"You must wave, you must cheer, you must push with the irresistible crowd; otherwise you will feel like a traitor, a soulless outcast, a deserted ship high and dry on the shore … . This national faith and morality are vague in idea, but inexorable in spirit; they are the gospel of work and the belief in progress. By them, in a country where all men are free, every man finds that what most matters has been settled beforehand" (211).
In his autobiography, Persons and Places, Santayana describes the development of his thought as a movement from the idealisms of boyhood to the intellectual materialism of a traveling student, and finally to the complete, naturalistic outlook of the adult Santayana. He emphasizes the continuity of his life and beliefs, contrasting what may appear to be disparate views with the overall unity of his thought: "The more I change the more I am the same person" (Persons and Places, 159).
A major aspect of this sensibility was the view that philosophers must be engaged fundamentally in social and cultural policy formulation, and if they are not, they are not pulling their civic weight. In this fashion, Santayana believes the pragmatists came to belie "the genuinely expressive, poetic, meditative, and festive character of their vocation" (Levinson,165).
Building on his naturalism, institutional pragmatism, social realism, and poetic religion, Santayana on leaving Harvard moves even farther from the role of philosophical statesman by removing the representative authority of language from the quest for a comprehensive synthesis, by narrowing the line between literature and philosophy (as he had earlier done between religion and poetry), and by wrestling more with the influence of James than of Emerson. Santayana's stay in Oxford during the Great War led to his famous counter to Wilson's war to end all wars: "Only the dead have seen the end of war." (Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 102)
Naturalism
In summary, he maintains that knowledge and belief are not the result of reasoning. They are inescapable beliefs essential for action. Epistemological foundationalism is a futile approach to knowledge. A more promising approach is to discern the underlying belief structures assumed in animal action and imposed by natural circumstances. The foundations for this approach are rooted in Aristotle's concept of activity and the pragmatic approach to action and knowledge. Explanations of natural events are the proper purview of scientists, while explications of the meaning and value of action may be the proper sphere of historians and philosophers. Even so, both scientific explanation and philosophical explication are based in the natural world. Meaning and value are generated by the interaction of our physical makeup, which Santayana calls “psyche,” and our material environment.
Concepts cannot be limited to particular instances; rather the particular object is seen as an instance of the concept (essence). Thus, pursuing doubt to its ultimate end, one is confined by the “solipsism of the present moment.” That is, in a single instant of awareness there can be no knowledge or belief, since both require concepts not bounded by a moment of awareness. Hence, the ultimate end of doubt, an instance of awareness, is empty. It is the vacant awareness of a given without a basis for belief, knowledge or action. Santayana concludes that if one attempts to find the bedrock of certainty, one may rest his claim only after he has, at least theoretically, recognized that knowledge is composed of instances of awareness that in themselves do not contain the prerequisites for knowledge, i.e., concepts, universals, or essences. That both skepticism and proofs against skepticism lead nowhere is precisely Santayana's point.
Philosophy must begin in medias res (in the middle of things), in action itself, where there is an instinctive and arational belief in the natural world: “animal faith.” For Santayana, animal faith is the arational basis for any knowledge claims. It is the nether world of biological order operating through our physical, non-conscious being generating beliefs that are "radically incapable of proof" (Scepticism, 35).
The environment determines the occasions on which intuitions arise, the psyche -- the inherited organisation of the animal -- determines their form, and ancient conditions of life on earth no doubt determined which psyches should arise and prosper; and probably many forms of intuition, unthinkable to man, express the facts and the rhythms of nature to other animal minds (Scepticism, 88).
By displacing privileged mentalistic accounts with his pragmatic naturalism, Santayana challenges then prevailing structures in both American and English philosophies.
Within Santayana's naturalism, the origins of all events in the world are arbitrary, temporal, and contingent. Matter (by whatever name it is called) is the principle of existence. It is "often untoward, and an occasion of imperfection or conflict in things." (Realm of Matter, v) Hence, a "sour moralist" may consider it evil, but, according to Santayana, if one takes a wider view "matter would seem a good … because it is the principle of existence: it is all things in their potentiality and therefore the condition of all their excellence or possible perfection." (Realm of Matter, v) Matter is the non-discursive, natural foundation for all that is. In itself, it is neither good nor evil but may be perceived as such when viewed from the vested interest of animal life. Latent animal interests convert matter's non-discernible, neutral face to a smile or frown. But "moral values cannot preside over nature." (Realm of Matter, 134) Principled values are the products of natural forces: "The germination, definition, and prevalence of any good must be grounded in nature herself, not in human eloquence." (Realm of Matter, 131) From the point of view of origins, therefore, the realm of matter is the matrix and the source of everything: it is nature, the sphere of genesis, the universal mother.
“Essence” is Santayana's term for concepts and meanings. He draws on Aristotle's notion of essence but removes all capacities for producing effects. An essence is a universal, an object of thought, not a material force. However, consciousness of an essence is generated by the interaction of a psyche and the material environment. Hence, matter remains as the origin of existence and the arena of action, and the realm of essence encompasses all possible thought.
“Truth,” if some disinterested observer could ascertain it, would constitute all the essences that genuinely characterize the natural world and all activities within it. Since all living beings have natural interests and preferences, no such knowledge of truth can exist. All conscious beings must ascertain belief about truth based on the success of actions that sustain life and permit periods of delight and joy.
Accepting the world's insecure equilibrium enables one to celebrate the birth of spirit. Reasoning, particularly reasoning associated with action, is a signal of the nascent activities of the psyche working to harmonize its actions with the environment, and if successful, reason permits individual and social organization to prosper while spirit leads to the delight of imagination and artistry.
His view of consciousness is more celebrational, as opposed to being a burden or eliciting action. Spirit is "precisely the voice of order in nature, the music, as full of light as of motion, of joy as of peace, that comes with an even partial and momentary perfection in some vital rhythm (Birth of Reason, 53).”
For Santayana, explanations of human life, including reason and spirit, lie within the sciences. The nature of truth simply is correspondence with what is, but since humans, nor any other conscious being, are able to see beyond the determinant limits of their nature and environment, pragmatism becomes the test of truth rather than correspondence. In short, the nature of truth is correspondence while the test of truth is pragmatic.
Ethics, Politics, and the Spiritual Life
Santayana's moral philosophy is based on his naturalism. Most commentators classify Santayana as an extreme moral relativist who maintains that all individual moral perspectives have equal standing and are based on the heritable traits and environmental circumstances of individuals. This naturalistic approach applies to all living organisms. Nature does not establish a moral hierarchy of goods between animal populations nor between individual animals. However, this same moral relativism is also the basis for Santayana's claim that the good of individual animals is clear and is subject to naturalistic or biological investigation.
Two tenets of his ethics are (1) the forms of the good are diverse, and (2) the good of each animal is definite and final. The moral terrain of animals, viewed from a neutral perspective, places all animal interests and goods as equal. Each good stems from heritable physical traits and is shaped by adaptations to the environment. Concluding that the “forms of the good are divergent,” Santayana holds that the good for each animal may differ, depending on the nature of the psyche and the circumstances, and may be different for an individual animal in different times and environments. There is no one good for all, or even for an individual.
Seen as a whole, animal goods are not logically or morally ordered, that are natural, morally neutral forces. But no living being can observe all interests with such neutrality. Situated in a particular place and time with heritable traits, all living beings have interests originating from their physiology and physical environment. For Santayana, one may reasonably note that a neutral observer could view all moral perspectives as equal, but such a view must be balanced by the understanding that no animal stands on neutral ground. There is a polarity between the ideal neutral, objective understanding of behavior on the one hand and the committed and vested interest of particular living beings on the other hand. One may recognize that every animal good has its own standing, and one may respect that ideal, but "the right of alien natures to pursue their proper aims can never abolish our right to pursue ours."(Persons and Places, 179)
Santayana's clear notion of self-knowledge, in the sense of the Greeks, is his most distinguishing mark. For Santayana, "integrity or self-definition is and remains first and fundamental in morals … .”(Persons and Places 170)
Self-knowledge requires a critical appreciation of one's culture and physical inheritance, and the ability to shape one's life in streams of conflicting goods within oneself and within one's community. Although this position is common to many considerations of political philosophy, Santayana's approach to politics was much more conservative than that normally associated with the founders of American pragmatism, such as James and Dewey.
Santayana's political conservatism is founded on his naturalism and his emphasis on self-realization and spirituality. He is concerned that liberal democracy may not provide a consistent basis for individual freedom and spirituality.
Within the natural order every living entity stands on the same natural ground bathing equally in the impartial light of nature. No one can claim a central place above others. But each entity also has an embodied set of values, and the art of life is to structure one's environment in such a fashion as to best realize those embodied values, i.e., to place in harmony the natural forces of one's life and one's environment.
I admit gladly that religion (= the "Spiritual life") is a natural interest, to be collated within the life of reason with every other interest; but it is an interest in the ultimate, an adjustment to life, death, science, and politics; and though cultivated specially by certain minds at certain hours, it has no moral or natural claim to predominance.
an attention to what is given, rather than being an instrument in reshaping the world. Consciousness, emerging late in the evolutionary pathway, is a flowering of happy circumstances that celebrates what is given, and when truly recognized, does only that. It is joyful, delighting in what is presented, and not troubled by where it leads or what it means. The more dower, moralistic, and evangelical aspects of religion he saw as confused efforts to make religion a science, a social club, or a political movement. Spirit, or consciousness, is momentary, fleeting, and depends on the physical forces of our bodies and environment in order to exist. Shaping one's life to enhance these spiritual, fleeting moments, extending them as long as is practical, is one of the delights of living for some people, but it is certainly not a goal for all, nor should it be.
