George Santayana

George Santayana (16 December 1863 in Madrid, Spain – 26 September 1952 in Rome, Italy), was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, he 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 his oft-quoted "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. Image File history File links Typical portrait of Santayana, to be found all over the Web (and in The World Book Encyclopedia, 1968). ... December 16 is the 350th day of the year (351st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 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, with 96 days remaining. ... 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. ... A poet is some one 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. ... An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ...

Biography

Born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana, he spent his early childhood in Ávila, part of Spain. His father was a diplomat, painter, and minor intellectual. Jorge was the only child of his mother's second marriage. She was the widow of a Sturgis from Boston, by whom she had three children, Santayana's cherished half siblings. In order to marry Jorge's father, she left those children in Boston in the care of others and moved to Spain, where she resided until returning to her Boston children in 1869 when Jorge was five. Jorge and his father followed her in 1872 but his father, not finding Boston to his liking, soon returned permanently to Ávila. He did not see his father again until summer vacations while he was at Harvard. Hence from age five, his 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. ... Boston is a town and small port c. ... 1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for 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 Ms. ... Harvard University campus (old map) Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... William James 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. ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... Rudolf Herman Lotze (May 21, 1817 - July 1, 1881), was a German philosopher. ... T.S. Eliot (by E.O. Hoppe, 1919) Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was an American-born British poet, dramatist, and literary critic, whose works, such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets, are considered defining achievements of... Gertrude Stein, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1935 Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874, in Pittsburgh - July 27, 1946) was an American writer, poet, feminist, playwright, 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) was an American Modernist poet. ... Cover of Time Magazine, March 30, 1930 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 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 Tossed by the waves, she does not founder Coordinates : , Time Zone : CET (GMT +1) Administration Subdivisions 20 arrondissements Département Paris (75) Région ÃŽle-de-France Mayor Bertrand Delanoë (PS) City (commune) Characteristics Land Area 86. ... Oxford is a city and local government district in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 134,248 (2001 census). ... This article is about the capital of Italy. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January January 3 - Babe Ruth is traded by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees for $125,000, the largest sum ever paid for a player at that time. ... 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, and mathematician, working mostly in the 20th century. ...

The Philosopher

Santayana's main philosophical work consists of his first book, The Sense of Beauty, perhaps the first major work on aesthetics written in the USA, the five volume The Life of Reason, the high point of his Harvard career, and the four volume The Realms of Being. Although Santayana is not deemed a canonical pragmatist in the mold of James, Charles Peirce, Royce, or John Dewey, The Life of Reason arguably forms the first extended treatment of pragmatism. 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 in a Roman convent, attended to by nuns. Aesthetics, esthetics or æsthetics is both the study of beauty and a term that denotes those properties of an entity that appeal to the senses. ... Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced purse), (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American polymath, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thought has been greatly influential in the United States and around the world. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... 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 from nature. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Look up Cognition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Epiphenomenalism is the view in philosophy of mind according to which physical events have mental effects, but mental events have no effects of any kind. ... 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. ... Hendrick ter Brugghen, Democritus Laughing (1629) Democritus (Greek: Δημόκριτος) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (born at Abdera in Thrace around 450 BC; died in about 370 BC). ... Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus (ca. ... 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. ... The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ... 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. ... Atheism, in its broadest sense, is the absence of theism (the belief in the existence of deities). ... Aesthetics, esthetics or æsthetics is both the study of beauty and a term that denotes those properties of an entity that appeal to the senses. ...

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 bon 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 is at once the remarkable autobiography of Henry Adams (1838-1918), and a sharp critique of contemporary educational theory and practice. ...

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. Paul Valéry (October 30, 1871 - July 20, 1945) was a French author and poet of the Symbolist school. ... Russell Kirk (1918, Plymouth, Michigan – 29 April 1994, Mecosta, Michigan), was an American political theorist, historian, moralist, social critic, and man of letters, best known as the father of modern conservatism. ... Edmund Burke The Right Honourable Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729 – July 9, 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator and political philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. ... T.S. Eliot (by E.O. Hoppe, 1919) Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was an American-born British poet, dramatist, and literary critic, whose works, such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets, are considered defining achievements of... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was a famous American author, poet, and philosopher. ...

Works

The Santayana Edition.

A critical edition meeting the standards of the Modern Language Association.

The text of the critical edition on Intelex CD-ROM. With links to Web-based search & reference tools.

• 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.

Trivia

The phrase "Santayana goodbye" in the Billy Joel song We Didn't Start the Fire refers to George Santayana. William Martin Billy Joel (born May 9, 1949 in Bronx, New York) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. ... We Didnt Start the Fire is a song by Billy Joel which chronicles 120 well-known events, people, things, and places widely noted during his lifetime, from 1949 to 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front. ...

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. 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