The Life of Reason Volume 1

Life of Reason #1

by George Santayana

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... advance of psychology meant, in this school, the retreat of reason; for as one notion after another was clarified and reduced to its elements it was ipso facto deprived of its function. So far were these philosophers from conceiving that validity and truth are ideal relations, accruing to ideas by virtue of dialectic and use, that while on the one hand they pointed out vital affinities and pragmatic sanctions in the mind's economy they confessed on the other that the outcome of their philosophy was sceptical; for no idea could be found in the mind which was not a phenomenon there, and no inference could be drawn from these phenomena not based on some inherent "tendency to feign." The analysis which was in truth legitimising and purifying knowledge seemed to them absolutely to blast it, and the closer they came to the bed-rock of experience the more incapable they felt of building up anything upon it. Selfknowledge meant, they fancied, self-detection; the representative value of thought decreased as thought grew in scope and elaboration. It became impossible to be at once quite serious and quite intelligent; for to use reason was to indulge in subjective fiction, while conscientiously to abstain from using it was to sink back upon inarticulate and brutish instinct. In Hume this sophistication was frankly avowed. Philosophy discredited itself; but a man of parts, who loved intellectual games even better than backgammon, might take a hand with the wits and historians of his day, until the clock struck twelve and the party was over. Even in Kant, though the mood was more cramped and earnest, the mystical sophistication was quite the same. Kant, too, imagined that the bottom had been knocked out of the world; that in comparison with some...

Genres: Philosophy

68 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1980

About the author

Philosopher, poet, literary and cultural critic, George Santayana is a principal figure in Classical American Philosophy. His naturalism and emphasis on creative imagination were harbingers of important intellectual turns on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a naturalist before naturalism grew popular; he appreciated multiple perfections before multiculturalism became an issue; he thought of philosophy as literature before it became a theme in American and European scholarly circles; and he managed to naturalize Platonism, update Aristotle, fight off idealisms, and provide a striking and sensitive account of the spiritual life without being a religious believer. His Hispanic heritage, shaded by his sense of being an outsider in America, captures many qualities of American life missed by insiders, and presents views equal to Tocqueville in quality and importance. Beyond philosophy, only Emerson may match his literary production. As a public figure, he appeared on the front cover of Time (3 February 1936), and his autobiography (Persons and Places, 1944) and only novel (The Last Puritan, 1936) were the best-selling books in the United States as Book-of-the-Month Club selections. The novel was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Edmund Wilson ranked Persons and Places among the few first-rate autobiographies, comparing it favorably to Yeats's memoirs, The Education of Henry Adams, and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Remarkably, Santayana achieved this stature in American thought without being an American citizen. He proudly retained his Spanish citizenship throughout his life. Yet, as he readily admitted, it is as an American that his philosophical and literary corpuses are to be judged. Using contemporary classifications, Santayana is the first and foremost Hispanic-American philosopher.

Reviews

[Albert · Rating 2 out of 5]

The place you'll find the chestnut about history repeating itself. Really turgid prose. No one writes like this any more . . . thank God.