Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 06 Fall 1988

              Santayana's Pragmatism
and the
Comic Sense of Life
Pragmatism and the Religious Demand
In 1970, Sidney Hook wrote a widely noted essay called "Pragmatism and the
Tragic Sense of Life." Ostensibly, Hook's essay was an effort to set the historical
record straight. He argued that it had become commonplace to accept a
"European" view of pragmatism as "a superficial philosophy of optimism, of
uncritical adjustment and conformity, of worship of the goddess success."1
On the contrary, Hook said, pragmatism was not superficial because it was a
method of criticism that was concerned with setding disputes that arose in
response to conflicts between good and good, good and right, and right and
right. It was grounded, he concluded, "in a recognition of the tragic sense of
life," [Hook, 1970, p. 172]
Now this HooMan characterization of pragmatism hits the mark in some
ways. Certainly Hook had championed the centrality of method in moral and
social criticism.2 Time and time again, he had declared that our fundamentally
tragic situation demanded the kind of method for social resolution that
pragmatism made available. He noted that James had set the mood and
motivation in this regard by declaring that "ineluctible noes and losses for part
of [life], that there are genuine sacrifices, and that something permanendy
drastic and bitter always remains at the bottom of the cup." [Hook, 1970,
pp. 171472]
Still, it is Important to realize that Hook read James and the other classic
pragmatists selectively; that his emphasis on the tragic sense of life was an effort
to steer pragmatism one way rather than others; in particular, that he wanted to
sever pragmatism from its religious roots in order to maintain its later Deweyan
focus on social policy formulation.
The pragmatisms of Peirce and James and Dewey had been grounded in
Protestant sensibilities, viewpoints that presented an alternative to the tragic
sense of life.3 Along with other descendents of Protestantism, the classic
pragmatists searched for redemption from the drastic and the bitter. While
1 Sidney Hook, "Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life,** in Contemporary American Philosophy,
ed. John E. Smith, Humanities Press: New York, 1970, p. 171. Hereafter cited in the text as Hook,
1970.
2 See Richard Rorty, "Pragmatism Without Method,* in Sidney Hook; Philosopher of Democracy and
Humanism, Prometheus Books: Buffalo, 1983, for demonstration of this point.
5 See, for example, Henry Samuel Levinson, "Religious Philosophy," The Encyclopedia of the
American Religious Experience, Scribner's Sons: New York, 198S, for a discussion of the links between
pragmatism and Protestantism.