George Santayana

George Santayana (December 16, 1863, Madrid – September 26, 1952, Rome), was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Image File history File links Typical portrait of Santayana, to be found all over the Web (and in The World Book Encyclopedia, 1968). ... -1... Year 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... This article is about the Spanish capital. ... September 26 is the 269th day of the year (270th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1952 (MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Roman Colosseum Rome (Italian and Latin Roma) is the capital city of Italy, and of its Lazio region. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... An essayist is an author who writes compositions which can be about any particular subject. ... The poor poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ...

A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States, invariably wrote in English, and is considered an American man of letters. He is perhaps best known for the oft-misquoted remark, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," from Reason in Common Sense, the first volume of his The Life of Reason. The word citizen may refer to: A person with a citizenship Citizen Watch Co. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ... The Life of Reason is a book, published in five volumes from 1905 to 1906, by Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana. ...

Biography

Born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana, he spent his early childhood in Ávila, Spain. His father was a diplomat, painter, and minor intellectual. His mother was the daughter of a Spanish official in the Philippine Islands. Jorge was the only child of his mother's second marriage. She was the widow of George Sturgis, a Boston merchant by whom she had five children, two of whom died in infancy. She lived in Boston following her husband's death in 1857, but in 1861 went with her three surviving Sturgis children to live in Madrid. There she again encountered Agustin Santayana, an old friend from her years in the Philippines and married him in 1862. The family lived in Madrid and Ávila until 1869 when Santayana's mother returned to Boston with her three Sturgis children, leaving Jorge, then five, with his father in Spain. Jorge and his father followed her in 1872, but his father, not finding Boston to his liking, soon returned alone to Ávila, where he remained for the rest of his life. Jorge did not see his father again until summer vacations while he was a student at Harvard. Hence from the time he was five, Jorge's parents lived apart. Sometime during this period Jorge americanized his name to George, its English equivalent. Complete name of this city: Ávila de los Caballeros Ávila is a town in the south of Old Castile, the capital of the province of the same name, now part of the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. ... The Philippine islands is a commonly mistaken description for the Philippines. ... Year 1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...

He attended Boston Latin School and Harvard University, studying under William James and Josiah Royce, whose colleague he subsequently became. After graduating from Harvard in 1886, he studied for two years in Berlin, then returned to Harvard to write a thesis on Rudolf Hermann Lotze and teach philosophy, thus becoming part of the Golden Age of Harvard philosophy. Some of his Harvard students became famous in their own right, including T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Walter Lippmann, and Harry Austryn Wolfson. Motto Sumus Primi Founded April 23, 1635 Head Master Cornelia Kelley School type Public high school Grades 7–12 Enrollment c. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Founded in 1636,[2] Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning still operating in the United States. ... For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation) William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. ... Josiah Royce (November 20, 1855, Grass Valley, California. ... 1886 (MDCCCLXXXVI) is a common year starting on Friday (click on link to calendar) // Events January 18 - Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England. ... Berlin is the capital city and one of the sixteen states of the Federal Republic of Germany. ... Rudolf Herman Lotze (May 21, 1817 - July 1, 1881), was a German philosopher. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ... Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 29, 1946) was an American writer and catalyst in the development of modern art and literature, who spent most of her life in France. ... Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955 in poetry) was a major American Modernist poet. ... Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 - December 14, 1974) was an influential United States writer, journalist, and political commentator. ... Harry Austryn Wolfson (November 2, 1887–September 19, 1974) was a scholar, philosopher, historian, and the first chairman of a Judaic Studies Department in the United States. ...

In 1912, an inheritance from his mother allowed him to retire from Harvard and spend the rest of his life in Europe. After some years in Paris and Oxford, he began to winter in Rome starting in 1920, eventually living there year-round until his death in 1952. During his 40 years in Europe, he wrote 19 books and declined several prestigious academic positions. Most of his friends and correspondents were Americans, including his valuable assistant and eventual literary executor, Daniel Cory. The aged Santayana was comfortable, in part because his 1935 novelized memoir, The Last Puritan, sold well. In turn, he assisted financially a number of writers including Bertrand Russell, with whom he was in fundamental disagreement, philosophically and politically. Santayana never married. For a biography, see McCormick (1987). 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Floating not submerging) Paris Eiffel tower as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Nickname: The Eternal City Motto: SPQR: Senatus PopulusQue Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC  - Mayor Walter Veltroni Area    - City 1285 km²  (580 sq mi)  - Urban... Year 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... 1952 (MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician and advocate for social reform. ...

The philosopher

Santayana's main philosophical work consists of The Sense of Beauty (1896), his first book and perhaps the first major work on aesthetics written in the United States, The Life of Reason (5 volumes, 1905–6), the high point of his Harvard career, and The Realms of Being (4 vols., 1927–40). Although Santayana is not a pragmatist in the mold of William James, Charles Peirce, Josiah Royce, or John Dewey, The Life of Reason arguably is the first extended treatment of pragmatism ever penned. Like many classical pragmatists, and because he was also well-versed in evolutionary theory, Santayana was committed to a naturalist metaphysics, in which human cognition, cultural practices, and institutions evolved so as to harmonize with their environment. Their value was the extent to which they facilitated human happiness. He was an early adherent of epiphenomenalism, but also admired the classical materialism of Democritus and Lucretius. He held Spinoza's writings in high regard, without subscribing to Spinoza's rationalism or pantheism. Although an atheist, he described himself as an "aesthetic Catholic", and spent the last decade of his life at the Convent of the Blue Nuns on the Celian hill in Rome, cared for by nuns. The Parthenons facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles in its proportions. ... For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation) William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. ... Charles Sanders Peirce (IPA: /pɝs/), (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American polymath, physicist, and philosopher, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Josiah Royce (November 20, 1855, Grass Valley, California. ... John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thoughts and ideas have been greatly influential in the United States and around the world. ... Pragmatism is a school of epistemology that originated with Charles Sanders Peirce (who first stated the pragmatic maxim) and came to fruition in the early twentieth-century philosophies of William James and John Dewey. ... This article is about biological evolution. ... Naturalism is any of several philosophical stances, typically those descended from materialism and pragmatism, that do not distinguish the supernatural (including strange entities like non-natural values, and universals as they are commonly conceived) from nature. ... Plato and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome). ... Look up Cognition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Epiphenomenalism is a view in philosophy of mind according to which some or all mental states are mere epiphenomena (side-effects or by-products) of physical states of the world. ... In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. ... ‎ Democritus (Greek: ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (born at Abdera in Thrace around 460 BC[1][2]). Democritus was a student of Leucippus and co-originator of the belief that all matter is made up of various imperishable, indivisible elements which he called atomos, from which we get the... Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus (c. ... Baruch Spinoza Benedictus de Spinoza (November 24, 1632 - February 21, 1677), named Baruch Spinoza by his synagogue elders and known as Bento de Spinoza or Bento dEspiñoza in the community in which he grew up. ... In epistemology and in its broadest sense, rationalism is any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification (Lacey, 286). ... Pantheism (Greek: pan = all and Theos = God) literally means God is All and All is God. It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. ... The 18th-century French author Baron dHolbach was one of the first self-described atheists. ... The Parthenons facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles in its proportions. ...

The man of letters

Santayana's one novel, The Last Puritan, is perhaps the greatest Bildungsroman in American letters. Among American autobiographies, his Persons and Places deserves to be put on the same plane as The Education of Henry Adams. These masterworks of his also contain many of his tarter 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 subtle influence of religion on culture and social psychology, all with considerable wit and humor, and pervaded with a good feel for the subtlety and richness of the English language. While his writings on technical philosophy can be difficult, his other writings are far more readable, and all of his books contain quotable passages. He wrote poems and a few plays, and left an ample correspondence, much of it published only since 2000. A bildungsroman (IPA: /, German: novel of education or novel of formation) is a novel which traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character from (usually) childhood to maturity. ... The Education of Henry Adams records the struggle of Bostonian Henry Adams (1838-1918), in early old age, to come to terms with the dawning 20th century, so different from the world of his youth. ...

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In his many value judgements and prejudices, many of which do not sit well with present-day fashion, Santayana was aristocratic and elitist, a curious blend of Mediterranean conservative (similar to Paul Valery), cultivated American, Olympian aloofness, and ironic detachment. Russell Kirk discussed Santayana in his The Conservative Mind from Edmund Burke to T. S. Eliot. Among those writing about American culture and character from a foreign point of view, Alexis de Tocqueville is perhaps his only peer. Among American writers combining philosophy and letters, Ralph Waldo Emerson is his only rival. Even though he declined American citizenship and resided in fascist Italy for two decades, he is a major American writer. Even so, the Hispanic world is gradually recognizing him as one of its own, with Spanish translations of his work proceeding apace. Image File history File links Circle-question. ... Paul Valéry (October 30, 1871 - July 20, 1945) was a French author and poet of the Symbolist school. ... Russell Kirk Russell Kirk (1918, Plymouth, Michigan – 29 April 1994, Mecosta, Michigan), was an American political theorist, historian, social critic, and man of letters, best known for his influence on 20th century American conservatism. ... Edmund Burke (12 January 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ... For other uses, see Tocqueville (disambiguation) Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (Verneuil-sur-Seine, ÃŽle-de-France, July 29, 1805– Cannes, April 16, 1859) was a French political thinker and historian. ... Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early nineteenth century. ...

Works

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

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

• 1986. Persons and Places Santayana's autobiography, incorporating Persons and Places, 1944; The Middle Span, 1945; and My Host the World, 1953.
• 1988 (1896). The Sense of Beauty.
• 1990 (1900). Interpretations of Poetry and Religion.
• 1994 (1935). The Last Puritan: a memoir in the form of a novel.
• The Letters of George Santayana. Containing over 3,000 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.
  • 2005. Book Seven, 1941-1947.
  • 2006. Book Eight, 1948-1952.

Other works by Santayana include:

• 1905–1906. The Life of Reason: Or, The Phases of Human Progress, 5 vols. Available gratis online from Project Gutenberg. 1998. 1 vol. abridgement by the author and Daniel Cory. Prometheus Books.
• 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.
• 1923. Scepticism and Animal Faith: Introduction to a System of Philosophy.
• 1927. Platonism and the Spiritual Life.
• 1927–40. Realms of Being, 4 vols. 1942. 1 vol. abridgement.
• 1931. The Genteel Tradition at Bay.
• 1933. Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy: Five Essays.
• 1936. Obiter Scripta: Lectures, Essays and Reviews. Justus Buchler and Benjamin Schwartz, eds.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1995. The Birth of Reason and Other Essays. Daniel Cory, ed., with an Introduction by Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr. Columbia Uni. Press.

Works about Santayana include:

• McCormick, John, 1987. George Santayana: A Biography. Alfred A. Knopf.
• Jeffers, Thomas L., 2005. Apprenticeships: The Bildungsroman from Goethe to Santayana. New York: Palgrave: 159-84.
• Singer, Irving, 2000. George Santayana, Literary Philosopher. Yale University Press.

Quotes

"There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor."

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

"Music is essentially useless, as life is."

"Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality."

"Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better."

"America is a young country with an old mentality."

"Sanity is a madness put to good use."

"The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation."

"The wisest mind has something yet to learn."

"Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be."

"A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim." (Used as rule #3 in Rules of Conflict of Wile E. Coyote and RoadRunner)

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."^[1]

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

George Santayana

• Works by George Santayana at Project Gutenberg
• The Santayana edition.
• Overheard in Seville: Bulletin of the Santayana Society.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: George Santayana -- by Herman Saatkamp, Jr. Includes a complete bibliography of the primary literature, and a fair selection of the secondary literature.
• Extensive quotations from Santayana.
• 27 quotations from Santayana.