George Santayana (1863–1952) believed that a philosophy of orthodox common sense exists beneath all major systems of philosophy and religion. This philosophy is a form of naturalism. It begins with the assumption that we are animals generated by and sustained for a time within a vast impersonal physical cosmos that is the sole source of power. Although rational argumentation cannot justify this assumption, our actions repeatedly confirm it, and we could not live without it. Another central feature of Santayana’s philosophy (...) of naturalism is that we are conscious as well as active animals. The inner light of awareness, or what he calls “spirit,” arises by the activities of the physical body but is itself powerless. Our experience of the world is rendered in the morally charged signs of human cognition, and these may be aesthetically appreciated for their own sake in imagination, granting us the possibility of contemplative respite from the exigencies of life. Santayana’s philosophy is atheistic and holds out no religious hope of redemption. Still, it is celebratory of the life of consciousness and offers a path toward naturalistic spirituality. (shrink)

The first of its kind, this project is a collection of critical and interpretive essays on George Santayana’s seminal work in American philosophy, Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923), 100 years after its first edition. The reader will be guided through the intricacies of Scepticism and Animal Faith by expert scholars. This book is a companion to Scepticism and Animal Faith for both first-time readers and readers intimately familiar with this work.

Tiller enquires into Santayana’s notion of a realm of truth. He considers how the realm of truth is situated in Santayana’s ontology. He notes some of the defining features of the realm of truth and differentiates it from Santayana’s account of true judgment.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Expressivism, Projectivism and SantayanaGlenn Tiller1. Santayana and Non-CognitivismThere is a general consensus that Santayana's metaethical analysis of moral judgments falls under the category of non-cognitivism. For instance, Timothy Sprigge writes that "Santayana's position shares some features with those attitudinist theories of ethics or values for which value judgments express attitudes rather than beliefs."1 In another example, John Lachs states that "Santayana agrees with the emotivists that moral terms have (...) no descriptive significance.2 And, in a similar vein, Thomas Munson writes that, for Santayana, "Ultimate Good is not an opinion hazarded."3 Each of these writers classifies Santayana as one who expounds the basic thesis of non-cognitivism that moral judgments are not descriptive, and hence neither true nor false.Certainly there is a wealth of textual evidence which suggests this interpretation. While it is true, as Sprigge comments, that Santayana offers only a collection of "scattered observations" on metaethical questions such as the nature of moral judgments, those observations amount to a clear affirmation of non-cognitivism.4 Below is a small but representative sample of Santayana's statements on this metaethical issue:Moral terms are caresses or insults and describe nothing.5In order to understand why Santayana thinks that moral terms "describe nothing" and that to "esteem a thing good" is never to assert a truth, we must turn to Santayana's account of valuation. Santayana's account of valuation turns on two principle ideas which lie at the heart of his moral theory. These two ideas can be set out as follows. First, there is the origin of morality, which takes us into Santayana's notion of the psyche. Second, there is the phenomenology of moral experience, which centers on Santayana's epiphenomenalist theory of consciousness. We turn first to Santayana's analysis of the origins of morality.2. The Psyche And The Origin Of MoralitySantayana vigorously rejects any Humean empiricist notion of the self as "nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions."8 Santayana objects that this phenomenalistic conception of the self leaves "no room for anything latent," and "in a living being, especially in a nice Englishman, what is latent is the chief thing."9 In Santayana's opinion, the assumptions of materialism must underlie any understanding we have of human nature. Thus, for Santayana the psyche is not some evanescent phenomenal self or passing datum, but rather "that habit in matter which forms the human body and the human mind."10 It is the principle of the long-term development of the individual, for contained within our psyche:There is our whole past, as it were, knocking at the door; there are our silent hopes; there are our future discourses and decisions working away, like actors rehearsing their parts, at their several fantastic arguments. All this is the psyche's work.11In sum, we can say that the psyche accounts for everything that is latent in the self; it embodies the potentiality of a human life from its beginning to its final development.To say that the psyche embodies all that is potential within us and accounts for our material development is to view the psyche as the ultimate origin of animal interests. In other words, we can say that the psyche accounts for all the physical predispositions of an animal life. These predispositions, such as the [End Page 240] habit of the body to repair itself after being injured, may be considered "animal interests" insofar as they represent the (innate) physical course of development of some animal life. Of course, here we are taking the terms "animal interests" and "predispositions" in a purely materialistic way; we are noting, to repeat Santayana's phrase, the "habit of matter."Accepting that the psyche accounts for all predispositions in animal life and that it is the source of animal interests has important implications. According to Santayana, this fact alone accounts for the origin of morality:This predetermined, specific direction of animal life is the key to everything moral; without it no external circumstance could be favourable or unfavourable to us; and spirit within us would have no reason to welcome, to deplore, or... (shrink)

In her introduction to Life as Insinuation: George Santayana’s Hermeneutics of Finite Life and Human Self, Katarzyna Kremplewska states that the general aim of her book is “reconstructing George Santayana’s conception of human self as embedded in a larger project of philosophy of life” (xi). More specifically, she explains that she is undertaking an inquiry “into the latter in the context of the former” (xvi). Her aim is not only to reconstruct Santayana’s conception of the self, but also sho...

Few if any contemporary philosophers have done more to promote American philosophy and philosophy in America than John Lachs. The creativity and sheer industriousness that characterize his sixty-year career as a producer and advocate of both professional and public philosophy are extraordinary, while his reputation as a teacher of philosophy, especially his work with undergraduate students, is described as “legendary” (p. 21). In the appreciative, probing introductory essay to John Lachs’s Pr...

: Santayana's materialism is often the target of attack by critics past and present that are sympathetic to pragmatism. A common theme found in the objections of Santayana's critics is that matter is "unknowable". After briefly outlining Santayana's materialism and discussing his relationship to the pragmatist movement, four formulations of the "unknowable" objection are presented: (1) Matter is unknowable because it is not given in experience, (2) Matter is unknowable because its true nature cannot be revealed in perception, (3) Matter (...) is unknowable because it has no properties, (4) Matter is unknowable because existence is a surd. It is argued that these objections are based in part on persistent misunderstandings of Santayana's materialism and that some of the more controversial aspects of his ontology are similar to ideas found in the writings of James and Peirce. (shrink)

Santayana's materialism is often the target of attack by critics past and present that are sympathetic to pragmatism. A common theme found in the objections of Santayana's critics is that matter is "unknowable". After briefly outlining Santayana's materialism and discussing his relationship to the pragmatist movement, four formulations of the "unknowable" objection are presented: (1) Matter is unknowable because it is not given in experience, (2) Matter is unknowable because its true nature cannot be revealed in perception, (3) Matter is (...) unknowable because it has no properties, (4) Matter is unknowable because existence is a surd. It is argued that these objections are based in part on persistent misunderstandings of Santayana's materialism and that some of the more controversial aspects of his ontology are similar to ideas found in the writings of James and Peirce. (shrink)

Truth, Rationality, and Pragmatism: Themes from Peirce is Christopher Hookway’s second book on Peirce’s philosophy. The first was Peirce, in the Arguments of the Philosophers series published by Routledge in 1985. That book was intended to be a general introduction to Peirce’s philosophy. In contrast, the present volume investigates in greater detail, and in some measure defends, Peirce’s views on the nature of inquiry, truth, reference, vagueness, metaphysics, common sense, the connections between reason and sentiment, the existence of God, and (...) the pragmatist principle. There are twelve essays in total, five of which were written especially for this volume. The remaining seven essays, published over a period of twelve years, are revised and cross-referenced with the new material. (shrink)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was one of the central figures of seventeenth-century philosophy, and a huge intellectual figure in his age. This book from Glenn A. Hartz is an advanced study of Leibniz's metaphysics. Hartz analyzes a very complicated topic, widely discussed in contemporary commentaries on Leibniz, namely the question of whether Leibniz was a metaphysical idealist, realist, or whether he tried to reconcile both trends in his mature philosophy. Because Leibniz is notoriously unclear about this, much has been written (...) on the subject. In recent years, the debate has centered on whether it is possible to maintain compatibility between the two trends. In this controversial book, Hartz demonstrates that it is not possible to maintain compatibility of idealist and realist views - they must be understood as completely separate theories. As the first major work on realism in Leibniz's metaphysics, this key text will interest international Leibniz scholars, as well as students at the graduate level. (shrink)

The constitutional monarchy of present-day Britain hardly seems the same sort of institution as fourteenth-century feudal kingdoms, but Dante’s Monarchia (c. 1313) and Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution (1872) share fundamental assumptions about what the purpose and strengths of monarchy are. In the Monarchia, Dante lays out the essential attributes of monarchy that endure even today: authority, impartiality, and unity. Dante values and promotes monarchy as final arbiter of conflicts, sole just judge without cupidity, and unifying will. More than 550 (...) years later, Bagehot, despite his distrust concerning the Crown’s actual effectiveness, conceives of monarchy in surprisingly similar terms. The monarch is ‘the regulating wheel of our Constitution’, an authority outside and above partisan politics, and the ‘dignified’, ‘intelligible’, unifying element of government. In both cases, the monarch functions as the government’s source of impartial, unifying authority – whether monarch or Parliament ultimately wields that authority. The broad outlines of monarchy are surprisingly similar for both writers, suggesting a basic continuity in the conceptualization of monarchy from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century (and beyond) and an abiding store of reserve symbolism within the monarchic concept that writers, thinkers, and politicians throughout those centuries are able to tap at will. (shrink)

The use of cochlear implants in born-deaf infants addresses the issues of disability, proxy consent, and potential ethnocide of the Deaf culture. The ethical issues explored in this paper are: 1) the disability versus trait argument of deafness, 2) parents versus Deaf community in proxy consent, 3) justification for surgical intervention in a non-life threatening condition, and 4) justification for ethnocide. Decisions for non-competent individuals should be made to assure the child of an open future, with rights that need to (...) be protected now, so that the child can exercise them later as an adult. Cochlear implants provide the potential of an open future and are morally justified on that basis. (shrink)

Die Ansicht, dass Leibniz urn 1700 oder einige Zeit danach ein überzeugter Idealist war oder wurde, der allein an die Realität der Geister und ihrer Ideen glaubte, hält sich merkwürdigerweise in der neueren Sekundärliteratur. In diesem Beitrag beurteilen wir die Textgrundlage für diese Behauptung nach von uns für solide gehaltenen Kriterien einer historischen Interpretation, wobei sich die Behauptung unserer Ansicht nach als unzureichend erweist. Obwohl Leibniz zur Überzeugung gelangt war, dass wirkliche "Atome" der Natur keine Ausdehnung hätten, war er sein (...) Leben hindurch auf die Geistesunabhängigkeit lebender Kreaturen festgelegt, in der Art, die eindeutig Idealismus ausschließt. Wir versuchen, die tieferen Gründe für die Beharrlichkeit der idealistischen Sichtweise, trotz ihrer textlichen und konzeptualen Schwierigkeiten, aufzudecken, indem wir sie letztlich in den ahistorischen Präferenzen der Kommentatoren lokalisieren. (shrink)

On Thursday and Friday, April 8-9, 1993, the University of Georgia in Athens served as the host for a conference on the topic, “Hegel and Modernity.” The conference was organized by Glenn A. Magee with the help of Richard Dien Winfield and Gregory R. Johnson, and was sponsored by the University of Georgia chapter of Phi Sigma Tau, the Department of Philosophy, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Karl Barth comments briefly, sporadically and polemically on Islam as a false religion. He views it as a threat to Christendom, using it as a cipher for National Socialism, as an example of absolute monotheism, and finally as a “paganised” form of rabbinic Judaism. But an examination and critique of Barth's understanding of Judaism, which is central to his understanding of Islam, recognises the interdependency of Church and Synagogue for Barth. This article argues that this mutual dependency should also be (...) extended to include Islam. While Barth never developed a theology of Islam per se, this new understanding gives his theology the potential to be of use to the new encounter between Christianity and Islam. (shrink)

Employs philosophy to help illuminate the nature of nursing and provide a holistic view of both nursing and persons.

For those interested in issues raised in P. F. Strawson’s Individuals, Brown’s book is a welcome sign. Despite the subtitle, it does not address the topic of revisionary vs. descriptive metaphysics. But it does break new ground on the question of how the historical Leibniz compares with Strawson’s by taking a careful look at the relevant texts. Strawson says he’s only calling his target “Leibniz.” Brown rightly contends that this “possible philosopher” is enough like the actual one to make Strawson’s (...) frontal assault of interest to the Leibniz scholar, and that it “does set the issues with uncommon clarity”. (shrink)