George Santayana (1863-1952)

George Santayana (1863-1952) was a prominent philosopher, poet, novelist and educator of the early and mid-twentieth century. His early works were poems, more especially sonnets; he quickly developed an interest first in literary criticism and then aesthetic theory, which is the subject of his first major book, The Sense of Beauty (1896). Expanding upon the aesthetic theory of critical realism expressed in that book, Santayana began to develop a more complete humanist philosophical system which supposes that faith is a necessary component of knowledge, and which he introduced in Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923). He further explored and expanded his ontological theories in a series of books called Realms of Being (1928-1940). His last work on philosophy was Dominations and Powers (1951), an analysis of social hierarchies and aristocracy. Santayana taught at both Harvard and Oxford, but disliked the distractions of the academic environment, so in 1924 settled down in Rome to focus on his writing. Aside from his purely philosophical writings, his other works include The Last Puritan (1935), a novel which explores the Genteel Tradition in America (a favorite subject of his); Persons and Places (1944-1953), a three-volume autobiography of which the final volume was published posthumously; and a sizeable number of essays ranging in topic from literary criticism to religion.