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George Santayana (1862-1952) of Spanish descent, and generally
claimed to be in the canon of American philosophers, was
substantially influenced by his Roman Catholic origins in his
philosophical disposition toward the value of tradition, religious
symbols and dogma. His philosophical project sustained a respectful
attitude toward the spiritual value of orthodox religion while the
thrust of his philosophy was naturalistic and materialistic
throughout. There is a perception by some scholars that Santayana's
philosophy evolved from a humanistic perspective to a more
spiritual one in his later years. It is the position of this thesis
that his philosophy, at the "core" depicting a harmonious striving
toward individual happiness, remained essentially consistent from
his earliest publication of Interpretations of Poetry and Religion
and The Life of Reason through his later works of Scepticism and
Animal Faith, Realms of Being, Dominations and Powers and The Idea
of Christ in the Gospels. Santayana's philosophical approach is
both phenomenological and social constructionist in its
methodology, significantly preempting the methodology of social
constructionist theology and a post-modern interpretation of
religion. His idiosyncratic phenomenological approach is compared
with a "benchmark" methodology of Edmund Husserl, the generally
accepted founder of the phenomenological method. There are also
important similarities between Santayana's phenomenological
approach and those of Charles Sanders Peirce and Alfred North
Whitehead. The basis for the comparison of the phenomenological
methodology of Santayana and Husserl is their mutually similar
fundamental theory of intuited essence. Santayana's contribution to
religious studies is not only philosophical but also theological
where he has utilized Christian theological language in transposing
and interpolating his philosophy of religion to the Christian drama
of the salvational Christ. Santayana's essay "Ultimate Religion"
reflects his perspective of a disillusioned but still spiritual
vision incorporating the piety, discipline, and spirituality; of a
life of reason. Within the framework of this "model" Santayana's
philosophy of religion is developed and explored. Finally, the
relevance of Santayana's philosophy of religion to contemporary
religious studies and selected religious issues is addressed with a
delineation and discussion of some important aspects of his
philosophical vision.
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