Santayana, << `sahn` tah YAH nah or `san` tee AN uh, >> George (1863-1952), was a philosopher and author. He was born in Spain but grew up in the United States and spent about half his life there. He expressed his philosophy in technical works as well as in dialogues, literary essays, sonnets, and a novel, The Last Puritan (1936).
Santayana’s philosophy puzzles many readers. He developed a theory of reality that centered on the distinction between essences and existence. Santayana defined essences as ideas, meanings, perceptions, and possibilities. In contrast, the world of existence includes the events, people, and things that we encounter in life. Santayana believed that not all essences actually exist, but that every existing thing includes essences. The role of essences, according to Santayana, is to describe and illuminate existence.
Santayana regarded religion as a kind of poetry expressing imaginative ideals that give spiritual meaning to life. But he said religion must not be taken literally. He wrote that people must believe in an ideal world where the human spirit can be creative and free. But this ideal world must not be mistaken for reality.
Santayana wrote an enormous number of works on art, morality, religion, and science. His Three Philosophical Poets (1910) consists of interpretations of Dante Alighieri, Lucretius, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His Character and Opinion in the United States (1920) is a commentary on American life. Santayana’s other well-known books include The Sense of Beauty (1896), Interpretations of Religion and Poetry (1900), The Life of Reason (five volumes, 1905-1906), Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923), and Realms of Being (four volumes, 1927-1940). Persons and Places: Fragments of Autobiography was published in 1987, after his death.
Santayana was born on Dec. 16, 1863, in Madrid. His family moved to the United States in 1872 and settled in Boston. Santayana graduated from Harvard University in 1886. He taught philosophy at Harvard from 1889 to 1912, when he settled permanently in Europe. He died on Sept. 26, 1952.
