AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

Santayana's poems abound in mystery, in alien philosophy, and yet reflect the sentiments of the orthodox reader. His poems are indicative of his philosophy which was first expressed by them. His often quoted third sonnet is an expression of rational pessimism dispraising rather than praising faith. To understand his poesy we must understand him, his "Platonic" philosophy, and his aesthetic theory. His poems he calls an expression of the humors of winter hooted by an owl from his place in the heart of a black wood. His work may be divided into three periods, expressing his rational pessimism, his transcendentalism, his indifference. Santayana is a divided self, believing that art and poetry are in the realm of essence, that essence is real, matter unreal, that essence or spirit, lasts only as long as matter  – there being, therefore, no immortality and no God  – and that the intelligent lovers of truth and beauty should understand, transcend and rule the world. Of and from infinite variations, through animal faith, Santayana forms single essences which he believes to be superior to Plato's eternal and Absolute Idea which is imperfectly recollected and perceived in multiple imitation. Santayana scorns the Poetic intuition of Plato, to him an adumbration of divine attributes or Ideas not including pain, pleasure and hunger; and he judges with his own ideal of the common natural element of harmony: Plato preferred freeing his mind of physical aspects before attempting an intuition of wisdom. To establish Plato's Beauty as practical fitness does an injustice to its elements of eternal simplicity, good and harmony. Santayana accuses Protagorus of making man's nature his own arbiter of values, which leads to humanism and moral anarchy, he believes; Plato's noble character, though a lover of truth, may deceive his state for its own good. Is there nothing better to be said for Plato's truth? Santayana is right in calling Plato's Good harmony, wrong in calling it Plato's God. Plato's One and Many are related and bound into one system, Santayana's different approach to the essence, and animal faith, and his scepticism, keep him from understanding how matter could be created from the divine Ideas of Plato. Heaven is blameless for the life a man chooses. A middle ground is best between Plato's scorn of sensation and Santayana's scorn of what is not sensation. Santayana 's upside-down method of approaching ideas causes his philosophy to be less like Plato's and hardly a variant of it as he claims. Santayana has no theory of aesthetics, but he defines art, aesthetics, beauty, and ethics. Art is tradition, knack, pure intuition of essence, and pleasure. Aesthetics is harmony, intuitive contemplation, and disillusion, including all pleasures and pains, all perceptions of values, but not mere sensations (by perception elements appear as qualities). Beauty is a value of positive good. Intrinsic and objectified, Ethics is avoidance of evil and pursuit of good —- yet his moral and aesthetic values are the same. Aesthetic…