Santayana, George 1863-1952

The life of reason, or, The phases of human progress by George Santayana ( Book )
128 editions published between 1905 and 2013 in English and held by 3,967 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Annotation

The sense of beauty, being the outlines of aesthetic theory by George Santayana ( Book )
88 editions published between 1894 and 2011 in 4 languages and held by 3,509 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
"This work contains the chief ideas gathered together for a course of lectures on the theory and history of aesthetics given at Harvard College from 1892 to 1895. The only originality the author claims is that which may result from the attempt to put together the scattered commonplaces of criticism into a system, under the inspiration of a naturalistic psychology. His effort throughout has been to recall those fundamental aesthetic feelings the orderly extension of which yields sanity of judgment and distinction of taste"--Pref. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

The last Puritan, a memoir in the form of a novel by George Santayana ( Book )
72 editions published between 1935 and 2005 in 4 languages and held by 2,761 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Published in 1935, George Santayana's The Last Puritan was the American philosopher's only novel and it became an instant best seller, immediately linked in its painful voyage of self-discovery to The Education of Henry Adams. It is essentially a novel of ideas expressed in the birth, life, and early death of Oliver Alden. Oliver escapes puritanical self-destruction, the inability to celebrate life, through a form of self-knowledge that Santayana endorses throughout his moral philosophy. The Last Puritan is volume four in a new critical edition of The Works of George Santayana that restores Santayana's original text and provides important new scholarly information. Books in this series - the first complete publication of Santayana's works - include an editorial apparatus with notes to the text (identifying persons, places, and ideas), textual commentary (including a description of the composition and publication history, along with a discussion of editorial methods and decisions), lists of variants and emendations, and line-end hyphenations. This edition of The Last Puritan was originally based on the typescript for the first part of the novel. The exciting discovery of the second half of the typescript in the fall of 1992 has resulted in a consistent copy-text throughout, making its text more firmly based on Santayana's intentions. Irving Singer's introduction highlights Santayana's philosophical and artistic concerns and addresses issues of homosexuality raised by the depiction of the novel's two protagonists, Oliver and Mario, and of the relationship between Oliver and the rogue character Jim Darnley. Finding the term "homosexual novel" too reductionist and imprecise, Singer brings to light the author's festive celebration of reality, including ideal friendship, and his success in illuminating the pervasive moral dilemmas that people face throughout their existence. The Santayana Edition was initiated by members of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and Comite Conjunto Hispano - Norteamericano para la Cooperacion Cultural y Educativa. This volume has been awarded the "Approved Edition" emblem of the Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions. Editors of The Works of George Santayana include: Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., General Editor, Department of Philosophy and Humanites at Texas A&M University; William G. Holzberger, Textual Editor, Department of English at Bucknell University; and Donna Hanna-Calvert, Associate Editor at Texas A&M University. Irving Singer is Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Meaning in Life: The Creation of Value

Interpretations of poetry and religion by George Santayana ( Book )
55 editions published between 1900 and 2011 in 3 languages and held by 2,319 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
In 1900, Santayana's assault on conventional pieties outraged contemporaries like William James. This first work of prose criticism asserts that poetry is called religion when it intervenes in life, and religion, when it merely supervenes upon life, is seen to be nothing but poetry. Santayana's ideas continue to influence debates over science and religion

Character & opinion in the United States : with reminiscences of William James and Josiah Royce and academic life in America by George Santayana ( Book )
68 editions published between 1920 and 2011 in 4 languages and held by 2,121 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Published in 1920, this collection of essays and lectures features Santayana's impressions of American national character. He discusses topics, such as morality, academia, materialism, idealism, and liberty as well as people, such as William James and Josiah Royce. There is much forgetfulness, he writes in his preface, much callow disrespect for what is past or alien; but there is a fund of vigour, goodness, and hope "

Physical order and moral liberty; previously unpublished essays of George Santayana by George Santayana ( Book )
3 editions published in 1969 in English and held by 2,067 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

Three philosophical poets; Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe by George Santayana ( Book )
58 editions published between 1910 and 2011 in English and Undetermined and held by 1,852 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
?I am no specialist in the study of Lucretius; I am not a Dante scholar nor a Goethe scholar?.My excuse for writing about them, notwithstanding, is merely the human excuse which every new poet has for writing about the spring. They have attracted me; they have moved me to reflection; they have revealed to me certain aspects of nature and of philosophy which I am prompted by mere sincerity to express, if anybody seems interested or willing to listen.? The modesty exhibited in the above disclaimer?from Santayana?s preface to Three Philosophical Poets?should be viewed in the context of the author?s extraordinary impact as a philosopher and teacher. The Sense of Beauty has claim to being the first major work on aesthetics written in the United States; the multivolume The Life of Reason is arguably the first extended analysis of pragmatism anywhere. Among Santayana?s many well-known Harvard students, Wallace Stevens has acknowledged a clear debt to his work. Based on a course Santayana taught at Harvard, Three Philosophical Poets was first delivered to the public as a series of lectures at Columbia University in 1910. Santayana?s lifelong, learned meditation on the relationship between philosophy and art is apparent. (Santayana?s own prose style has long been considered among the most eloquent in all of philosophy.) Here, he discusses the chief phases of European philosophy?naturalism, supernaturalism, and romanticism?as they are set forth and epitomized by the works of Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe, respectively. Praise for Three Philosophical Poets and its author ?[A] brilliant and admirable little book.? ?T. S. Eliot ?The exquisite and memorable way in which he has always said things has given so much delight that we accept what he says as we accept our own civilization. His pages are part of the douceur de vivre.? ?Wallace Stevens ?Santayana was the real excitement for me at Harvard, especially Three Philosophical Poets?.It really fixed my view of what poetry should ultimately be.? ?Conrad Aiken

Scepticism and animal faith; introduction to a system of philosophy by George Santayana ( Book )
39 editions published between 1923 and 2005 in English and Undetermined and held by 1,812 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
In Scepticism and Animal Faith, Santayana analyzes the nature of the knowing process and demonstrates by means of clear, powerful arguments how we know and what validates our knowledge. The central concept of his philosophy is found in a careful discrimination between the awareness of objects independent of our perception and the awareness of essences attributed to objects by our mind, or between what Santayana calls the realm of existents and the realm of subsistent

Dominations and powers : reflections on liberty, society, and government by George Santayana ( Book )
25 editions published between 1951 and 1995 in English and held by 1,491 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
"In what must be ranked as a foremost classic of twentieth-century political philosophy, George Santayana, in the preface to his last major work prior to his death, makes plain the limits as well as the aims of Dominations and Powers: "All that it professes to contain is glimpses of tragedy and comedy played unawares by governments; and a continual intuitive reduction of political maxims and institutions to the intimate spiritual fruits that they are capable of bearing."" "Completed at midpoint in the century, but serving as his final masterpiece, Santayana's volume offers an ominous account of the weakness of the West, and its similarities in substance if not always in form with totalitarian systems of the East. Few analyses of concepts, such as government by the people; the price of peace and the suppression of warfare; the nature of elites and limits of egalitarianism; and the nature of authority in free societies, are more comprehensive or compelling. This is a carefully rendered statement on tasks of leadership for free societies that takes on added meaning after the fall of communism."--BOOK JACKET

The birth of reason & other essays by George Santayana ( Book )
12 editions published between 1968 and 1995 in English and held by 1,449 WorldCat member libraries worldwide