A penetrating and illuminating exchange of views between Richard Rorty, a highly influential and sometimes controversial philosopher, and seven of his most thoughtful critics, providing new insights into the impact of his work on contemporary American philosophy.

Abstract:John Lachs considers his major philosophical contributions to be his work on mediation, the love of life, and his explication of George Santayana's philosophical and literary outlooks. All three are undergirded by Lachs's effort to make philosophy relevant to people's lives. This article examines these three contributions with both a critical eye and an admiration for Lachs's efforts. The conclusion provides an assessment often missed in critiques of Lachs's work.

Scepticism and Animal Faith marks a turning point in Santayana’s philosophy leading to the development of his complete naturalism, and, if followed, leads to a decisive change in philosophical inquiry that was a century ahead of his time. Indeed, much of what Santayana explicates in this book is now central to inquiries in the social and biological sciences that attempt to understand human behavior. In short, he turns philosophy on its head. Before Santayana, philosophers often thought humans were distinct from (...) other animals because of their reasoning and their ability to act based on thinking through difficulties and then deciding to proceed in the most beneficial way. This approach was widely endorsed from Plato to American pragmatism. However, Santayana’s orientation is dramatically different focusing on animal faith and not human reason. He is a complete non-reductive naturalist.In this article, I examine the implications of Santayana turning to animal faith as a basis for understanding human action. To the surprise of his contemporaries, he no longer considered humans unique from other animals nor perhaps even more complicated in their interactions with their environment. Mental consciousness or spirit is a reflection, an after effect, of animals acting and responding in a physical environment. He suggests an analogy to the sound of music produced by an orchestra. Consciousness or spirit is not causal. For the most part it is momentary, lasting only so long as it is generated by our physical being, what he calls psyche. Hence, rather than being a philosopher who recognizes reason and mind as unique in causing human action, he notes that our actions, like that of all animals, are caused by our psyche’s physical interaction with its environment. Such a move abandons philosophy as a discipline focusing on reason as the basis for action. One might think this lessens the value of consciousness, but not for Santayana. Spirit is celebrational and to be cherished. Indeed, a principal goal of human life is to cultivate a spiritual life. Santayana’s naturalistic approach also leads to a distinct understanding of human cultures, their value, and the political structures involved in various human organizations. There is no hierarchy of best or better, only the reality of human societies serving their constituents in differing ways, much as we might describe the social structures of other animals. If the goal is to provide the greatest range of opportunities for the greatest number of people, one may find evidence that some societies enable more people to live well, but no one political structure is likely to accomplish that in all human environments. Even so, Santayana explores the natural values of charity and justice as central to human societies enabling individual humans to flourish. (shrink)

This second volume arising from the Frontiers in American Philosophy Conference held at Texas A&M University is "festive, celebrating the diversity of thought and influences in American philosophy," say its editors. In these thirty-six essays, there is no attempt to define an American ethos; in fact, the editors conclude that, even pragmatism, identified by Tocqueville as America's defining attribute, should not be described as a national philosophy. It is, as Gerard Deledalle notes in his essay, "the new universal philosophy, because (...) it is the philosophy of experience and democracy that is any nation's `manifest destiny.'" These articles, by thoughtful scholars from North America and several European nations, look forward through the developments presently shaping philosophical inquiry in the United States and backward to the origins and plurality of the American intellectual heritage. Not a parochial or narrow perspective, the focus on American philosophy sharpens the dialogue that clarifies and explicates American thought in the context of a world community. (shrink)

To push the edges of the known, to look at the accepted in novel ways, is indeed to stand at the frontiers of a field. In Frontiers in American Philosophy thirty-five contemporary scholars explore classical American thought in bold new ways. An extraordinary range of issues and thinkers is represented in these pages--from such core themes as metaphysics and social philosophy, which receive primary attention, to some consideration of American philosophers' technical accomplishments in mathematical logic and philosophical analysis. The authors (...) also offer new perspectives on the work of the leading American philosophers, including George Herbert Mead, William James, John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Emma Goldman. Not surprisingly perhaps, a great deal of the discussion revolves, either directly or indirectly, around that great axis of intellectual issues commonly known as the "realism/idealism" controversy. It seems fitting that so much attention is devoted to the possibility of some sort of middle position between "external realism" and its antipode in some form of relativistic subjectivism. For, in the last analysis, such a middle position is for the American philosophers the core meaning of "pragmatism.”. (shrink)

This bibliographical checklist has its origins in a conflation of two previous bibliographies, those of Shohig Terzian and Ceferino Santos Escudero, S.J. These basic listings were considerably amplified by materials discovered during research for the complete critical edition of Santayana's work, and this bibliography remains an essential resource for Santayana scholars.

Interpretations of Poetry and Religion is the third volume in a new critical edition of the complete works of George Santayana that restores Santayana's original text and provides important new scholarly information.Published in the spring of 1900, Interpretations of Poetry and Religion was George Santayana's first book of critical prose. It developed his view 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." This statement (...) and the point of view it espoused contributed significantly to the debate between science and religion at the turn of the century, and its eloquence and clearsightedness continue to have an impact on current discussions about the nature of religion.Interpretations of Poetry and Religion affronted Santayana's peers with its assault on literary and religious pieties of the cultivated classes. William James called its philosophy of harmonious and integral ideal systems nothing less than "a perfection of rottenness."In his insightful introductory essay, Joel Porte observes that while Santayana's theory of correlative objects, his espousal of the "ideal" - the normal human affinity for abstraction - and exaltation of the imagination may have offended some at Harvard, these ideas had a significant influence on other Harvard scholars T.S. Eliot and Santayana's "truest disciple," Wallace Stevens.Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., heads the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at Texas A & M University. William G. Holzberger is a Professor of English at Bucknell University. Joel Porte is Whiton Professor of American Literature at Cornell University. (shrink)

Since the first selection of George Santayana's letters was published in 1955, shortly after his death, many more letters have been located. The Works of George Santayana, Volume V, brings together a total of more than 3,000 letters. The volume is divided chronologically into eight books of roughly comparable length. Book Two covers Santayana's first decade as a "freelance philosopher," following his resignation from Harvard University and move to Europe. Of particular interest is Santayana's continuing correspondence with the American philosopher (...) Charles Augustus Strong and with his sister Susana Sturgis de Sastre. Also included is correspondence with such notable figures as Bertrand Russell, Robert Seymour Bridges, Horace Kallen, and Logan Pearsall Smith. The correspondence covers Santayana's resignation from Harvard, his time in England during World War I, and comments on his philosophical work during this period. (shrink)

Published in 1935, George Santayana's The Last Puritan was the American philosopher's only novel. 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.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, textual commentary, discussions of adopted readings, lists of variants and emendations, and line-end hyphenations. Irving Singer's new introduction to this edition takes up Santayana's philosophical and artistic concerns, including 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. In his thoughtful analysis Singer finds the term "homosexual novel" too reductionist and imprecise for what Santayana is trying to achieve. Singer brings to light the author's skillful and inventive methods for perceiving and interpreting reality, including ideal forms of friendship, and his success in exploring the pervasive moral problems that people face throughout their existence. (shrink)

Herman J. Saatkamp’s _A Life of Scholarship with Santayana: Essays and Reflections_ gathers together his work of a lifetime. There are twenty-three pieces, in three sections: “Santayana and Philosophy,” “Editorship,” and “Genetic Concerns and the Future of Philosophy.”.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Life and Publications Naturalism, Creative Imagination, and Pragmatism America Conclusion.

Larry Hickman has fostered his own analysis, explication and application of Dewey’s philosophy as well as overseen the critical edition of John Dewey’s works at the Center for Dewey Studies. In America our democracy is struggling, making Hickman’s scholarly work even more important. I attempt to explain some of Hickman’s use of Dewey’s philosophy to address current issues that include the roles of religion and education in American democracy. Much of Hickman’s pragmatic naturalism provides hope for democracy as a way (...) of life and as a governmental organization. But will that hope meet contemporary challenges in our society? I suggest some possible limitations to Dewey’s and Hickman’s views but highlight the central role both play in American philosophy. (shrink)