Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 11 Fall 1993

              Santayana and Greek Philosophy
This is a very broad topic.1 My discussion will be limited to the identification
of Santayana's relationship to Greek philosophy and the tracing of the early
phases of his approach. Two major topics will be explored, (a) The salient
features of Santayana's interpretation of classical Greek philosorAers, and (b) his
evaluation of the contribution of the Greek thinkers he believed best represented the
classical mind: Heraclitus, Democritus, Plato and Aristotle. Both topics are intimately
connected with certain fundamental principles that figure dominantly as the backbone
of his own philosophy and, as expected, pervade the critical treatment of his entire
approach to the history of philosophy: materialism, scepticism and the theory of
essences. I will also have occasion to tie to the discussion certain remarks concerning
his indebtedness to the Greeks, a topic that has been variously appreciated by his
sympathetic critics, among them Irwin Edman, who often placed him too close to the
Greeks, as highlighted passages from Santanyana*s writings like the following taking
in isolation would tend to support
Harmony which might be called an aesthetic principle, is also the principle of health, of
justice, and of happiness.   Every impulse, not the aesthetic mood alone, is innocent and
irresponsible in its origin and precious in its own eyes; but every impulse or indulgence,
including the aesthetic, is evil in its effect, when it renders harmony impossible in the
general tenor of life, or produces in the soul division and ruin.2
As I  hope  to  show,  Santayana proved  to  be an QjawovBoq fytkoq,  an
implacable friend yet free of malice. The expression I have just used is meant only to
draw attention to his appreciation of a tradition he greatly admired yet could not
embrace freely.
In order to proceed with my discussion I must draw attention to a fundamental
distinction between two types of metaphysics in the history of Western philosophy: the
1 This paper was presented to the first International George Santayana Conference at
Avila, Spain, on May 29,1992.
In writing this paper on "Santayana and Greek Philosophy" my main concern is to understand
his lasting interest In Greek ethics and the attraction he felt toward the ancient Greek thinkers.
Without trying to make marginal the stronger philosophical thesis he elaborated around 1923 in
his Scepticism and Animal Faith, that was centered on the problem of the immediate, the gist of
his critique of Greek philosophy was already present in The Life of Reason. The main theses that
were finally appealed to in his fuller and final critique were the first principle of materialism, the
principle of immediacy, and the doctrine of essences.
% **A Brief History of My Opinions'* in Adams George P. and William Montague, eds.,
Contemporary American Philosophy; Personal Statements. (New York, Macmillan and Co., 1930),
2 vols., v. 2, pp. 239-257; repr. in The Philosophy of Santayana, edited with a new preface and
an introductory essay, by Irwin Edman. (Mew York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953), pp. 1-20;
references to this edition (p. 20). hi his appreciative brief obituary in the Saturday Review
(October 18,1952), Edman wrote: "The deepest sources of Santayana are in ancient Greece. His
Life of Reason is the wisdom of Plato and Aristotle in modern dress."