Users may contribute and view comments concerning A George Santayana Home Page from any page on the web site. Here, all comments are gathered and sorted chronologically. This page includes guestbook entries contributed between 1996 and 2006. The guestbook did not operate between March 2006 and December 2010.
Entries from Defunct AOL Guestbook, 2006-1997
FROM: pete
DATE: Feb 07, 2006 04:37
SUBJECT: A country without a memory is a country of madmen
COMMENT:
i can't find this quotation
FROM: tpd
DATE: Nov 24, 2005 23:07
SUBJECT: To All Users of this Site
COMMENT:
I am terribly sorry about the spam problem on this guestbook. I haven't the slightest idea how to control it. My current plan is to let things ride until April, when I put up a new site in celebration of 10 years on the web. At that point, I will probably close the guestbook on AOL. Yours, Tom
FROM: tpd
DATE: Nov 24, 2005 23:05
SUBJECT: question by Rafe Jenney
COMMENT:
Rafe Jenney: I don&39;t know the reason. I have asked similar questions of folks in the past, but no good reply. I have been directed to Dr. Herman J. Saatkamp Jr., who has been a primary mover of the critical editions project, but have never had a strong enough reason to know to pursue the inquiry. Maybe your need to know would justify an intrusion on his time? Best of luck....tpd
FROM: Rafe Jenney
DATE: Oct 31, 2005 15:02
SUBJECT: Santayana&39;s copyright expiration
COMMENT:
Does anyone know why certain books written and publish by Santayana years ago are not in the public domain? For example Scepticism and Animal Faith was published in what 1923 or something and yet Dover has a 1955 copyright. Yet on the copyright page Dover admits tha it is "This Dover edition , first published in 1923, is an unabridged and unaltered republicationof the work first published in 1923." Maybe they add a new cover, so maybe the new material might be copywrite. Yet the unaltered text ought to be in the public domain.
FROM: Elithea
DATE: Jan 28, 2005 16:24
SUBJECT: Sanatayana Quote
COMMENT:
Allison, you asked 5 years ago about a Sanatayane Nationality Quote. I nkow youhad been looking for it for years then. It seems to be in Soliloquies In England and LAter Soliloquies (1922.) But where are you now?
FROM: tpd
DATE: Nov 05, 2004 21:18
SUBJECT: patriotism quotation
COMMENT:
At pages 175-176, in the chapter entitled "Patriotism," in the volume "Reason in Society," of the book "The Life of Reason: Or the Phases of Human Progress," (New York, Charles Scribner&39;s Sons, 1924, 2nd ed.)
FROM: Student
DATE: Oct 31, 2004 22:51
SUBJECT: Could you guys help me with a Santayana Quote?
COMMENT:
I am looking for the source of this quote: "A man&39;s feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world."
FROM: Stacey Sullivan
DATE: Mar 10, 2004 18:02
SUBJECT: source of a GS paraphrase?
COMMENT:
"The greatest sins, Santayana thought, are those that set out to strangle human nature," Joseph Epstein writes in the current issue of the Weekly Standard. What is the actual Santayana quote?
FROM: Sandra Alcosser
DATE: Feb 20, 2004 13:03
SUBJECT: quotation
COMMENT:
Could you please give me the source of this quotation:has his festive and ceremonious moments when he poses or plumes himself or thinks; sometimes he even flies aloft in a sort of ecstasy. Thank you.
FROM: Webmaestro
DATE: Jan 23, 2004 03:06
SUBJECT: Hi George!
COMMENT:
Very nice an duseful website. Please visit my website!!! :) http://www.metropolis5000.com
FROM: Georgia
DATE: Jan 05, 2004 00:27
SUBJECT: On The Death of a Metaphysician
COMMENT:
In this poem what is Santayana trying to say, any interpretations? and when was it published?
FROM: Juan Galis-Menendez
DATE: Jan 02, 2004 15:40
SUBJECT: Santayana&39;s Courage.
COMMENT:
There is an unfortunate tendency to see Santayana as irrelevant or confused, at least by contemporary philosophical standards. He wasn&39;t either of those things. Visitors in his old age, men of the caliber of Gore Vidal and Fredrick Prokosch, reported on his dry wit, and clear-eyed assessments of developments, including the collapse of intellectual, moral and aesthetic standards, and utter lack of sentimentality (combined with depth of artistic feeling) about everything. When told that the Italians might go Communist, he laughed: "Oh, let them try it," he said, "they&39;ve tried everything else. And while it is, of course, a great error, it is today&39;s error and will keep things from getting dull." There is a humanity and warmth -- yes, warmth -- in Santayana&39;s thought that is rare in the work of any philosopher today. He understood the U.S. and its people, for example, with all their foibles, yet some part of him loved "the genteel tradition" of the place and its people anyway.
FROM: KLM
DATE: Dec 16, 2003 20:42
SUBJECT: Last Words?
COMMENT:
Did GS supposedly say on his deathbed, "I suppose this means I should stop thinking of myself as a young man with potential" -- ? Any citation?
FROM: maintainer
DATE: Dec 07, 2003 21:46
SUBJECT: quote re history
COMMENT:
see comment above for jan 22 1998
FROM: mwhistory
DATE: Dec 07, 2003 10:13
SUBJECT: Thank you for this website!
COMMENT:
I teach high school history and have often quoted Santayana. Now, however I am writing a paper for a degree I am pursuing. I needed the source of the most famous quote about history; most particularly the year. Thank you!
FROM: Sara M.
DATE: Nov 14, 2003 20:15
SUBJECT: quote
COMMENT:
Please, can you tell me where Santayana speks about the "amphibious" character of existence?
FROM: Sara M.
DATE: Nov 14, 2003 05:20
SUBJECT: Santayana quote
COMMENT:
I vould like to knowth source of a phrase by Santayana, "malign psychology" referred by J. Dewey in his Experience and Nature
FROM: Andrew Bullock
DATE: Nov 11, 2003 17:43
SUBJECT: quote
COMMENT:
"Those who cannot remember th past r condemned to repeat it. I cannot find this reference & there doesn&39;t seem to be any search mechanism
FROM: Ursula Swain
DATE: Oct 11, 2003 13:29
SUBJECT: Epiphenomenalism
COMMENT:
Epiphenomenalism does happen and when it happened to me, I could find no one who understood. It began with a physical event, but became a Spiritual connection of magnitude. As stated, Epiphenomenalism begins with a physical event, than begins to change senses as it relates to magnetic pull, internal crystal mirrored reflections, high speed spinning, enourmous internal electricity and heat, light and color of such magnitude, that the conscious mind fails to comprehend, yet is fully aware.Epiphenomenalism creates links and connections, opens many dormant cells, but also disconnects and shuts down others. Epiphenomenalism will change ey sight to internal and external visions, where time and distance become irrelevant.
FROM: kay warner
DATE: Jun 14, 2003 22:56
SUBJECT: power corrupts
COMMENT:
Your daughter may be thinking of page 389 of Dominations and Powers: "The maxim that power corrupts, like other maxims, is a half-truth. There are cases of it; but what corrupts is not power itself, in those born or fitted to exercise it; rather what corrupts is the new atmosphere that envelops a mediocre nature seduced and lost in the great world, when it had been accustomed to thrifty morals, starved dumb passions, and provincial habits."
FROM: maintainer
DATE: Jun 01, 2003 21:50
SUBJECT: quote
COMMENT:
It appears earlier on this page
FROM: andrea
DATE: May 31, 2003 10:09
SUBJECT: doomed
COMMENT:
what is the accurate history/past/doomed/repeat quotation?? thank you
FROM: James E. (Jim) Abbott
DATE: Apr 09, 2003 23:04
SUBJECT: SUBJECT: Donna Lim&39;s query about parents&39; shoulders
COMMENT:
You have probably already found this source, but just in case you haven&39;t, here is a quote which may be the one you seek: "If I have seen further...it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." This quote is by Sir Issac Newton in a letter written to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675/6.
FROM: tpd
DATE: Mar 13, 2003 21:52
SUBJECT: absolute power
COMMENT:
I don&39;t recall having seen it in any writings of GS. It is attributed to Bishop Mandell Creighton on some internet site I saw....http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/meanings/22900.phpl . There it says: Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887. &39;Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men&39;. But who knows if this is a dependable source?
FROM: Kay Warner
DATE: Mar 10, 2003 16:23
SUBJECT: power
COMMENT:
A recent article was begun with the quote "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" which I have always heared as "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely", had an author unknown credit. My daughter believes it is a Santyana qoute. What is the correct quote, and is it a Santayana quote? E-mail address is kwarner@gbta.net. Thank you for the information.
FROM: lil ol me!!!
DATE: Feb 19, 2003 15:25
SUBJECT: cool
COMMENT:
cool
FROM: Dawn
DATE: Feb 13, 2003 13:36
SUBJECT: A once-read essay...
COMMENT:
I was once given an essay to translate as part of a Spanish class--I really wish I had kept it. It was about the fallacy of nationality as a function of geneology--how a Frenchman is not a Frenchman because his great, great, great grandparents were French, because even the very borders of that nation have changed over history. I&39;m not remembering it well, but that was one of the central arguments. Does anyone know anything about that essay, and where I might find a copy of it?
FROM: lsls
DATE: Dec 10, 2002 21:57
SUBJECT: past quotation
COMMENT:
see jan 22 1998 above
FROM: canuk
DATE: Dec 10, 2002 18:45
SUBJECT: mistakes of the past
COMMENT:
I&39;ve seen the quotation "Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are bound to repeat them" attributed to Santayana. If this is true, which book was it in?
FROM: lsls
DATE: Dec 6, 2002 21:42
SUBJECT: past
COMMENT:
see above jan 22, 1998
FROM: T. E.
DATE: Dec 5, 2002 00:37
SUBJECT:
COMMENT:
Please advise from which work or under what context the quote &39;Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it&39; came. Thank you!
FROM: SS
DATE: Oct 19, 2002 20:10
SUBJECT: How can this quote be applied to humanity??
COMMENT:
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
FROM: megan mcgill
DATE: Oct 16, 2002 18:13
SUBJECT: homework
COMMENT:
i have been given the question "those who cannot" which is a famous quote qbout the holocaust.
FROM: maintainer
DATE: Mar 8, 2002 19:38
SUBJECT: pics
COMMENT:
two photographs are accessible off main page
FROM: melissa
DATE: Mar 8, 2002 17:42
SUBJECT:
COMMENT:
where are your links to santayana pics!? where are your links to santayana pics!?
FROM: kathryn03@aol.com
DATE: Nov 14, 2001 23:42
SUBJECT: looking for quote that begins with "those who fail to.....(approx 3 sentences long)
COMMENT:
hope you can help!!
FROM: CajunQT17@aol.com
DATE: Oct 29, 2001 11:41
SUBJECT: PLEASE HELP ME SOMEONE!!!
COMMENT:
I need to know exactly what Santanya meant by "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I want to know what event in history he commented on with saying that. If you have ANY useful info about this quote I would really really appreciate it if you would e-mail me very soon with any helpful info. Thanx a bunch!
FROM: Sarah Mannetter
DATE: Oct 25, 2001 14:52
SUBJECT: History
COMMENT:
Those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it
FROM: none
DATE: Sep 21, 2001 23:37
SUBJECT: history quote
COMMENT:
QUOTE: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." CITES: George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Common Sense 284 (2nd ed., Charles Scribner&39;s Sons, New York, New York 1924 (originally published 1905 Charles Scribner&39;s Sons)(appears in chapter XII, "Flux and Constancy in Human Nature")). George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress 82 (one-volume edition, Charles Scribner&39;s Sons, New York, New York 1954)(appears in Book I, Reason in Common Sense, chapter 10, "Flux and Constancy in Human Nature").
FROM: Bill Vickrey
DATE: Sep 16, 2001 20:50
SUBJECT: those who forget the lessons of history
COMMENT:
Can you give me the complete quotation and the circumstances where Mr. Snatyana wrote this.
FROM: A. Z. Arrow
DATE: Jul 15, 2001 14:30
SUBJECT: Past History
COMMENT:
I would have said it somewhat differently than the famous Santanana. Thus, "Those who live in the past are bound to stay there, being destine to return again to the sorid conditions of the primative, in essence to become infantile, and to have a truth in life and the "true" in reason bushwacked." Or put simply, the current social conservative is the penultimate flatworm of the present as thus, unknown to themselves, the emerging barbarian of the future. ~A.Z. Arrow
FROM: Bunny Kishaba
DATE: Jul 9, 2001 17:31
SUBJECT: Yesterday
COMMENT:
My favorite George Santayana quote: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
FROM: Liborius Lumma
DATE: Jun 9, 2001 10:20
SUBJECT: Looking for a special quotation
COMMENT:
For a philosophical essay on "self-esteem" I am looking for a special quotation by George Santayana. I only have a German translation. Translated back into English, it runs: "Perhaps the only dignity of man is represented by his ability to have self-esteem (self-respect?)." Does anybody know where exactly I can find the original quotation? Many thanks and greetings! Liborius Lumma peregrinus@web.de
FROM: whitney davis
DATE: May 27, 2001 18:40
SUBJECT: santayana&39;s cartoons
COMMENT:
Does anyone happen to have reproductions (e.g. photocopies) of Santayana&39;s cartoons for the Harvard Lampoon? (He disavowed their interest in e.g. the Bruno Lind interviews--but for a project of my own, dealing with Boston/Harvard aestheticism, humor, and irony, they might be relevant.) The original Lampoons are very hard to get!
FROM: Carl Larsen
DATE: May 24, 2001 22:14
SUBJECT: Donna Lim&39;s query about parents&39; shoulders
COMMENT:
This is another restatement about standing on the shoulders of giants. Whether GS expressed this I doubt, but someone has done a book on the shoulders of giants. Good luck.
FROM: Donna Lim
DATE: Mar 21, 2001 18:20
SUBJECT: checking for another quote
COMMENT:
several years ago my friend shared a quote which has stuck in my mind as being Santayana&39;s : something about standing on parents&39; shoulders and receiving a wider perspective? Would like to know if i&39;m attributing the quote to the right source. Any feedback would be much appreciated. Please email vivit@acay.com.au
FROM: marcus maurice - www.lloydviglen@hotmail.com
DATE: Mar 21, 2001 09:40
SUBJECT: "Graphic Design.......hobbies and humours."
COMMENT:
this applies to everything. this quote has given me alot of ideas concerning my next project, thanx! :->
FROM: Jim Small
DATE: Mar 11, 2001 18:36
SUBJECT: Santayana frequently misquoted about remembering the past
COMMENT:
It is ironic that George Santayana&39;s statement in his "Life of Reason" about progress is so often twisted into something void of reason regarding history. You hear it most often stated in a pontifical tone that "History is the great teacher. Thus it is that those who cannot remember to past are doomed to repeat it." The message being, I suppose, is if you don&39;t pay attention to your history teacher, you will help move the country toward World War III. Which, of course, is trite nonsense completely at odds with Santayana&39;s overriding philosophy based on reason. What Santayana actually wrote is: "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness...and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfill it.
FROM: Francis Laleman
DATE: Feb 20, 2001 08:36
SUBJECT: Music vs. Life
COMMENT:
"Music is useless, and so is life". A statement containing the essence of what life is all about? Is "Quality" the main parameter of the game? I wonder .... !
FROM: allison outland
DATE: Jun 29, 2000 20:17
SUBJECT: yet another scholar in search of the source of a pithy GS statement
COMMENT:
In his 1983 book, Nations and Nationalism, the late Ernest Gellner quotes Santayana (without source, grrrrrr!) as follows: "Our nationality is like our relations to women: too implicated in our moral nature to be changed honorably, and too accidental to be worth changing." I would be forever grateful if someone can put me on to the source of this statement. By the way, the person looking for the "In the time of your life..." source might look at William Saroyan&39;s play "The Time of Your Life" in which that statement occurs. I assume the character in the play is quoting, but a printed edition of the play way credit the source. Just a thought.
FROM: tpd
DATE: May 18, 2000 21:29
SUBJECT: De Tar: gs quote
COMMENT:
lo and behold. forgive me. please try second to last sentence on page 157. by the way, i am looking at 1969 copyright, vanderbilt univ. press -- though I believe you are correct that there is only one edition.
FROM: Dr. Richard P. DeTar
DATE: May 18, 2000 20:00
SUBJECT: the quotation from Physical Order and Moral Liberty
COMMENT:
Well, tpd, it turned out to be May, not January, before I read it, or at least responded to you about it. I have that work in that edition, which I think was the only edition, and I&39;m sorry to tell you that those exact words are not on that page. I have read it over several times to make sure, but they&39;re just not there.
FROM: Richard P. DeTar
DATE: May 18, 2000 19:52
SUBJECT: The quotation you seek
COMMENT:
Just at this moment, I can&39;t help you with a specific quotation, but the sentiment expressed is so much in keeping with Santayana&39;s, at least with his early works, with which I am more familiar than with the latter, that I suspect similar sentiments occur at a number of places in his works.
FROM: Beatriz Ruiz De Chavez
DATE: May 16, 2000 18:23
SUBJECT: Santayana quotation
COMMENT:
In which of Santayana&39;s works will I find: "In the time of your life, live so that you may not add to the sorrow and misery of the world, but delight in the wonder and beauty of it." ?
FROM: Alan M. Kriegsman
DATE: May 16, 2000 14:40
SUBJECT: search for a presumed Santayana quote
COMMENT:
Years ago, I thought I had come across a statement by Santayana--I cannot recall which book--to the effect that "religion is literally false but poetically true&39;; the wording may be quite inexact, and I&39;m in no way sure the statement is indeed Santayana&39;s. Can anyone help me with this, confirm nor not, cite a source, etc.; many thanks, amk
FROM: claire tinelli
DATE: Feb 27, 2000 10:28
SUBJECT: george santayana
COMMENT:
&39;Graphic design is the paradise os individuality, eccentricty, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humours&39;. is this quote by this GS or another one?
FROM: tpd
DATE: Feb 5, 2000 00:16
SUBJECT: happiness quotation?
COMMENT:
In the chapter on heathenism in Egotism in German Philosophy, near the end (p.152 my edition), there is a similar sentiment to the quotation you ask for. It goes: "It is in the nature of things that those who are incapable of happiness should have no idea of it. Happiness is not for wild animals, who can only oscillate between apathy and passion. To be happy, even to conceive happiness, you must be reasonable or (if Nietzsche prefers the word) you must be tamed." There is more of interest there, too. Sorry if this is not exactly right, but maybe it will suit your purpose.
FROM: Eileen
DATE: Feb 2, 2000 07:42
SUBJECT: Happiness
COMMENT:
I&39;m looking for the complete Santayana quote that begins: "Happiness is unatainable, even inconceivable, to a mind without scope, without pause." If anyone knows the source of this quote, please let me know. My email is : spacemom@home.com
FROM: Richard DeTar
DATE: Dec 17, 1999 21:25
SUBJECT: quotation
COMMENT:
Thank you, tpd, I&39;ve just checked this website again after a long absence. I have the book and shall check it and let you know what I think, but it may not be till January.
FROM: Steve Campbell
DATE: Nov 9, 1999 14:47
SUBJECT: Looking for Santayana quote on intelligence
COMMENT:
I&39;m looking to verify a quote attributed to Santayana. The quote is "Intelligence is the quickness in seeing things as they really are." Could someone verify and confirm that this is the exact quote and where it&39;s from. Thanks for your help. Steve Campbell scampbell@campbellpr.bc.ca
FROM: duffy
DATE: Nov 7, 1999 20:31
SUBJECT: quote
COMMENT:
That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and if not, the most impossible of conclusions. if anyone knows where this quote came from, please let me know, duffyone@goplay.com
FROM: tpd
DATE: Nov 6, 1999 20:58
SUBJECT: de tar
COMMENT:
Physical Order and Moral Liberty: Previously Unpublished Essays of George Santayana at 158 (John and Shirley Lachs, eds., Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, TN 1969).
FROM: Dr. DeTar
DATE: Nov 6, 1999 03:31
SUBJECT: quotation
COMMENT:
Can you give me the source of the quotation, so I can read it in its context?
FROM: tpd
DATE: Oct 25, 1999 06:42
SUBJECT: nature and change
COMMENT:
DeTar: any comment on this quote: "But nature is more than substance; it is a system of movements, forms, and transformations, which have their specific being in the realm of truth."?
FROM: Dr. Richard DeTar
DATE: Oct 12, 1999 09:02
SUBJECT: Realms of Being
COMMENT:
Santayana distinguishes between being and existence. Anything we can conceive of has being, and probably some things we can&39;t, i.e., that could be conceived of by other sentient entities on other worlds of whose existence we are not even aware. All essences have being, and the realm of essence is infinite. Only some essences, however, are instantiated, that is, have actual existence. Sherlock Holmes and Gandalf have being but not existence. Winston Churchill and Madonna have both. In some of his letters, he does indeed write of working on a book about the THREE realms of being, and the one left out is truth. It is indeed a subset of essence, consisting of all those essences, actually instantiated, i.e., what REALLY happened in history. The realm of essence, on the other hand, contains all those things which MIGHT have happened as well, such as the prom at which you really did go with the homecoming queen or the captain of the football team. My own suspicion, which I cannot substantiate, is he might have added the realm of truth as part of his critique of pragmatism, which he feel failed to distinguish adequately between how we arrive at truth at the truth itself, to emphasize the reality and importance of the latter.
FROM: CF
DATE: Aug 25, 1999 17:18
SUBJECT: Categories
COMMENT:
The fact that you are not "satisfied" to call Truth a category implies (does it not?) that you are not convinced that Truth IS a category. But this is an illusion! There is NO what-it-is-to-be a category! Why should you suppose that there is a tension between you and S on this matter? Does S anywhere insist that Truth is a category? You could say, I suppose, that (quote 4) S says that Spirit is a category, and since he classifies Truth along with Spirit as a "realm of being," he ipso facto calls Truth a category. But S is USING the word category, not talking ABOUT categories; he is saying what Spirit is NOT (a thing), not what it IS. What it is is Spirit.
FROM: tpd
DATE: Aug 21, 1999 23:12
SUBJECT: cf comment: categories
COMMENT:
Santayana says, as indicated in quotation from page on this site: "[Man] seldom has leisure to dwell on essences . . . unless they are significant of facts in the realm of matter, controlling his destiny. I therefore give a special name to this tragic segment of the realm of essence and call it the Realm of Truth." Is this a reason to call "Truth" a category? Does Santayana give another reason? Somehow this reason is not satisfying to me.
FROM: CF
DATE: Aug 18, 1999 17:12
SUBJECT: TPD comment of 8/1/99
COMMENT:
Do you suppose that there is somewhere the TRUTH ABOUT the question whether Truth is a category, or a fundamental category? Are there some necessary and sufficient conditions for what it is to "be" a category? If one man says, and gives reasons therefor, that x is a category, and another man says it isn&39;t, giving his reasons therefor, is there some ARBITER between them? If someone uses the notion of "category" to make a point and we see what he is saying, aren&39;t we already at the end of the journey?
FROM: tpd
DATE: Aug 1, 1999 00:23
SUBJECT: categories
COMMENT:
I don&39;t see that a category can be optional or secondary. They are categories because they are logically fundamental. To follow up on the 5/1/98 and 7/2/99 comments, this is not to deny that existentially spirit is in a sense "secondary," but only to deny that the category of power is somehow more important than any other category. My gripe or misunderstanding or difficulty with the Realms of Being has always been with the realm of truth, as I don&39;t see how it is categorically distinct from the realm of essence. Truth is distinguishable at some level from essence -- it is a subset of the realm of essence. I don&39;t see it as a category, though, as it too is eternal character, not power, not consciousness. So, what is it to be a category? Are there levels of category? Why does Truth qualify as a category in Santayana&39;s philosophy? Thanks for any comments.
FROM: Charles Finch
DATE: Jul 2, 1999 09:23
SUBJECT: Lawson-Kerr&39;s comment on 5/1/98
COMMENT:
I&39;m new to this site (but old to Santayana) and puzzled about the statement that S "insists on [matter] alone while the others he sees as optional." What is meant by "optional" here? How could essence not BE?
FROM: Richard P. DeTar
DATE: Nov 25, 1998 23:55
SUBJECT: Response to zip@citynet.net
COMMENT:
It is on page 284 of the Dover edition of Reason in Common Sense: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Interestingly, read in its context it is not a criticism of moderns, as it is often interpreted as being, but of primitives. The preceding sentence ends, "...when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual." For someone whose philosophers inspired some significant figures in sociology and anthropology (I can&39;t lay my hands on any examples just at the moment.), it constitutes something of a lapse on his part, showing he could not entirely rise above the eurocentrism of his time.
FROM: Richard P. DeTar
DATE: Nov 25, 1998 23:53
SUBJECT: Response to zip@citynet.net
COMMENT:
It is on page 284 of the Dover edition of Reason in Common Sense: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Interestingly, read in its context it is not a criticism of moderns, as it is often interpreted as being, but of primitives. The preceding sentence ends, "...when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual." For someone whose philosophers inspired some significant figures in sociology and anthropology (I can&39;t lay my hands on any examples just at the moment.), it constitutes something of a lapse on his part, showing he could not entirely rise above the eurocentrism of his time.
FROM: Richard P. DeTar
DATE: Nov 25, 1998 23:43
SUBJECT: Response to Mati Avivi
COMMENT:
All of Santayana&39;s poems are in The Complete Poems of George Santayana, edited by William G. Holzberger and published by Bucknell University Press in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 1979. I do not know who holds the copyrights, but I believe any one of three authorities could tell you: Dr. John Lachs of Vanderbilt University, Dr. Herman Saatkamp of the Indiana University-Purdue Extension at Indianapolis, or Dr. Angus Kerr-Lawson, emeritus of Waterloo University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. I believe their addresses can be found elsewhere on this web page.
FROM: zip@citynet.net
DATE: Oct 11, 1998 14:31
SUBJECT: past
COMMENT:
please supply me complete quotation about understanding the past to avoid repeating it
FROM: Mati Avivi
DATE: Oct 9, 1998 10:35
SUBJECT: "Minuet on reaching the age of fifty"
COMMENT:
I am trying to locate this poem that I read once somewhere. who holds the copyrights if I want to publish an Hebrew translation to some of his poems in Israel?
FROM: ellery lanier
DATE: Sep 2, 1998 23:58
SUBJECT: animal faith
COMMENT:
started reading in 1938-still good stuff
FROM: Richard P. DeTar
DATE: Jun 12, 1998 17:33
SUBJECT: Ranking the Realms
COMMENT:
Santayana always had reservations about "rankings" in general, perhaps even about the whole issue of the quantitative versus the qualitative. However, I can see two ways of "ranking" the realms, if you will, which will stand up under scrutiny. Clearly, the realm of truth is the least among them. It is almost a sort of afterthought, in that for many years in his letters he wrote of his projected work on the THREE realms of being. I wonder, however, if spirit is quite so secondary as all that. Admittedly, "spirit&39;s primary nature is to be secondary," and I can&39;t remember if that is a direct quote from Jorge or is the title of one of your articles, possibly both. However, if "independent existential or causal status" is the measure of a realm&39;s "ranking," then only matter can be primary, first because only matter exists. Even the realm of essence possesses being, but not existence. Secondly, all causation is material. So I can see two defensible ways of "ranking the realms." In one, matter and essence are primary to the other two. In the other, only truth is secondary.
FROM: Angus Kerr-Lawson
DATE: May 1, 1998 08:29
SUBJECT: DeTar on Truth
COMMENT:
Richard: Since you ask us to DISTINGUISH in regard to the realms, let us carry this further. RM is primary in the sense that Santayana insists on it alone among the realms. The others he sees as optional. But RE is primary in that it is eternal, and essences are always at the disposal of existence to select some of them. Spirit is said explicitly by S. to be secondary, in that it has no independent existential or causal status. And it appears that truth is in a similar relation to RM as is essence: truth is eternal, and can be said to be prior in some sense; but that which is true is fixed by the movements of matter.
FROM: Richard P. DeTar
DATE: Apr 27, 1998 23:25
SUBJECT: Why is Truth a Category?
COMMENT:
Angus, I&39;m just sitting here in front of my computer without my sources in front of me, but a couple of people have suggested two of the realms, matter and essence, are primary and spirit and truth are secondary. I don&39;t see it that way myself. For years, he planned a work of three realms, including spirit. Spirit (consciousness) and matter are each ways in which essences can be instantiated, after all. Truth is simply what matter passes into the moment it is in the past, an unchangeable realm, as distinct from matter itself, which is the Hericlitean flux, the river into which one cannot step more than once. Also interesting is that while matter exists in both space and time and essence in neither, spirit would seem, at least to me, to be something of a middle term, in that time applies to it but space does not.
FROM: Richard P. DeTar
DATE: Apr 21, 1998 21:37
SUBJECT: Use of the term "moral"
COMMENT:
Santayana is not generally regarded as a moral philosopher, perhaps because he was so much in revolt against the New England puritanism into the midst of which the flux of matter had accidentally cast him. But if regard him as above all a moral philosopher, if one considers morality to include the Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia, well-being, as I believe one must. After all, central to his philosophy is the symbolic, imaginative nature of all our knowledge. If we can have no knowledge which is either literal or certain, then axiological questions, especially ethical ones, become paramount. No questions are more fundamental to Santayana than questions like "What ought we to do?" and "How are we then to live?" Here, if we know ourselves and the world around us adequately, we can have true knowledge, which we cannot have in science or theology, the realm of matter being bottomless in its mystery and that of essence being infinite.
FROM: Richard P. DeTar
DATE: Apr 21, 1998 21:22
SUBJECT: The Realms of Being
COMMENT:
An important point with regard to the realms of being is the word we use to describe the relation among them. If we say they are "separated," this suggests a divided world, like Plato&39;s or Descartes&39;s. "Separation" can apply only within the realm of matter, because only there do space and time both apply, and it is only in space and/or time that separation can occur. The realms are not "separated." They are "distinguished." I can, for instance, distinguish two meanings of a word. How can I separate them?
FROM: Richard P. DeTar
DATE: Apr 15, 1998 08:06
SUBJECT: Beauty
COMMENT:
One person&39;s good quotation is another person&39;s not-so-good quotation, but here is how he defined beauty: "Beauty is pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing." - The Sense of Beauty (Dover), 31 (critical), 33
FROM: Maintainer
DATE: Feb 24, 1998 10:31
SUBJECT: Shirley Lin&39;s question
COMMENT:
See guestbook three entries earlier.
FROM: Shirley Lin
DATE: Feb 20, 1998 13:06
SUBJECT: History -
COMMENT:
Looking for quotation (here paraphrased) "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it" --Would like to know when and where it was frist written. Also any commentary on it from authorities or readers. Thanks--writing article for my hospital newletter and would like quote.
FROM: Heather
DATE: Jan 30, 1998 14:56
SUBJECT: Beauty
COMMENT:
I&39;ve been trying to find a good, reliable source for quotes on beauty, and I was wondering if anyone knows if he made any good ones. My e-mail is dracula_moon@hotmail.com Thank you.
FROM: maintainer
DATE: Jan 22, 1998 23:00
SUBJECT: Famous History Quotation
COMMENT:
QUOTE: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." CITES: George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Common Sense 284 (2nd ed., Charles Scribner&39;s Sons, New York, New York 1924 (originally published 1905 Charles Scribner&39;s Sons)(appears in chapter XII, "Flux and Constancy in Human Nature")). George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress 82 (one-volume edition, Charles Scribner&39;s Sons, New York, New York 1954)(appears in Book I, Reason in Common Sense, chapter 10, "Flux and Constancy in Human Nature").
FROM: JK
DATE: Jan 22, 1998 11:23
SUBJECT: QUOTE ON HISTORY
COMMENT:
I&39;M LOOKING FOR SANTAYANA&39;S FAMOUS QUOTE ON HISTORY
FROM: maintainer
DATE: Dec 19, 1997 22:46
SUBJECT: response to request for citation
COMMENT:
(N.B. use of word "no" rather than "not.") "The vistas it opens and the mysteries it propounds are another world to live in; and another world to live in -- whether we expect ever to pass wholly into it or no -- is what we mean by having a religion." George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Religion at 6 (Charles Scribner&39;s Sons, New York, New York 1926 (originally published 1905 Charles Scribner&39;s Sons)(initial volume of this five volume set, Reason in Common Sense, says "Second Edition")). "The vistas it opens and the mysteries it propounds are another world to live in; and another world to live in -- whether we expect ever to pass wholly into it or no -- is what we mean by having a religion." George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress at 180 (one-volume edition, Charles Scribner&39;s Sons, New York, New York 1954).
FROM: tpd
DATE: Nov 13, 1997 00:30
SUBJECT: pardon typo in "sees"
COMMENT:
"He thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing." Scepticism and Animal Faith: Introduction to a System of Philosophy 201 (Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1955; unabridged and unaltered republication of the work first published in 1923)
FROM: tpd
DATE: Nov 13, 1997 00:27
SUBJECT: quote found
COMMENT:
"He thinks he believes only what he see, but he is much better at believing than at seeing." Scepticism and Animal Faith: Introduction to a System of Philosophy 201 (Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1955; unabridged and unaltered republication of the work first published in 1923)
FROM: John Roleke
DATE: Nov 11, 1997 09:35
SUBJECT: Santayana quote
COMMENT:
I&39;m trying to locate the source of a quote by Santayana—"The empiricist...thinks he believes what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing." Any help on finding the citation would be greatly appreciated. Please reach me at folkpub@indiana.edu. Thanks.