George Santyana's Materialism


Abstract in English

Santyana's writings call repeated attention to the ultimate significance which form possesses for experience in giving meaning and value to our activities. Unless a man is interested in the characters which things have or might have, he can hardly be said to live at all, in any morally significant sense. One strain of Santyana's thought, consists of a combination of materialism in metaphysics, humanism in morals, and realistic methodology in the theory of knowledge. These doctrine receive dominate expression in the works of the middle period, especially in his book (The life of Reason). In this essay we will try to illustrate Santyana's materialism tendency, especially in the book (The life of Reason), and we will try to prove that his materialism was not of the myopic sort which believes that the material existence were the sole reality.

References used

Audi, Robert. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge university press, 1995
P.A. Schilpp, The Philosophy of George Santayana, Northwestern University Press, 1940
Santayana, George. The Realms Of Being, Vol. 2: The Realm of Matter, New York Scribner, 1930
Santayana. George. "Life of Reason", Vol. 1: Reason in common sense, New York: Scribner, 1933-1936
The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy, Published in the University of California Chronicle, Vol. 13,No.4, 1911

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