Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 15 Fall 1997

              Sensibility, Pragmatism,
and Modernity1
Professor Dilworth has argued persuasively that Santayana is, in a certain sense,
not to be understood as a "modem philosopher" at all. Rather we must see him
as ccmtinuing and deepening certain ancient themes. He contends that one of the
most powerful sensibilities to be found in Santayana's thought is that of southern
European CathoHcism with its rich and explicitly symbolic interpretation of the human
situation.. All this, of course, is grounded in a materialism that is not the materialism of
contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind but the materialism of Democritus and
Lucretius.
I am in much sympathy with this as a reading of Santayana and in fact argued
along with John Lachs at this very meeting two years ago that it is Santayana's European
sensibility that really sets him outside the mainstream of American thought Therefore
I will not take on the main thrust of Dilworth's discussion. I do not so much want to
disagree with Dilworth as to attempt to bring out elements of Santayana's thought that
he chooses not to stress, hi this light I want to develop three different sides of
Santayana. Hist, the stress on ancient themes may make us forget the extensive dialogue
which Santayana had with his contemporaries and the contributions he made to ongoing
discussions. Second, I will examine the nature of the difference between Santayana and
others in the American tradition, particularly Dewey. Here I will argue that Santayana
is, after all, a philosophical pragmatist although he does not share Dewey's optimistic
spirit. Finally I will try briefly to call attention to the distinctively modem, even
contemporary, context in which Santayana's philosophy is situated.
As Professor Dilworth points out, much of Santayana's writing is explicit
commentary on and discussion of the views of others. For example, in his chapter
"Hypostatic Ethics," in Winds of Doctrine,2 Santayana makes Bertrand Russell his
explicit target, and by implication he also intends to attack G. E. Moore. There he
argues that the irreducibility of good does not imply its unconditionality. Of course,
good cannot be defined, but a mature naturalism does not seek definition. It rather seeks
to lay bare the natural conditions under which that quality attaches to objects. This is,
of course, a devastating criticism that exposes the shallowness of the whole Moorean
project.
In the theory of perception it must be remembered that Santayana contributed an
essay to the volume of the so-called Critical Realists and thus, at least for a moment,
became a member of a "current movement." There he develops his doctrine of essences
in the direction of a theory of perception that is dualistic but not representational. While
the immediate content of consciousness is never the object perceived this does not stand
in the way of knowledge so long as the relation between content and object is interpreted
as symbolic. Here he puts his views at the service of a raging debate of his own day.
And even when Santayana does not bother to name those in response to whom he is
1 These comments were presented in response to the above paper of David Dilworth at the annual
meeting of the Santayana Society in Atlanta on December 28,1996.
2 George Santayana, Winds of Doctrine and Platonism and the Spiritual Life, (New York,
Harper and Brothers, 1957).