Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 09 Fall 1991

              William James and George Santayana
The Extent of a Philosophic Vision
Santayana writes to William James on December 18,1887:
If philosophy were the attempt to solve a given problem, I should see reason to be
discouraged about its success; but it strikes me that it is rather an attempt to express
a half-undiscovered reality, just as art is, and that two different renderings, if they
are expressive, far from cancelling each other add to each other's value. The great
bane of philosophy is the theological animus which hurries a man toward final and
intolerant truths as towards his salvation. Such truths may be necessary to men but
philosophy can hardly furnish them. It can only interpret nature, in parts with
accuracy, in parts only with a vague symbolism. I confess I do not see why we should
be so vehemendy curious about the absolute truth, which is not to be made or
altered by our discovery of it But philosophy seems to me to be its own reward, and
its justification lies in the delight and dignity of the art itself.1
James responded on January 2,1888:
What you say of philosophy and your expectations therefrom, interests me. Neither
do I expect absolute illumination from human philosophizing. At most you can get
arguments either to reinforce or to protect certain emotional impulses. In any
minute of moral action where the path is difficult, I believe a man has deeper
dealings with life than he could have in libraries of philosophizing.2
William James would say that truth is about experience. It is about a fact of
nature, George Santayana argued. Both agreed that truth describes the range
of relations binding a fact with other facts or one experience to the next. Since
James and Santayana considered that knowledge of truth must involve a
description of an array of relations and since we are creatures of finite reach,
living for a brief time in a world of constant change, any such knowledge must
involve a sharing of perspectives. We think and feel and are usually aware of
our thoughts or feelings. Truth cannot be settled individually, rather it is
decided only as the relations or meanings of an idea are accounted for
completely. Different perspectives, describing relation after relation, have to
be tried to draw ever nearer to truth.
The pragmatic rule is that the meaning of a concept may always be found, if not in
some sensible particular which it directly designates, then in some particular
difference in the course of human experience which its being true will make. Test
every concept by the question "What sensible difference to anybody will its truth
make?" and you are in the best possible position for understanding what it means
1 See pages 27-28 of Cory 1955.
2 See page 403 of Perry, 1935a.