Books:
The Last Puritan (
1936)
Scepticism and Animal Faith (
1923)
Realms of Being (
1927-
1940)
The Life of Reason
Character and Opinion in the U.S
Interpretations of Poetry and Religion
Santayana holds that one who really succeeds in doubting all that can be doubted will have no belief in his own
existence, for a mind must exist over time and one has no guarantee that there is any
reality than that of this moment. If "
this moment" is the only reality we believe in, we are not taking it as a moment at all, but as something belonging to no time or place. So, for him, what is indubitable is typically an act of awareness of some kind of
sensory pattern, an act of awareness which does not necessarily pertain to any continuing self.
"
This scene", then, is an
essence, that is, a definite pattern with its own individual character, but it is not an element in any
real world, for a real world is one which things occur as phases through some sort of historical process. Thus this
scene or
essence, at least in the aspect of it the
reality of which is guaranteed to us, is something which has a kind of being, but which does not exist in the ordinary sense.
For Santayana one returns from the sceptical stance with the recognition that the
essences immediately given to consciousness have being but no
existence. When we revert to our ordinary state we will come to believe that out acts of consciousness of these
essences are in external relations, but will still see that the essences themselves cannot be, for each is complete in itself and not continuous with anything else. So, one will be instituting pure essences and will have no beliefs at all, and no
factual knowledge.
"
Animal faith": the acceptance in our minds of a whole stock of beliefs which are psychologically, ultimately
biologically, imposed on us, without having any ultimate grounds for them.
View of the world:
(i)
essence: a quality or form which might either come before a mind as its immediate object of attention or might pertain to a physical reality as its present character ("
a quality swimming in consciousness").
(ii)
matter: it comprises the whole
flux of physical processes; constantly changing but abiding by certain fixed laws and habits.
(iii)
spirit: it should be distinguished from "
psyche": lower lying within the
spirit to produce behaviour which will keep the
organism as close as possible to some inherited ideal as presented case allows. The
spirit is a physical process having an entirely physical explanation, ultimately probably by the laws of physica and chemistry; fruition of life; seat of all values.
(iv)
truth: that by relation to which beliefs are either symbolically or literally true.
Santayana's pragmatism: most human belief is to be judged true or false according to its effects in adjusting us to and helping us make the best of the reality we are in the midst of and ourselves.
For
Santayana, all action inspired by conscious choice is action for the sake of
good. When we aim at something it presents itself to our consciousness as falling under the form of the
good, that is, as possessing a quality of goodness. Goodness is an essence consisting in a kind of
glow or
sparkle which some things were for us.
However, they only wear that glow or sparkle for us because unconscious
psychic forces are propelling us towards what seems to possess it, so that quite different states of affairs possess the quality of goodness as they present themselves to different people.
Reason: an organizing principle in the
psyche, and urge to develop a steady and stable pattern of life, values and beliefs in which all our initial impulses are given as much of a head as is compatible with their being organized into a coherent unity.
The
spiritual life is simply one human ideal, the satisfaction of which is given considerable, but not unlimited, weight in
rational and
social policies.