Abstract

An inveterate reviewer of books, Charles Peirce reviewed George Santayana's first two volumes of The Life of Reason in the June 8, 1905 edition of The Nation. Santayana's publisher, Charles Scribner's Sons, advertised what was destined to be a five-volume The Life of Reason as having a "pragmatistic flavor." Santayana's five-volume series was in fact a monumental achievement, securing his place as a prominent Harvard philosopher along with such colleagues as William James and Josiah Royce. In the teens of the 20th century Santayana's eloquently written renditions of the natural teleology of ideals received the plaudits of John Dewey and his followers at Columbia University. The Life of Reason remained one of...