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Character and Opinion in the United States (Hardcover)
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Character and Opinion in the United States (Hardcover)
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George Santayana was one of the most influential twentieth-century
philosophers. Because of his broad-ranging interests and lack of
any permanent home in one particular country, he has often been
stereotyped as a meditative philosopher removed from the world,
living in what he himself called the "realm of spirit" among
eternal essences. While there is some truth in this
characterization, it is also true that Santayana was a penetrating
analyst and critic of contemporary societies.'Character and Opinion
in the United States' is his comprehensive critique of American
thought and civilization and reflects the detached cosmopolitan
perspective that lent his criticism its characteristic objectivity
and strength. Santayana's subject here is the conflict of
materialism and idealism in American life. In his view there exists
a dualism in the American mind: One side, dealing with religion,
literature, philosophy, and morality, tended to stay with
inherited, old doctrines-the genteel tradition-and failed to keep
pace with the other, practical side and its new developments in
industry, invention, and social organization. Santayana traces the
first mentality to Calvinism and its sense of sin, an attitude out
of keeping with a new civilization and the dominance of practical
interests. As a consequence of separating philosophy from everyday
life, its study merely served religious and moral interests cut off
from the free search for truth. At the heart of the book is
Santayana's examination of the influential thought of William James
and Josiah Royce, who typified for him the dilemma of American
thought. The subordination of thought to social form and custom
underlies Santayana's sharp critique of academic philosophy at
Harvard where he early on studied and taught. He was disturbed by
the very idea of philosophy as an academic discipline. Philosophy,
he felt, should be an individual, original creation, "something
dark, perilous, untested, and not ripe to be taught" Santayana's
analysis of how social imperatives may impede the pursuit of
knowledge remains pertinent to contemporary intellectual debate.
This volume ill be of interest to philosophers, intellectual
historians, and American studies specialists.
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