There are specific goods for each animaldepending on the specific heritable traits and interests of the psycheand on the specific circumstances of the environment. Self-knowledge,then, is the distinguishing moral mark. The extent to which one knowsone’s interests, their complexity and centrality, will determinewhether one can achieve a good life, provided the environment isaccommodating. Santayana’s philosophy rests on his naturalismand on his humane and sympathetic appreciation for the excellence ofeach life. But from the perspective of autobiography,Santayana’s clear notion of self-knowledge, in the sense of theGreeks, is his most distinguishing mark. For Santayana,“integrity or self-definition is and remains first andfundamental in morals …” (Persons and Places170).

Self-knowledge requires a critical appreciation of one’s cultureand physical inheritance, and the ability to shape one’s life instreams of conflicting goods within oneself and within one’scommunity. Although this position is common to many considerations ofpolitical philosophy, Santayana’s approach to politics was muchmore conservative than that normally associated with the founders ofAmerican pragmatism, such as James and Dewey.

Santayana’s political conservatism is founded on his naturalismand his emphasis on self-realization and spirituality. He is concernedthat liberal democracy may not provide a consistent basis forindividual freedom and spirituality. The twin fears of private anarchyand public uniformity are the grounds for his criticisms of democracy,and his account of social justice focuses on the individual ratherthan the society. Santayana’s inattentiveness to socialinequality is perhaps understandable in the context of his naturalismwhere the final cause is the “authority of things.” Hisbasic contention that individual suffering is the worse feature ofhuman life, not social inequality, causes him to focus more on thenatural dilemmas of the individual rather than on social action.Coupling this argument with the view that all institutions, includinggovernments, are inextricably rooted in their culture and backgroundperhaps makes it understandable that he would not readily see howparticular views of social inequality could be transferred readilyfrom one culture to another. In addition, Santayana’s Europeanand particularly Spanish background influenced his attitudes towardsocial action. His repeated “Latin” perspective caused himto look with considerable suspicion toward forcing Anglo-Saxonoutlooks on other cultures. Yet, in individual matters he wasremarkably forthcoming as when he provided financial support tonumerous friends, often of quite different philosophical, literary,and political persuasions than his own.

Within the natural order every living entity stands on the samenatural ground bathing equally in the impartial light of nature. Noone can claim a central place above others. But each entity also hasan embodied set of values, and the art of life is to structureone’s environment in such a fashion as to best realize thoseembodied values, i.e., to place in harmony the natural forces ofone’s life and one’s environment.

American democracy has an exacting challenge. Lacking the time to livein the mind, Americans use quantity as a justification for lack ofquality in their achievements. Quantity is potentially infinite andassures unrivaled busy-ness, but is it worth it? No, according toSantayana, if self-realization is the goal of individual life. Ofcourse, circumstances make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for someindividuals to order their lives reasonably and attain the practicalwisdom to achieve individual happiness. America’s economicsuccess would appear to make this possible for many, but to succeedAmericans must abandon servility to mechanism and economics. What isneeded is a life made free by a recovery of the capacity to have avision of the good life (Persons and Places, xxxiv).According to Santayana, the fanatic is a person who has lost sight oftheir goals and redoubled their efforts. To supplant this busy, blind,relentlessly quantitative existence, we must regain sight of ourgoals. Individual life should be structured in light of thosegoals.

Santayana’s focus is on the individual, and the role of thestate is to protect and to enable the individual to flourish. The goalis not something far off to be worked toward. It is not a task to beaccomplished and then supplanted by another task, as is often the casewith American enterprise does. Rather it is the celebration of life inits festivities. It is Aristotle’s practical wisdom: structuringindividual life as it is, living it joyfully, and assuring thatone’s commitments are conducive to the delights of the intellectand consistent with the demands of the time and tradition. It is theexercise of one’s free choice, shaping one’s life throughmaterial well-being, but doing so to appreciate the poetic, dramaticquality of our own existence. To rush through life and die without thejoy of living, that is the tragedy of American life.

For some, though perhaps not for many, the spiritual life will be anorganizing good. The cultural background for the spiritual life is thereligious life, primarily as found within the Catholic Church andinformed by the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuryaccounts of Eastern religions. But Santayana is not interested in anhistorical or doctrinal explication of the elements of traditionalreligion, rather the philosophical task is to discern the elementsgiving rise to such traditional views, and, in his own case, toexplicate the aspects of these origins without the dogmatism oftraditional religious belief.

Introducing the concept of a spiritual life led some to see aninherent conflict between Santayana’s life of reason and thespiritual life. In a letter to Milton Karl Munitz (23 July 1939),Santayana explains the different perspectives of the life of reasonand the spiritual life:

I admit gladly that religion (= the “Spiritual life”) is anatural interest, to be collated within the life of reason with everyother interest; but it is an interest in the ultimate, an adjustmentto life, death, science, and politics; and though cultivated speciallyby certain minds at certain hours, it has no moral or natural claim topredominance. The races and ages in which it is absent will inevitablyregard it as unnecessary and obstructive, because they tend to arrangetheir moral economy without religion at all. Those to whom religion isabsorbing (e.g., the Indians) will on the contrary think a moraleconomy inferior in which no place and no influence is given to themonition of ultimate facts. I think you would not find my two voicesinharmonious (I agree that they are different in pitch) if you did notlive in America in the XXth century when the “dominance of theforeground” is so pronounced. The dominance of the distance orbackground would impose a different synthesis. (Works, v. 5,book 6, 254)

If the spiritual life was considered a dominating or guiding influencein structuring one’s life, the way Santayana views reason, thenone would be forced to choose between the life of reason and the lifeof the spirit as a monk or a nun must choose between the life of theworld and that of the religious order. But for Santayana, no suchconflict exists; spirituality is not choosing a way of living over anextended period of time. Indeed, any effort to choose such a lifewould be short lived, since the spiritual life is a life ofreceptivity to all that comes in the moment while suspending animalinterests. Suspending one’s specific natural interests, such aseating or sleeping, for any extended period would be both detrimentaland tragic.

Consciousness essentially is only awareness, an attention to what isgiven, rather than being an instrument in reshaping the world.Consciousness, emerging late in the evolutionary pathway, is aflowering of happy circumstances that celebrates what is given, andwhen truly recognized, does only that. It is joyful, delighting inwhat is presented, and not troubled by where it leads or what itmeans. This is not to restate Santayana’s view poetically butrather to convey that Santayana characterizes consciousness, itself,as poetic rather than as a means to an action or as a way ofimplementing an action. The more dower, moralistic, and evangelicalaspects of religion he saw as confused efforts to make religion ascience, a social club, or a political movement. Spirit, orconsciousness, is momentary, fleeting, and depends on the physicalforces of our bodies and environment in order to exist. Shapingone’s life to enhance these spiritual, fleeting moments,extending them as long as is practical, is one of the delights ofliving for some people, but it is certainly not a goal for all, norshould it be.

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• Volume I (1986),Persons and Places: Fragments ofAutobiography, edited by William G. Holzberger and Herman J.Saatkamp, Jr., Introduction by Richard C. Lyon.
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Selected Translations

• Filosofia del viaggio, Giuseppe Patella, translator,Roma: UniversItalia, 2013.
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• Interpretaciones de poesía y religión,Carmen García Trevijano and Susana Nuccetelli, translators,with Introduction by Manuel Garrido, Madrid: Catedra, 1993 (Oviedo:KRK, 2008).
• Il senso della Bellezza, Guiseppe Patella, translator,Palermo: Aesthetica Edizioni, 1997.
• El Sentido de la belleza, Carmen García Trevijano,translator, Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 1999.
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