Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 22 Fall 2004

              On the Absence of Argument in
Santayana
Although this has been claimed more than once, it would be incorrect to say that
Santayana never puts forward arguments in support of his positions. Consider
his onslaught against transcendental idealism and his savage critique of
empiricism. Were these compiled, they would run to hundreds of pages.
What is the case, however, is that he passes over numerous occasions where other
philosophers might insist on some further investigation and justification, and passes
over them without acknowledging any gap in reasoning. I point to examples and
comment on what appear to be his reasons, within the context of his developed system
of thought. One is his treatment of justification in epistemology, where animal faith
becomes the dominant feature. Other examples turn on the definitions he gives to his
ontologicai realms of being. In some cases, these definitions assist him to bypass some
standard philosophical puzzles, which are consigned to the scientist. As well, his
realms of being are meant to be starting points for his systematic philosophy, and do
not have definitions in terms of something else; this means that his reasoning with
them cannot have the form of deductions from strictly defined formulae, and
consequently may appear lacking in rigour.
Santayana downplays or ignores the task of justification so much emphasized in
contemporary epistemology. In the second reconstructive half of saf, he
considers what objects animal faith requires him to posit, based only on an
instinctive assurance of their existence (saf 106). But this comes close, one might say,
to unsupported justification by faith alone. In saf and in the continuation of his
argument in the first three chapters of rm, his concern is more with limiting his posits
to those required to account for human action than it is with justifying those he does
make. In his eyes, the most important constraint is an internal one: the agent's posit
must be a serious one, reflecting self-knowledge and radical sincerity. No line of
reasoning is offered for an objective evaluation of sincerity; but he is prepared to argue
at length that the tenets of some philosophers (for instance those who avoid the
category of substance) are incompatible with the assumptions they make in everyday
activities.
Where today's focus in epistemology is on justification, Santayana stresses belief
and faith in his theory of knowledge. His treatment of justification is a meagre one,
and seems deficient on occasions where he appears to advance the thesis that
knowledge Is merely faith. Here is one example giving this impression, with my italics
added: "All knowledge, being faith in an object posited and partially described, is
belief in substance, in the etymological sense of this word" (saf 182). Thus knowledge
is faith; it is belief; however, he never says that it is only faith, and in fact his account
of knowledge conforms in outline to the standard tripartite one. While knowledge is
indeed belief, it is "true belief grounded in experience, I mean, controlled by outer
facts" (saf 180). Still, a closer look reveals divergences between his and a more
standard account. For him, a knowledge claim must make an assertion of existence in
his narrow sense of material existence: there is "an object posited and partially
described." The partial description must be true in a weak sense, for it will symbolic
rather than literal truth. It must be "grounded in experience," but he is more concerned
that the knowledge be grounded in outer facts than that one can give an overt
justification. I deal only with this latter point.