Publisher's Synopsis
Santayana (1863-1952) was a philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist. Originally from Spain, he was raised and educated in the US from the age of eight and identified himself as an American. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters. Aged 48 he left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently, never to return to the US. Although an atheist, he treasured the Spanish Catholic values, practices and worldview in which he had been raised. A broad-ranging cultural critic spanning many disciplines, he was profoundly influenced by Spinoza's life and thought. He studied under the philosopher William James at Harvard and after graduation studied for two years in Berlin. He then returned to Harvard to teach philosophy himself, becoming part of the Golden Age of the philosophy department, his students including T S Eliot and Gertrude Stein. From 1896-97 Santayana studied at King's College, Cambridge. In 1912 he resigned his position at Harvard to spend the rest of his life in Europe, eventually settling in Rome. The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress, published in five volumes from 1905-06, was the high point of his Harvard career. It consists of Reason in Common Sense, Reason in Society, Reason in Religion, Reason in Art, and Reason in Science. The work is considered to be the most complete expression of his moral philosophy, whilst his later magnum opus, the four-volume The Realms of Being, more fully develops his metaphysical and epistemological theory. Many believe The Life of Reason to be one of the most poetic and well-written works of philosophy in Western history.
