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Extract
It would be pleasant to start with a paradox. Santayana was an American philosopher, but he was not an American, and he was not a philosopher. The first of these two qualifying propositions is legally true, the second is a glaring, but sometimes asserted, falsehood.
- Type
- Papers
- Information
- Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 19: American Philosophy , March 1985 , pp. 115 - 133
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1985
References
Bibliographical Note
Santayana wrote many major works. The essentials of his final system are in Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923)Google Scholar, The Realm of Essence (1927)Google Scholar, The Realm of Matter (1930)Google Scholar, The Realm of Truth (1938)Google Scholar, The Realm of Spirit (1940)Google Scholar. The five volumes of The Life of Reason (1905–1906)Google Scholar are also key works. The shortened version which appeared in 1954 is best avoided. There are many other important and delightful works. A good volume to convey the general feel of Santayana's thought is Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)Google Scholar, though no one should form a conclusion as to his constructive philosophical ability on the basis of it. There are not very many full-length commentaries. My own study of his thought is Santavana: An Examination of his Philosophy (1974)Google Scholar. Some valuable articles on him are collected in Animal Faith and Spiritual Life ed. John Lachs (1967)Google Scholar. The volume The Philosophy of George Santayana ed. P. A. Schilpp (1940)Google Scholar is of value mainly for Santayana's own contributions. A Santayana newsletter is published at Waterloo University, Canada (where many of his papers are held) edited by Angus Kerr-Lawson, and a new scholarly edition of his works is in preparation under the general editorship of Professor Herman J. Saatkamp. Jr, to be published by MIT Press.