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George Santayana

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana (/ˌsæntiˈænə, -ˈɑːnə/;[2] December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952), was a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the US from the age of eight and identified himself as an American, although he always retained a valid Spanish passport.[3] At the age of 48, Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently. His last will was to be buried in the Spanish Pantheon in Rome.

George Santayana
A 1936 Time drawing of Santayana
Born
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás

(1863-12-16)December 16, 1863
Madrid, Spain
DiedSeptember 26, 1952(1952-09-26) (aged 88)
Rome, Italy
NationalitySpanish
Education
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
School
Doctoral advisorJosiah Royce
Notable studentsJacob Loewenberg,[1] Conrad Aiken, T. S. Eliot, Horace Kallen, Walter Lippmann, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edward Rand, Alain Locke, Van Wyck Brooks, Learned Hand, Felix Frankfurter, Max Eastman, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens
Main interests
Notable ideas
Signature

Santayana is popularly known for aphorisms, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it",[4] "Only the dead have seen the end of war",[5] and the definition of beauty as "pleasure objectified".[6] Although an atheist, he treasured the Spanish Catholic values, practices, and worldview in which he was raised.[7] Santayana was a broad-ranging cultural critic spanning many disciplines. He was profoundly influenced by Spinoza's life and thought, and in many respects was a devoted Spinozist.[8]

Early life edit

Santayana was born on December 16, 1863, in Calle de San Bernardo of Madrid and spent his early childhood in Ávila, Spain. His mother Josefina Borrás was the daughter of a Spanish official in the Philippines and he was the only child of her second marriage.[9] Josefina Borrás' first husband was George Sturgis, a Bostonian merchant with the Manila firm Russell & Sturgis, with whom she had five children, two of whom 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. A colonial civil servant, Ruiz de Santayana was a painter and minor intellectual. 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 entered Harvard College and began to take his summer vacations in Spain. Sometime during this period, Jorge's first name was anglicized as George, the English equivalent.

Education edit

 
Santayana lived in Hollis Hall as a student at Harvard.

Santayana attended Boston Latin School and Harvard College, where he studied under the philosophers William James and Josiah Royce and was involved in eleven clubs as an alternative to athletics. He was founder and president of the Philosophical Club, a member of the literary society known as the O.K., an editor and cartoonist for The Harvard Lampoon, and co-founder of the literary journal The Harvard Monthly.[10] In December, 1885, he played the role of Lady Elfrida in the Hasty Pudding theatrical Robin Hood, followed by the production Papillonetta in the spring of his senior year.[11] He received his A.B. summa cum laude in 1886 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.[citation needed]

After graduating from Harvard[12] in 1886, Santayana studied for two years in Berlin.[13] He then returned to Harvard to write his dissertation on Hermann Lotze (1889).[14] He was a professor at Harvard from 1889 to 1912,[9] becoming part of the Golden Age of the Harvard philosophy department. Some of his Harvard students became famous in their own right, including Conrad Aiken, W. E. B. Du Bois, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Horace Kallen, Walter Lippmann and Gertrude Stein. Wallace Stevens was not among his students but became a friend.[15] From 1896 to 1897, Santayana studied at King's College, Cambridge.[16]

Later life edit

 
Santayana early in his career

Santayana never married. His romantic life, if any, is not well understood. Some evidence, including a comment Santayana made late in life comparing himself to A. E. Housman, and his friendships with people who were openly homosexual and bisexual, 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]

In 1912, Santayana resigned his position at Harvard to spend the rest of his life in Europe. He had saved money and been aided by a legacy from his mother. After some years in Ávila, Paris and Oxford, after 1920, he began to winter in Rome, 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 unexpected best-seller. In turn, he financially assisted a number of writers, including Bertrand Russell, with whom he was in fundamental disagreement, philosophically and politically.

Santayana's one novel, The Last Puritan, is a Bildungsroman, centering on the personal growth of its protagonist, Oliver Alden. His Persons and Places is an autobiography. These works also contain many of his sharper opinions and bons mots. He wrote books and essays on a wide range of subjects, including philosophy of a less technical sort, literary criticism, the history of ideas, politics, human nature, morals, the influence of religion on culture and social psychology, all with considerable wit and humor.

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. Like Alexis de Tocqueville, Santayana observed American culture and character from a foreigner's point of view. Like William James, his friend and mentor, he wrote philosophy in a literary way. Ezra Pound includes Santayana among his many cultural references in The Cantos, notably in "Canto LXXXI" and "Canto XCV". Santayana is usually considered an American writer, although he declined to become an American citizen, resided in Fascist Italy for decades, and said that he was most comfortable, intellectually and aesthetically, at Oxford University. Although an atheist, Santayana considered himself an "aesthetic Catholic" and spent the last decade of his life in Rome under the care of Catholic nuns. In 1941, he entered a hospital and convent run by the Little Company of Mary (also known as the Blue Nuns) on the Celian Hill at 6 Via Santo Stefano Rotondo in Roma, where he was cared for by the sisters until his death in September 1952.[18] Upon his death, he did not want to be buried in consecrated 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 the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome.

Philosophical work and publications edit

 
Although schooled in German idealism, Santayana was critical of it and made an effort to distance himself from its epistemology.

Santayana's main philosophical work consists of The Sense of Beauty (1896), his first book-length monograph and perhaps the first major work on aesthetics written in the United States; The Life of Reason (5 vols., 1905–06), the high point of his Harvard career; Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923); and The Realms of Being (4 vols., 1927–1940). Although Santayana was not a pragmatist in the mold of William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, Josiah Royce, or John Dewey, The Life of Reason arguably is the first extended treatment of pragmatism written.

Like many of the classical pragmatists, and because he was well-versed in evolutionary theory, Santayana was committed to metaphysical naturalism. He believed that human cognition, cultural practices, and social institutions 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 to The Life of Reason, "the Phases of Human Progress", is indicative of this metaphysical stance.

Santayana was an early adherent of epiphenomenalism, but also admired the classical materialism of Democritus and Lucretius. (Of the three authors on whom he wrote in Three Philosophical Poets, Santayana speaks most favorably of Lucretius). He held Spinoza's writings in high regard, calling him his "master and model".[19]

Although an atheist,[20][21] he held a fairly benign view of religion and described himself as an "aesthetic Catholic". Santayana's views on religion are outlined in his books Reason in Religion, The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, and Interpretations of Poetry and Religion.

He held racial superiority and eugenic views. He believed superior races should be discouraged from "intermarriage with inferior stock".[22]

Legacy edit

 
 
Santayana's famous aphorism "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" is inscribed on a plaque at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Polish translation and English back-translation (above), and on a subway placard in Germany (below).

Santayana is remembered in large part for his aphorisms, many of which have been so frequently used as to have become clichéd. His philosophy has not fared quite as well. He is regarded by most as an excellent prose stylist, and John Lachs (who is sympathetic with much of Santayana's philosophy) writes, in On Santayana, that his eloquence may ironically be the very cause of this neglect.

Santayana influenced those around him, including Bertrand Russell, whom Santayana single-handedly steered away from the ethics of G. E. Moore.[23] He also influenced many prominent people such as Harvard students T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Gertrude Stein, Horace Kallen, Walter Lippmann, W. E. B. Du Bois, Conrad Aiken, Van Wyck Brooks, Felix Frankfurter, Max Eastman, Wallace Stevens. Stevens was especially influenced by Santayana's aesthetics and became a friend even though Stevens did not take courses taught by Santayana.[24][25][26]

Santayana is quoted by the Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman as a central influence in the thesis of his famous book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). Religious historian Jerome A. Stone credits Santayana with contributing to the early thinking in the development of religious naturalism.[27] English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead quotes Santayana extensively in his magnum opus Process and Reality (1929).[28]

Chuck Jones used Santayana's description of fanaticism as "redoubling your effort after you've forgotten your aim" to describe his cartoons starring Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.[29]

 
Along with Wendell Phillips and John F. Kennedy, Santayana is quoted on a military plaque at Veterans Memorial Park in Rhome, Texas.

In popular culture edit

Santayana's passing is referenced in the lyrics to singer-songwriter Billy Joel's 1989 music single, "We Didn't Start the Fire".[30]

The quote "Only the dead have seen the end of war" is frequently attributed or misattributed to Plato; an early example of this misattribution (if it is indeed misattributed) is found in General Douglas MacArthur's Farewell Speech given to the Corps of Cadets at West Point in 1962.[31][32]

Awards edit

  • Royal Society of Literature Benson Medal, 1925.[33]
  • Columbia University Butler Gold Medal, 1945.[34]
  • Honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin, 1911.[35]

Bibliography edit

 
Santayana's Reason in Common Sense was published in five volumes between 1905 and 1906 (this edition is from 1920).
  • 1894. Sonnets And Other Verses.
  • 1896. The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outline of Aesthetic Theory.
  • 1899. Lucifer: A Theological Tragedy.
  • 1900. Interpretations of Poetry and Religion.
  • 1901. A Hermit of Carmel And Other Poems.
  • 1905–1906. The Life of Reason: or the Phases of Human Progress, 5 vols.
  • 1910. Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe.
  • 1913. Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion.
  • 1915. Egotism in German Philosophy.
  • 1920. Character and Opinion in the United States: With Reminiscences of William James and Josiah Royce and Academic Life in America.
  • 1920. Little Essays, Drawn From the Writings of George Santayana. by Logan Pearsall Smith, With the Collaboration of the Author.
  • 1922. Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies.
  • 1922. Poems.
  • 1923. Scepticism and Animal Faith: Introduction to a System of Philosophy.
  • 1926. Dialogues in Limbo
  • 1927. Platonism and the Spiritual Life.
  • 1927–40. The Realms of Being, 4 vols.
  • 1931. The Genteel Tradition at Bay.
  • 1933. Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy: Five Essays
  • 1935. The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel.
  • 1936. Obiter Scripta: Lectures, Essays and Reviews. Justus Buchler and Benjamin Schwartz, eds.
  • 1944. Persons and Places.
  • 1945. The Middle Span.
  • 1946. The Idea of Christ in the Gospels; or, God in Man: A Critical Essay.
  • 1948. Dialogues in Limbo, With Three New Dialogues.
  • 1951. Dominations and Powers: Reflections on Liberty, Society, and Government.
  • 1953. My Host The World

Posthumous edited/selected works edit

  • 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 by James Seaton and contributions by Wilfred 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 by Daniel Moreno, and a Prologue by José Beltrán.

The Works of George Santayana edit

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, incorporating Persons and Places, 1944; The Middle Span, 1945; and My Host the World, 1953.
  • 1988 (1896). The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outline of Aesthetic Theory.
  • 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 of his letters, many discovered posthumously, to more than 350 recipients.
    • 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.
    • 2006. Book Seven, 1941–1947.
    • 2008. Book Eight, 1948–1952.
  • 2011. George Santayana's Marginalia: A Critical Selection, Books 1 and 2. Compiled by John O. McCormick and edited by Kristine W. Frost.
  • The Life of Reason in five books.
    • 2011 (1905). Reason in Common Sense.
    • 2013 (1905). Reason in Society.
    • 2014 (1905). Reason in Religion.
    • 2015 (1905). Reason in Art.
    • 2016 (1906). Reason in Science.
  • 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

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ John R. Shook (ed.), The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, Continuum, 2005, p. 1499.
  2. ^ "the definition of Santayana". dictionary.com. from the original on November 23, 2018. Retrieved May 7, 2016.
  3. ^ George Santayana, "Apologia Pro Mente Sua", in P. A. Schilpp, The Philosophy of George Santayana (1940), 603.
  4. ^ George Santayana (1905) Reason in Common Sense, p. 284, volume 1 of The Life of Reason
  5. ^ George Santayana (1922) Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, number 25
  6. ^ . Archived from the original on April 26, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2016.
  7. ^ Lovely, Edward W. (September 28, 2012). George Santayana's Philosophy of Religion: His Roman Catholic Influences and Phenomenology. Lexington Books. pp. 1, 204–206.
  8. ^ See his letters and works (such as Persons and Places; Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies)
  9. ^ a b "George Santayana" at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy February 16, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved April 25, 2021
  10. ^ Parri, Alice Two Harvard Friends: Charles Loeser and George Santayana[1] September 25, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Garrison, Lloyd McKim, An Illustrated History of the Hasty Pudding Club Theatricals, Cambridge, Hasty Pudding Club, 1897.
  12. ^ [2] August 29, 2019, at the Wayback Machine and he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa student fraternity Who Belongs To Phi Beta Kappa January 3, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Phi Beta Kappa website, accessed October 4, 2009
  13. ^ "Santayana, George". Who's Who. Vol. 59. 1907. p. 1555.
  14. ^ George Santayana, Lotze's system of philosophy, Ph.D., 1889
  15. ^ Lensing, George S. (1986). Wallace Stevens: A Poet's Growth. LSU Press. 313 pp. ISBN 0807112976. pp. 12–13.
  16. ^ "Santayana, George (SNTN896G)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  17. ^ Saatkamp, Herman; Coleman, Martin (January 1, 2014). Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. from the original on March 18, 2019. Retrieved April 8, 2017 – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  18. ^ "George Santayana, 88, Dies in Rome". Harvard Crimson death notice of September 29, 1952. November 16, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. See also Harold Kirker (Fall 1990), "Santayana in Rome", Bulletin of the Santayana Society, pp. 35–37 for Kirker's wartime visit with Santayana in Rome.
  19. ^ George Santayana (1948–1952), The Letters of George Santayana, Book Eight, p. 8:39
  20. ^ "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", in Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 1922 (from Rawson's Dictionary of American Quotations via credoreference.com). Accessed August 1, 2008.
  21. ^ "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.
  22. ^ Santayana, George (November 26, 2015). "The Life of Reason: Human Understanding".
  23. ^ Michael K. Potter. Bertrand Russell's Ethics. London and New York: Continuum, 2006. Pp. xiii, 185. ISBN 0826488102, p.4
  24. ^ Lensing, George S. (1986). Wallace Stevens: A Poet's Growth. LSU Press. 313 pp. ISBN 0807112976. p.12-23.
  25. ^ . Archived from the original on July 25, 2013. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
  26. ^ Saatkamp, Herman, "George Santayana December 2, 2013, at the Wayback Machine" The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
  27. ^ Religious Naturalism Today, pp. 21–37
  28. ^ 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.
  29. ^ See the sixth paragraph, That's Not All, Folks! "Of course you know this means war." Who said it?, by Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal, November 25, 2003, (Archived at ).
  30. ^ We Didn't Start the Fire May 6, 2021, at the Wayback Machine. BillyJoel.com. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
  31. ^ SUZANNE, Bernard F. "Plato FAQ: Did Plato write :"Only the dead have seen the end of war"?". plato-dialogues.org. from the original on October 18, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  32. ^ "Who Really Said That?". The Chronicle of Higher Education. September 16, 2013. from the original on June 25, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  33. ^ . Archived from the original on September 18, 2013. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
  34. ^ George Santayana; William G. Holzberger (Editor). (2006). The Letters of George Santayana, Book Seven, 1941–1947. (MIT Press (MA), Hardcover, 9780262195560, 569pp.) (p. 143).
  35. ^ . Archived from the original on September 28, 2013.

Further reading edit

  • W. Arnett, 1955. Santayana and the Sense of Beauty, Bloomington, Indiana University Press.
  • H. T. Kirby-Smith, 1997. A Philosophical Novelist: George Santayana and the Last Puritan. Southern Illinois University Press.
  • Jeffers, Thomas L., 2005. Apprenticeships: The Bildungsroman from Goethe to Santayana. New York: Palgrave: 159–84.
  • Lamont, Corliss (ed., with the assistance of Mary Redmer), 1959. Dialogue on George Santayana. New York: Horizon Press.
  • McCormick, John, 1987. George Santayana: A Biography. Alfred A. Knopf. The biography.
  • Padrón, Charles and Skowroński, Krzysztof Piotr, eds. 2018. The Life of Reason in an Age of Terrorism, Leiden-Boston: Brill.
  • Saatkamp, Herman 2021, A Life of Scholarship with Santayana, edited by Charles Padrón and Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński, Leiden-Boston: Brill.
  • Singer, Irving, 2000. George Santayana, Literary Philosopher. Yale University Press.
  • Skowroński, Krzysztof Piotr, 2007. Santayana and America: Values, Liberties, Responsibility, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Flamm, Matthew Caleb and Skowroński, Krzysztof Piotr (eds), 2007. Under Any Sky: Contemporary Readings of George Santayana. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Miguel Alfonso, Ricardo (ed.), 2010, La estética de George Santayana, Madrid: Verbum.
  • Patella, Giuseppe, Belleza, arte y vida. La estética mediterranea de George Santayana, Valencia, PUV, 2010, pp. 212. ISBN 978-84-370-7734-5.
  • Pérez Firmat, Gustavo. Tongue Ties: Logo-Eroticism in Anglo-Hispanic Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
  • Moreno, Daniel. Santayana the Philosopher: Philosophy as a Form of Life. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2015. Translated by Charles Padron.
  • Kremplewska, Katarzyna. George Santayana's Political Hermeneutics. Brill, 2022.

External links edit

george, santayana, this, spanish, name, first, paternal, surname, ruiz, santayana, second, maternal, family, name, borrás, santayana, redirects, here, surname, santayana, surname, jorge, agustín, nicolás, ruiz, santayana, borrás, known, english, ɑː, december, . In this Spanish name the first or paternal surname is Ruiz de Santayana and the second or maternal family name is Borras Santayana redirects here For the surname see Santayana surname Jorge Agustin Nicolas Ruiz de Santayana y Borras known in English as George Santayana ˌ s ae n t i ˈ ae n e ˈ ɑː n e 2 December 16 1863 September 26 1952 was a Spanish American philosopher essayist poet and novelist Born in Spain Santayana was raised and educated in the US from the age of eight and identified himself as an American although he always retained a valid Spanish passport 3 At the age of 48 Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently His last will was to be buried in the Spanish Pantheon in Rome George SantayanaA 1936 Time drawing of SantayanaBornJorge Agustin Nicolas Ruiz de Santayana y Borras 1863 12 16 December 16 1863Madrid SpainDiedSeptember 26 1952 1952 09 26 aged 88 Rome ItalyNationalitySpanishEducationHarvard University AB PhD King s College CambridgeEra20th century philosophyRegionWestern philosophySchoolPragmatismnaturalismDoctoral advisorJosiah RoyceNotable studentsJacob Loewenberg 1 Conrad Aiken T S Eliot Horace Kallen Walter Lippmann W E B Du Bois Edward Rand Alain Locke Van Wyck Brooks Learned Hand Felix Frankfurter Max Eastman Gertrude Stein Wallace StevensMain interestsMoral philosophypolitical philosophyepistemologymetaphysicsphilosophy of religionNotable ideasLucretian materialismSkepticismNatural aristocracyRealms of BeingSignature Santayana is popularly known for aphorisms such as Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it 4 Only the dead have seen the end of war 5 and the definition of beauty as pleasure objectified 6 Although an atheist he treasured the Spanish Catholic values practices and worldview in which he was raised 7 Santayana was a broad ranging cultural critic spanning many disciplines He was profoundly influenced by Spinoza s life and thought and in many respects was a devoted Spinozist 8 Contents 1 Early life 2 Education 3 Later life 4 Philosophical work and publications 5 Legacy 6 In popular culture 7 Awards 8 Bibliography 8 1 Posthumous edited selected works 8 2 The Works of George Santayana 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External linksEarly life editSantayana was born on December 16 1863 in Calle de San Bernardo of Madrid and spent his early childhood in Avila Spain His mother Josefina Borras was the daughter of a Spanish official in the Philippines and he was the only child of her second marriage 9 Josefina Borras first husband was George Sturgis a Bostonian merchant with the Manila firm Russell amp Sturgis with whom she had five children two of whom 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 Agustin Ruiz de Santayana an old friend from her years in the Philippines They married in 1862 A colonial civil servant Ruiz de Santayana was a painter and minor intellectual The family lived in Madrid and Avila and Jorge was born in Spain in 1863 In 1869 Josefina Borras 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 Avila and remained there the rest of his life Jorge did not see him again until he entered Harvard College and began to take his summer vacations in Spain Sometime during this period Jorge s first name was anglicized as George the English equivalent Education edit nbsp Santayana lived in Hollis Hall as a student at Harvard Santayana attended Boston Latin School and Harvard College where he studied under the philosophers William James and Josiah Royce and was involved in eleven clubs as an alternative to athletics He was founder and president of the Philosophical Club a member of the literary society known as the O K an editor and cartoonist for The Harvard Lampoon and co founder of the literary journal The Harvard Monthly 10 In December 1885 he played the role of Lady Elfrida in the Hasty Pudding theatrical Robin Hood followed by the production Papillonetta in the spring of his senior year 11 He received his A B summa cum laude in 1886 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa citation needed After graduating from Harvard 12 in 1886 Santayana studied for two years in Berlin 13 He then returned to Harvard to write his dissertation on Hermann Lotze 1889 14 He was a professor at Harvard from 1889 to 1912 9 becoming part of the Golden Age of the Harvard philosophy department Some of his Harvard students became famous in their own right including Conrad Aiken W E B Du Bois T S Eliot Robert Frost Horace Kallen Walter Lippmann and Gertrude Stein Wallace Stevens was not among his students but became a friend 15 From 1896 to 1897 Santayana studied at King s College Cambridge 16 Later life editThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources George Santayana news newspapers books scholar JSTOR May 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message nbsp Santayana early in his careerSantayana never married His romantic life if any is not well understood Some evidence including a comment Santayana made late in life comparing himself to A E Housman and his friendships with people who were openly homosexual and bisexual 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 In 1912 Santayana resigned his position at Harvard to spend the rest of his life in Europe He had saved money and been aided by a legacy from his mother After some years in Avila Paris and Oxford after 1920 he began to winter in Rome 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 unexpected best seller In turn he financially assisted a number of writers including Bertrand Russell with whom he was in fundamental disagreement philosophically and politically Santayana s one novel The Last Puritan is a Bildungsroman centering on the personal growth of its protagonist Oliver Alden His Persons and Places is an autobiography These works also contain many of his sharper opinions and bons mots He wrote books and essays on a wide range of subjects including philosophy of a less technical sort literary criticism the history of ideas politics human nature morals the influence of religion on culture and social psychology all with considerable wit and humor 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 Like Alexis de Tocqueville Santayana observed American culture and character from a foreigner s point of view Like William James his friend and mentor he wrote philosophy in a literary way Ezra Pound includes Santayana among his many cultural references in The Cantos notably in Canto LXXXI and Canto XCV Santayana is usually considered an American writer although he declined to become an American citizen resided in Fascist Italy for decades and said that he was most comfortable intellectually and aesthetically at Oxford University Although an atheist Santayana considered himself an aesthetic Catholic and spent the last decade of his life in Rome under the care of Catholic nuns In 1941 he entered a hospital and convent run by the Little Company of Mary also known as the Blue Nuns on the Celian Hill at 6 Via Santo Stefano Rotondo in Roma where he was cared for by the sisters until his death in September 1952 18 Upon his death he did not want to be buried in consecrated 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 Pia Espanola in the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome Philosophical work and publications edit nbsp Although schooled in German idealism Santayana was critical of it and made an effort to distance himself from its epistemology Santayana s main philosophical work consists of The Sense of Beauty 1896 his first book length monograph and perhaps the first major work on aesthetics written in the United States The Life of Reason 5 vols 1905 06 the high point of his Harvard career Scepticism and Animal Faith 1923 and The Realms of Being 4 vols 1927 1940 Although Santayana was not a pragmatist in the mold of William James Charles Sanders Peirce Josiah Royce or John Dewey The Life of Reason arguably is the first extended treatment of pragmatism written Like many of the classical pragmatists and because he was well versed in evolutionary theory Santayana was committed to metaphysical naturalism He believed that human cognition cultural practices and social institutions 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 to The Life of Reason the Phases of Human Progress is indicative of this metaphysical stance Santayana was an early adherent of epiphenomenalism but also admired the classical materialism of Democritus and Lucretius Of the three authors on whom he wrote in Three Philosophical Poets Santayana speaks most favorably of Lucretius He held Spinoza s writings in high regard calling him his master and model 19 Although an atheist 20 21 he held a fairly benign view of religion and described himself as an aesthetic Catholic Santayana s views on religion are outlined in his books Reason in Religion The Idea of Christ in the Gospels and Interpretations of Poetry and Religion He held racial superiority and eugenic views He believed superior races should be discouraged from intermarriage with inferior stock 22 Legacy edit nbsp nbsp Santayana s famous aphorism Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it is inscribed on a plaque at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Polish translation and English back translation above and on a subway placard in Germany below Santayana is remembered in large part for his aphorisms many of which have been so frequently used as to have become cliched His philosophy has not fared quite as well He is regarded by most as an excellent prose stylist and John Lachs who is sympathetic with much of Santayana s philosophy writes in On Santayana that his eloquence may ironically be the very cause of this neglect Santayana influenced those around him including Bertrand Russell whom Santayana single handedly steered away from the ethics of G E Moore 23 He also influenced many prominent people such as Harvard students T S Eliot Robert Frost Gertrude Stein Horace Kallen Walter Lippmann W E B Du Bois Conrad Aiken Van Wyck Brooks Felix Frankfurter Max Eastman Wallace Stevens Stevens was especially influenced by Santayana s aesthetics and became a friend even though Stevens did not take courses taught by Santayana 24 25 26 Santayana is quoted by the Canadian American sociologist Erving Goffman as a central influence in the thesis of his famous book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life 1959 Religious historian Jerome A Stone credits Santayana with contributing to the early thinking in the development of religious naturalism 27 English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead quotes Santayana extensively in his magnum opus Process and Reality 1929 28 Chuck Jones used Santayana s description of fanaticism as redoubling your effort after you ve forgotten your aim to describe his cartoons starring Wile E Coyote and Road Runner 29 nbsp Along with Wendell Phillips and John F Kennedy Santayana is quoted on a military plaque at Veterans Memorial Park in Rhome Texas In popular culture editSantayana s passing is referenced in the lyrics to singer songwriter Billy Joel s 1989 music single We Didn t Start the Fire 30 The quote Only the dead have seen the end of war is frequently attributed or misattributed to Plato an early example of this misattribution if it is indeed misattributed is found in General Douglas MacArthur s Farewell Speech given to the Corps of Cadets at West Point in 1962 31 32 Awards editRoyal Society of Literature Benson Medal 1925 33 Columbia University Butler Gold Medal 1945 34 Honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin 1911 35 Bibliography edit nbsp Santayana s Reason in Common Sense was published in five volumes between 1905 and 1906 this edition is from 1920 1894 Sonnets And Other Verses 1896 The Sense of Beauty Being the Outline of Aesthetic Theory 1899 Lucifer A Theological Tragedy 1900 Interpretations of Poetry and Religion 1901 A Hermit of Carmel And Other Poems 1905 1906 The Life of Reason or the Phases of Human Progress 5 vols 1910 Three Philosophical Poets Lucretius Dante and Goethe 1913 Winds of Doctrine Studies in Contemporary Opinion 1915 Egotism in German Philosophy 1920 Character and Opinion in the United States With Reminiscences of William James and Josiah Royce and Academic Life in America 1920 Little Essays Drawn From the Writings of George Santayana by Logan Pearsall Smith With the Collaboration of the Author 1922 Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies 1922 Poems 1923 Scepticism and Animal Faith Introduction to a System of Philosophy 1926 Dialogues in Limbo 1927 Platonism and the Spiritual Life 1927 40 The Realms of Being 4 vols 1931 The Genteel Tradition at Bay 1933 Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy Five Essays 1935 The Last Puritan A Memoir in the Form of a Novel 1936 Obiter Scripta Lectures Essays and Reviews Justus Buchler and Benjamin Schwartz eds 1944 Persons and Places 1945 The Middle Span 1946 The Idea of Christ in the Gospels or God in Man A Critical Essay 1948 Dialogues in Limbo With Three New Dialogues 1951 Dominations and Powers Reflections on Liberty Society and Government 1953 My Host The World Posthumous edited selected works edit 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 by James Seaton and contributions by Wilfred M McClay John Lachs Roger Kimball and James Seaton Yale University Press 2021 Recently Discovered Letters of George Santayana Cartas recien descubiertas de George Santayana Edited and with an introduction by Daniel Pinkas translated by Daniel Moreno and a Prologue by Jose Beltran The Works of George Santayana edit 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 incorporating Persons and Places 1944 The Middle Span 1945 and My Host the World 1953 1988 1896 The Sense of Beauty Being the Outline of Aesthetic Theory 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 of his letters many discovered posthumously to more than 350 recipients 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 2006 Book Seven 1941 1947 2008 Book Eight 1948 1952 2011 George Santayana s Marginalia A Critical Selection Books 1 and 2 Compiled by John O McCormick and edited by Kristine W Frost The Life of Reason in five books 2011 1905 Reason in Common Sense 2013 1905 Reason in Society 2014 1905 Reason in Religion 2015 1905 Reason in Art 2016 1906 Reason in Science 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 ForsterSee also edit nbsp Philosophy portal nbsp Poetry portal nbsp Biography portal American philosophy List of American philosophers Scientistic materialismReferences edit John R Shook ed The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers Continuum 2005 p 1499 the definition of Santayana dictionary com Archived from the original on November 23 2018 Retrieved May 7 2016 George Santayana Apologia Pro Mente Sua in P A Schilpp The Philosophy of George Santayana 1940 603 George Santayana 1905 Reason in Common Sense p 284 volume 1 of The Life of Reason George Santayana 1922 Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies number 25 Beauty as Intrinsic Pleasure by George Santayana Archived from the original on April 26 2018 Retrieved June 15 2016 Lovely Edward W September 28 2012 George Santayana s Philosophy of Religion His Roman Catholic Influences and Phenomenology Lexington Books pp 1 204 206 See his letters and works such as Persons and Places Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies a b George Santayana at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archived February 16 2018 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved April 25 2021 Parri Alice Two Harvard Friends Charles Loeser and George Santayana 1 Archived September 25 2014 at the Wayback Machine Garrison Lloyd McKim An Illustrated History of the Hasty Pudding Club Theatricals Cambridge Hasty Pudding Club 1897 2 Archived August 29 2019 at the Wayback Machine and he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa student fraternity Who Belongs To Phi Beta Kappa Archived January 3 2012 at the Wayback Machine Phi Beta Kappa website accessed October 4 2009 Santayana George Who s Who Vol 59 1907 p 1555 George Santayana Lotze s system of philosophy Ph D 1889 Lensing George S 1986 Wallace Stevens A Poet s Growth LSU Press 313 pp ISBN 0807112976 pp 12 13 Santayana George SNTN896G A Cambridge Alumni Database University of Cambridge 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 Retrieved April 8 2017 via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy George Santayana 88 Dies in Rome Harvard Crimson death notice of September 29 1952 Archived November 16 2016 at the Wayback Machine See also Harold Kirker Fall 1990 Santayana in Rome Bulletin of the Santayana Society pp 35 37 for Kirker s wartime visit with Santayana in Rome 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 in Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies 1922 from Rawson s Dictionary 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 Santayana George November 26 2015 The Life of Reason Human Understanding Michael K Potter Bertrand Russell s Ethics London and New York Continuum 2006 Pp xiii 185 ISBN 0826488102 p 4 Lensing George S 1986 Wallace Stevens A Poet s Growth LSU Press 313 pp ISBN 0807112976 p 12 23 Stevens Wallace Archived from the original on July 25 2013 Retrieved January 7 2014 Saatkamp Herman George Santayana Archived December 2 2013 at the Wayback Machine The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Fall 2010 Edition Edward N Zalta ed Religious Naturalism Today pp 21 37 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 See the sixth paragraph That s Not All Folks Of course you know this means war Who said it by Terry Teachout The Wall Street Journal November 25 2003 Archived at WebCite We Didn t Start the Fire Archived May 6 2021 at the Wayback Machine BillyJoel com Retrieved September 25 2016 SUZANNE Bernard F Plato FAQ Did Plato write Only the dead have seen the end of war plato dialogues org Archived from the original on October 18 2018 Retrieved April 29 2018 Who Really Said That The Chronicle of Higher Education September 16 2013 Archived from the original on June 25 2018 Retrieved April 29 2018 The Benson Medal Archived from the original on September 18 2013 Retrieved January 7 2014 George Santayana William G Holzberger Editor 2006 The Letters of George Santayana Book Seven 1941 1947 MIT Press MA Hardcover 9780262195560 569pp p 143 University Lectures Secretary of the Faculty Archived from the original on September 28 2013 Further reading editW Arnett 1955 Santayana and the Sense of Beauty Bloomington Indiana University Press H T Kirby Smith 1997 A Philosophical Novelist George Santayana and the Last Puritan Southern Illinois University Press Jeffers Thomas L 2005 Apprenticeships The Bildungsroman from Goethe to Santayana New York Palgrave 159 84 Lamont Corliss ed with the assistance of Mary Redmer 1959 Dialogue on George Santayana New York Horizon Press McCormick John 1987 George Santayana A Biography Alfred A Knopf The biography Padron Charles and Skowronski Krzysztof Piotr eds 2018 The Life of Reason in an Age of Terrorism Leiden Boston Brill Saatkamp Herman 2021 A Life of Scholarship with Santayana edited by Charles Padron and Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski Leiden Boston Brill Singer Irving 2000 George Santayana Literary Philosopher Yale University Press Skowronski Krzysztof Piotr 2007 Santayana and America Values Liberties Responsibility Newcastle Cambridge Scholars Publishing Flamm Matthew Caleb and Skowronski Krzysztof Piotr eds 2007 Under Any Sky Contemporary Readings of George Santayana Newcastle Cambridge Scholars Publishing Miguel Alfonso Ricardo ed 2010 La estetica de George Santayana Madrid Verbum Patella Giuseppe Belleza arte y vida La estetica mediterranea de George Santayana Valencia PUV 2010 pp 212 ISBN 978 84 370 7734 5 Perez Firmat Gustavo Tongue Ties Logo Eroticism in Anglo Hispanic Literature New York Palgrave Macmillan 2003 Moreno Daniel Santayana the Philosopher Philosophy as a Form of Life Lewisburg Bucknell University Press 2015 Translated by Charles Padron Kremplewska Katarzyna George Santayana s Political Hermeneutics Brill 2022 External links editGeorge Santayana at Wikipedia s sister projects nbsp Media from Commons nbsp Quotations from Wikiquote nbsp Texts from Wikisource nbsp Data from Wikidata Critical Edition of the Works of George Santayana Works by George Santayana at Project Gutenberg Works by George Santayana at Faded Page Canada Works by or about George Santayana at Internet Archive Saatkamp Herman George Santayana In Zalta Edward N ed Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Includes a complete bibliography of the primary literature and a fair selection of the secondary literature Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy George Santayana by Matthew C Flamm The Santayana Edition Works by George Santayana at LibriVox public domain audiobooks nbsp Overheard in Seville Archived December 11 2013 at the Wayback Machine Bulletin of the Santayana Society On George Santayana Archived August 18 2011 at the Wayback Machine Spanish English Blog about Santayana LIMBO BOLETIN INTERNACIONAL SOBRE SANTAYANA Spanish English Bulletin about Santayana Archived August 18 2011 at the Wayback Machine George Santayana Catholic Atheist by Richard Butler in Spirituality Today Vol 38 Winter 1986 p 319 George Santayana at Curlie George Santayana at Find a Grave George Santayana Many Nations in One Empire 1934 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title George Santayana amp oldid 1220673310, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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