Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 24 Fall 2006

              On the Supervenience of Spirit
A familiar criticism of Santayana's philosophy is directed at his doctrine of
impotent spirit, which many find implausible. I think that his response to
critics is correct and worth noting — they are not using the term 'spirit' in the
sense he intends. Anyone who is prepared to consider a moment of spirit as
nothing but the awareness, I believe, is thinking of spirit in his sense, and is not likely
to expect this awareness to generate physical results. However, when readers speak of
consciousness, it is more common for them to think of the spirit along with bodily
activity: thus "mental events." Now Santayana is entirely prepared to admit this
combination as potent. Thus it is possible to misunderstand his intentions due to a
misreading of 'spirit', which is narrow in the sense that its sources in the material are
stripped from the definition (but broad in the sense that it includes perceptual as well
as conceptual experience).
Against this definitional view of impotent spirit, many of the familiar arguments
against epiphenomenalism are themselves impotent. However, quite different
questions arise: for instance, the difficult mind/body problem is surely not settled by a
mere definition. I believe that his general response to this question is clear: he wants
to avoid dealing with this classical problem since he feels that only science could solve
it (and may perhaps never be able to do so). His definition of spirit, about which he
has a great deal to say, allows him to discuss these matters without having to offer a
prior solution to that long-standing problem.
I shall not deal with this general question here, and merely want to comment on
two issues about his position on mind and spirit; perhaps this will shed some light on
his overall view. I consider first his account of the will, which for him is merely an
instance of impotent mind, and try to account for some of the implausibility of his
treatment of the exercise of will. One possible explanation is a confusion about pure
spirit. Beyond this, I suggest that Santayana has resources at his disposal on this point
that might render his account more plausible.
Spirit is of the first importance in Santayana's system, despite its Impotence. For
what could be of value in human life without thought and feeling? Especially
important in his eyes is the human ability to rise above animal life and size up the
world and our place there: it can aspire to spiritual sympathy and true intelligence. But
how can such an extraordinary ambition arise in that animal life? I discuss this second
issue In the remainder of the paper. In order to deal with it, he offers a rudimentary
theory, or appears to do so. In the second section, I attempt to clarify this apparent
theory, and ask whether he has in mind the following: although spirit itself is impotent,
psyche along with spirit is more effective than psyche without spirit. The
supervenience of spirit on the material psyche would not rule this out. There might be
an evolutionary advantage in the emergence of spirit. I conjecture in this second
section that Santayana means to include in his theory my attempted clarification.
Before continuing with this theme, I consider Santayana's treatment of sympathy,
which he pairs with understanding as two remarkable human attributes that might be
accounted for by such a theory. This raises interesting issues, but these lead away from
the theme being considered.
In the final section, I offer reasons for doubting my conjecture. In fact, Santayana
never makes clear whether or not he adheres to or would adhere to such a doctrine; he
appears to do so, but this is not forced on him. Just as with mind/body problems in
general, he does not seek to take a clear position. The question as I have posed it is of
secondary concern.   He is much more interested in two other points in his study of