21 January 2006
George Santayana, Literary Philosopher
This book
was a disappointment. I knew Santayana wrote widely and developed a theory of aesthetics, but the man who wrote and knew the nature of things so forcefully intrigued me. The very questions of aesthetics seem dubious to me, and unable to advance beyond the various eyes of the beholder. An interest in aesthetics presupposes an interest in the opinions of other people, while the artist is only expressing a self as they can. There is an underlying current of humor to this book. Is it really a good idea to consult a life-long bachelor hermit who finished his days closeted in a monastery in post-war Italy, as an expert on love and the good life?
The story of lonely man at home everywhere and nowhere, certain of his atheism and creed, and uncomfortable with earnestness or duty, certainly resonates with this reader. I was prepared to be sympathetic but discussions of various theories of love were uninteresting to me.
I am still wondering at the rift between Harvard and Santayana. The Claremont piece by Algis Valiunas includes this quote:
“In ‘A Brief History of my Opinions” Santayana recalls the distress that James’s Pragmatism caused him: “I could not stomach that way of speaking about the truth…” What makes Santayana’s gorge rise is the way in which the idiom and the ethos of the marketplace, of American go-getterism, have insinuated themselves into James’s discourse. Here is James ‘s characteristic mode, in which he disowns the notion that truth is one and incontrovertible, and endorses a multiplicity of truths that remain true only so long as they prove useful: “Our account of truth is an account of truths in the plural, or processes of leading, realized in rebus, and having only this quality in common, that they pay.” The proof of James’s truths is their ability to deliver the goods. The American small change of unconsidered common opinion, the medium of everyday traffic, come to pass as hard philosophical currency. The pragmatic “account of truths” underwrites the promise of a future that pays big time. Hence the hopeful ring of so much of James’s prose, which anticipates the clattering avalanche of the jackpot sure to follow the next yank on the lever, or the one after that.”
The essay is worth quoting in its entirety. One more nugget:
“Santayana writes for those strong enough to accept without yelping the harsh terms that nature imposes on those it has brought into being. “There is no cure for birth or death save to enjoy the interval.” The weightiest matters can be handled lightly, with a decorously murmuring quip.
I can’t help it, the closing paragraph:
“Rarer even than the richness and subtlety of Santayana’s mind is the humility which acknowledges that his most cherished thoughts might have missed the mark on the question that matters most. Having pressed reason as far as it can go, he reasonably recognizes that reason alone might be insufficient to understand the human place in the universe. Philosophical brilliance may not be the one thing needful, as ordinary men tend to realize more readily than those possessed of extraordinary intellect; not often does one find a philosopher saying, even if just in passing, that there could be human powers more crucial to understanding than those of pure mind. It is a measure of Santayana’s reverence for the truth that he allows that his own thought might never have grasped it. To borrow a phrase from his favorite James brother, Henry, Santayana was one of those on whom nothing is lost; and the shows more fully than any other 20th-century philosopher what man might be, although by his own admission he may not have the last word on what man is.”
That’s the man I was after, not an aesthetician. It may be eventually possible to merge neo-Platonism and moral philosophy with evolutionary biology to reach a materialist plateau of understanding our numerous plights, but his book doesn’t help get us there.
was a disappointment. I knew Santayana wrote widely and developed a theory of aesthetics, but the man who wrote and knew the nature of things so forcefully intrigued me. The very questions of aesthetics seem dubious to me, and unable to advance beyond the various eyes of the beholder. An interest in aesthetics presupposes an interest in the opinions of other people, while the artist is only expressing a self as they can. There is an underlying current of humor to this book. Is it really a good idea to consult a life-long bachelor hermit who finished his days closeted in a monastery in post-war Italy, as an expert on love and the good life?The story of lonely man at home everywhere and nowhere, certain of his atheism and creed, and uncomfortable with earnestness or duty, certainly resonates with this reader. I was prepared to be sympathetic but discussions of various theories of love were uninteresting to me.
I am still wondering at the rift between Harvard and Santayana. The Claremont piece by Algis Valiunas includes this quote:
“In ‘A Brief History of my Opinions” Santayana recalls the distress that James’s Pragmatism caused him: “I could not stomach that way of speaking about the truth…” What makes Santayana’s gorge rise is the way in which the idiom and the ethos of the marketplace, of American go-getterism, have insinuated themselves into James’s discourse. Here is James ‘s characteristic mode, in which he disowns the notion that truth is one and incontrovertible, and endorses a multiplicity of truths that remain true only so long as they prove useful: “Our account of truth is an account of truths in the plural, or processes of leading, realized in rebus, and having only this quality in common, that they pay.” The proof of James’s truths is their ability to deliver the goods. The American small change of unconsidered common opinion, the medium of everyday traffic, come to pass as hard philosophical currency. The pragmatic “account of truths” underwrites the promise of a future that pays big time. Hence the hopeful ring of so much of James’s prose, which anticipates the clattering avalanche of the jackpot sure to follow the next yank on the lever, or the one after that.”
The essay is worth quoting in its entirety. One more nugget:
“Santayana writes for those strong enough to accept without yelping the harsh terms that nature imposes on those it has brought into being. “There is no cure for birth or death save to enjoy the interval.” The weightiest matters can be handled lightly, with a decorously murmuring quip.
I can’t help it, the closing paragraph:
“Rarer even than the richness and subtlety of Santayana’s mind is the humility which acknowledges that his most cherished thoughts might have missed the mark on the question that matters most. Having pressed reason as far as it can go, he reasonably recognizes that reason alone might be insufficient to understand the human place in the universe. Philosophical brilliance may not be the one thing needful, as ordinary men tend to realize more readily than those possessed of extraordinary intellect; not often does one find a philosopher saying, even if just in passing, that there could be human powers more crucial to understanding than those of pure mind. It is a measure of Santayana’s reverence for the truth that he allows that his own thought might never have grasped it. To borrow a phrase from his favorite James brother, Henry, Santayana was one of those on whom nothing is lost; and the shows more fully than any other 20th-century philosopher what man might be, although by his own admission he may not have the last word on what man is.”
That’s the man I was after, not an aesthetician. It may be eventually possible to merge neo-Platonism and moral philosophy with evolutionary biology to reach a materialist plateau of understanding our numerous plights, but his book doesn’t help get us there.
