Doomed to Repeat

The insight, or at least the statement, that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it (with some variation in words used), has been attributed to several figures of note in our history.  George Santayana, Winston Churchill and Edmund Burke are some of those who are said to have made this claim.  The statement implies that those who know history aren't doomed to repeat it.  That may be true, but it remains the case that they may repeat history or are even likely to do so; they're just not doomed to do so.

The fact is that we repeat ourselves, in more ways than one.  Repetition is a constant in our affairs.  Repetition is even said to be useful in some respects.  It may strengthen memory or memorization, for example.  It may in ways not entirely clear to me guide us to concentrate in meditation, as in the use of a mantra, which in turn in ways not entirely clear to me may guide us to wisdom or enlightenment.  On the other hand, it may bore or annoy us.  But we do it.  As I've said (though not yet repeatedly).

But the claim, I believe, promises too much if only by implication, and is in that sense misleading.  Merely knowing history does very little for us.  History may be taught each minute of the day in schools of all sorts and we may even remember the history we're taught, but knowledge of history doesn't necessarily translate to knowledge of human nature, or provide lessons in how to conduct ourselves now and later, unless we're also taught to think.  

We're not taught to think, particularly in elementary and high schools as they're called here in our Great Republic.  Perhaps it's more accurate to claim that those who don't know how to think are doomed to repeat history. 

For example, the danger posed by demagogues, and the tricks employed by them to sway people and even to commit violence, has been known and been the subject of study since the 5th century B.C.E., and perhaps even earlier.  We know of Cleon, Alcibiades, Publius Clodius Pulcher from ancient times, religious rabble-rousers from medieval times, the fanatics of the French Revolution like Marat, and of course more recently Mussolini, Hitler, McCarthy and Huey Long, and demagogues are rife in our current politics.  Most of us know at least some of the members of this rogues gallery, and at least some of what they did, and it makes no significant difference to their--repetition.  Demagogues abide.

I think of the demagogue as an example of our propensity to repeat history because it's that time of year in our Glorious Union when politicians vie for our favor in what we're pleased to call elections.  Perhaps there are parts of the country where TV, the Internet, and all other forms of media are not crowded with political appeals, but in the place where I reside those appeals are ceaseless, and omnipresent.  And there can be no better examples of demagoguery than these appeals.  Sanctimony, fear-mongering, pandering, polarizing tactics, misrepresentations, evasiveness, lying, appeals to emotion, authority and bigotry...all of the usual characteristics of this practice are present in abundance.  The appeals are incessant.  

It's at least possible, and more likely probable, that those bombarded by this treacle, by these disingenuous if not outright dishonest commercials made by and for glorified carnival barkers, are aware of demagogues of the past and may even think them despicable.  But their ubiquity indicates that they're effective (they cost money, and money is most important), and if they're effective that indicates that our knowledge of history be damned, were doomed to repeat it.

I tend to agree with John Dewey's insight that we only think when confronted with problems.  Otherwise, we act based largely on habits accrued over a lifetime.  But we must believe a problem exists before we have recourse to thought, i.e. the use and application of intelligence.

We don't believe repeating the mistakes of the past is a problem, unfortunately.  Perhaps we believe we're doomed to repeat the past no matter how much we're aware of it.  

We know history or don't, AND are doomed to repeat it regardless.  

There's Something About "Hamilton"

There's something about it, I think, that would explain its success and also explain why I wonder at it...and its success.  I don't mean to say that as musical theatre goes, it's bad.  We speak after all of entertainment, and that which entertains always has a value unless it corrupts.  There is no corruption here.  There is, instead, an overwhelming but unsatisfying sincerity.

I should admit that historical inaccuracy concerns me.  So, for that matter, does incongruity unless it is humorous, as it is in the case of farce, for example.  One can argue that incongruity, inaccuracy and humor are to be expected when history is put on stage, and there is an element of truth in that argument.  But when they're combined with sincerity, a problem results.  It's not possible to be sincerely inaccurate.  It's possible to sincerely strive to make a point and to do so while being deliberately inaccurate, though.  Accuracy in that case is avoided in an effort to make a moral point, or to engage in propaganda.

Looked at as a piece of musical theatre of the Broadway type, I would describe that portion of it which precedes the intermission as manic.  I'm not a fan of rap, but would think that even a fan would recognize that an effort is being made to compress decades into an hour or so, and that this numbs the mind and the senses.  We seem to race through time; there are no stops, no pauses.  It's like listening to someone doing an extended drum roll.  After intermission, things slow down.  There are actual melodies, but to me there is nothing memorable in them.  Usually when exiting a musical I find I can remember one or two songs fairly well.  That was not the case, for me, with Hamilton.

The inaccuracies are more galling than outrageous.  For example, Hamilton (the person, I mean) participated in more than one duel.  The cause of one of them is addressed--the affair with Mrs. Reynolds.  Jefferson, Madison and Burr didn't confront Hamilton about his adultery, though.  James Monroe did, and Hamilton challenged Monroe to a duel over it.  Aaron Burr brought about a reconciliation between the two, however, and a duel was avoided.  Presumably, the creator felt it was necessary to concoct some confrontation that didn't take place, and say nothing of Burr's friendly efforts, but I have no idea why; unless it was to show Burr, Jefferson and Madison in a bad light.

Incongruity as humor, or farce, is evidenced in the person of George III, and he thereby became my favorite character as he was certainly the silliest.  I longed for the silly.  Incongruity as humorless, however, was evidenced by the fact that in the case of this particular performance, virtually every historical figure known to have been white was played by a black actor.  Is this wrong?  No, but it's inaccurate and incongruous.  One can't help but wonder what the reaction would be if white actors played historical figures known to be black.  I think it would have been exceedingly negative.  Why is it otherwise when black actors play white characters?  Certain actors no doubt are given opportunities they wouldn't normally have.  That is fine.  But it would seem to me to be better in trying to create opportunities to create new roles, new plays, rather than bringing history to the stage.

The sincerity of the effort can't be doubted, but sincerity can be deceiving, in the sense that it induces some to accept inaccuracies as accurate.  I can't help but wonder how many feel that what appears on stage here is all of it historically accurate.  They shouldn't, I know, as this is theatre, and for that reason I'm more annoyed by the inaccuracies than outraged by them.  But in depicting history we should strive to be accurate.  Otherwise, people like Oliver Stone are free to indulge in fantasy and portray it as history. 

Maybe I've read too much Santayana and Orwell, but I'm sensitive to games we play with history just as I'm sensitive to claims that history cannot be known, which itself encourages gaming.  But it can be known, to a reasonable degree of certainty, and must be known if we're to learn from it and know what we are and how we became what we are.

Hamilton is so popular that I assume what I write about it will be unpopular, if indeed it's read.  I don't begrudge it its popularity as a piece of theatre, though I found it less than overwhelming and not worth the ridiculously high price of admission.  I merely hope it's thought of as no more than that, and not as history especially.

"Let Be Be Finale of Seem"

These are famous words from a famous poem.  No doubt they've been explained already by many, or at least analyzed; perhaps even by the poet himself.  Wallace Stevens was a poet who wrote of poetry.  Perhaps the lawyer in him, or the student of Santayana that he was, still within him, compelled him to be a critic as well as an artist.  I will give them my own interpretation, though.

The sunset is a kind of finale, though not one as final as death.  It's the finale of a day, which may indeed be remorseful as A.E. Housman wrote but need not be.  Remorse is understandable at the end of a day, or a life, to one who is thinking at the end of one or the other, because it's not uncommon to feel remorse for what was done or was not done which could have or should have been done.  Humans being what they are chances are excellent that they should have or could have done something and that something they did was wrong.

What seems to be isn't necessarily what is.  To be is to exist.  What exists may seem not to exist.  You get the picture (or at least you get what the picture seems to be).

"Let be be finale of seem."  Let the end of our efforts to determine what seems to be, be?  Let what seems to be, to us, be?  Or, let it be, in the sense of give it up, forget about it?  Give it up, this tendency we have to distinguish appearance from reality, to insist on a thing-in-itself that we cannot know?  Give up the belief that what seems to be reality isn't really reality (the really real)?

I'm impatient with metaphysical and ontological concerns, i.e. the issue of Being and, that other favorite, Nothingness.  That may be a failing on my part.  I'm unconcerned with questions regarding what it is, in all cases, to be or not to be (was Shakespeare having a bit of fun with philosophers when he wrote this speech of Hamlet?  I find myself hoping so).  The fact that we make mistakes sometimes leaves me unimpressed.  It hardly seems grounds on which to question all we interact with naturally, by living, with considerable success, much less envision some kind of place apart from the world on which all truth and beauty depends.

So, I would interpret Stevens as saying that what is, is in the end what seems to us to be.  In the end of the day, in the end of us, you and me.  Let it be so.

"Things Merely Are" is the title of a book by Simon Critchley about philosophy in the poems of Wallace Stevens.  It seems a less than hopeful phrase, but it's an assertion that renders a good deal of speculative philosophy superfluous.  And, if that was what Stevens was attempting to say, in his poetry, it's something few other poets have said, I think.  Yet there's unquestionably beauty in his poetry, just as there is unquestionably beauty in things of all kinds.

Consider sunset, especially as pictured above.  The sunset merely is, of course, but though we don't cause the Earth to revolve or the sun to exist it is what it seems to be to us, the end of a day, and though it can seem to be, to us, a splendid end or a dismal, dull one, it's nonetheless an end of something.

We're edging into Autumn, now, and in that part of our Great Republic in which I live the leaves will turn glorious and then wither and fall.  Crops will be harvested, vegetation of all kinds will stop growing, weather will turn cold.  As we've known since ancient times, we wither and die like other things in the world do.  But some of the most striking sunsets I've ever see have been winter sunsets, when the world seems, and is, dead.  Those sunsets merely are as our deaths merely are.

Anachronism, Stupidity and Futility

Certain of the more self-righteous and, I think, tiresome students (and professors?) at some institutions of higher education in our Glorious Republic, who evidently are not preoccupied by their studies, have taken to demanding that the names and statues of significant historical figures be removed from sight.  At Princeton, for example, the name and likenesses of Woodrow Wilson offend them; at The College of William and Mary and apparently elsewhere, that of Thomas Jefferson should be purged, or so it's urged.  They were racists, you see.

It must be wondered whether The College of William and Mary should be required to change its name as well, as it's quite certain that both William and Mary were racists under the current definition. The George Washington University, of course, is particularly problematic. 

I should note that I'm not very fond of either Wilson or Jefferson.  Wilson was a pompous ass in many respects, an egotist and a pretentious one to boot.  Lloyd George and Clemenceau made him look like a fool at Versailles nonetheless.  His messianic conceits so annoyed those in Congress that most of his plans came to naught. By all rights he should have resigned due to his incapacity after his return to the United States, but instead allowed his wife to act as President.

Jefferson was without question a man of genius, but he was also without question a hypocrite of the highest order, who did his best to rule as a tyrant once he obtained the presidency.  Although himself adept at defamation, he objected to criticism of any kind, and at one point even sought to change the law so that truth was no defense to libel.  His conduct in the matter of Aaron Burr was reprehensible for its disregard of the law.

It happens they were also racist.  But while I dislike Wilson and Jefferson (and racism) I dislike anachronism as well, except sometimes in works of science fiction.

What is interesting about this interest in erasure of references to figures of the past is that but a short time ago, relatively speaking, all or most people were racist.  Many still are.  If all who were racist are unworthy of honor, then it's arguably the case that nobody except some of those who have been alive in the past 50 years are worthy of honor, because only certain of those people would not be deemed racist by those who employ that term now.  Though it may be a surprise to those who seek to purge college campuses at this time, racism isn't exclusively European in origin.  All peoples have, at one time or another, thought strangers inferior and contemptible.

So those qualities of Wilson and Jefferson which cause students to fume at this time were likely shared by everyone in recorded history, except some of those of the current generation and possibly some of the last generation. The question arises:  Is it appropriate to condemn all those who have ever lived, or at least not to display them on university grounds, except those who lived recently, because they failed to believe as some of us do now? 

Curiously, it's probable that those who presume to judge those of the past by the standards of the present wouldn't dream of judging those living now by any standard.  They've been taught not to judge.  At least, they've been taught not to judge those living now because they believe or think differently.   Differently, that is, from those who are European or of European descent, whom the naive believe are the only racists ever to live on this planet.

There's apparently something about the dead that renders them subject to judgment due to their failure to recognize what has only been recently recognized by we the living.  And we came to recognize the evil of racism only after a long, hard and continuing struggle, usually by those who are dead as well.  We have no cause to be self-righteous; our enlightenment isn't our achievement, and it's fundamentally unfair to blame those who didn't have the benefit of our knowledge for failing to have our knowledge.

It is stupid to apply the standards of the present to the past because that is simply to fail to know and understand the past, thus dooming ourselves to repeat it, as Santayana put it.  It is futile to do so because it achieves nothing of significance now.

Wilson and Jefferson and the billions of others who have lived are not honored, or even thought of, for their racist views if they are thought of at all.  Those who do think of them for any extended period of time are most likely professors and students, who are of course exempt from criticism being the critics themselves and presumptively free of racism.  Taking names off buildings and pulling down statues won't make anybody less racist or more tolerant, as satisfying as those acts may be to those who deal in appearances and little else. 

An Uncommon Faith

John Dewey did a series of lectures which were eventually published as a book called A Common Faith.  George Santayana, who was inclined to give other philosophers a hard time now and then, gave Dewey a hard time over that title, maintaining (or so I've read) that the faith described in the book was not common at all, or perhaps altogether too common (Santayana himself could be as obscure in his writing as Dewey, sometimes, though Santayana was clearly the better writer).  In any case, he thought the use of the word "common" inappropriate--perhaps even uncommon.  The title of this post is an effort to escape this "common" problem.

I think Dewey may have intended in using "common" in this fashion to contend that the faith he described in his lectures could be a faith all could accept, if they would but abandon the supernaturalism characteristic of religious faith and treated as religious what he believed should be and would be the focus of religious feelings and ideals once the supernatural was discarded.  He quoted Santayana on the similarity between poetry and religion (perhaps Santayana felt that to the extent Dewey extolled Santayana's idea as an example of the faith Dewey sought to instill, such faith must necessarily be uncommon as in "extraordinary").  Art, knowledge, wisdom and acceptance of our role as a part of the universe, not apart from it; these seem to be the "religious" ideals Dewey believed worthy of, or could be the result of, a common faith.

I have a certain sympathy with this view, this "faith", whether it be common or not.  I think our tendency to believe in the supernatural--which in this context would be something transcending the universe, generally a transcendent God--is unwise and unfounded.  The supernatural is something we cannot know and cannot establish.  Indeed, it's something we can't even describe or intuit or feel, being "bounded" by what we are; that's to say living creatures in the universe, parts of nature.  To the extent we purport to do so, we ascribe to the transcendent powers, thoughts, desires, intents all of which are things we experience and know of as creatures that are parts of nature, and are therefore natural themselves.

Of course, some of us also maintain that there is something transcendent about us as well, which presumably allows us to know the transcendent God if only dimly, imperfectly.  That dimness and imperfection, plainly, results from the fact that we though somewhat transcendent are too much a part of nature.  So we partake of original sin or are otherwise deficient, just as is nature itself.

This belief in the supernatural or transcendent thus brings with it a belief in our own uniqueness, as we necessarily cannot be merely creatures of the universe, parts of nature, in order to be saved.  We fail when we are too much a part of nature in this view; we succumb to our animal nature.

Interestingly, Dewey seems to feel that this tendency on our part to believe ourselves unique and special is shared by those he describes as "militant atheists."  He thinks that those who condemn not merely belief in God but religious feelings in general detach themselves from the rest of the universe as much as do theists, but in a different way.  If I understand him correctly, this is because the refusal to acknowledge what Dewey considers to be religious ideals, to be entirely materialistic, disregards the connection with the universe we must partake in to be truly what we are, i.e. creatures of the universe.  This is not clear to me, I'll admit, but I think I know what he meant by it.

Dewey seems to think that what he calls religious ideals as noted above are worthy of reverence.  Here I part from him.  Certainly they're worthy and are to be sought.  But for me, that reverence should be accorded to the amazing universe we've come to know more than ever in the past 500 years or so, but which I think is so boundless and remarkable that we still know it very little.  What we have considered supernatural may turn out to be natural (that would be a surprise).  Our moments of transcendence, to the extent that means becoming aware of something greater than we are, may be entirely natural as well; a recognition of something that's also a part of nature.

The Stoics thought this to be the Universal Reason, the controlling principle of nature, a small part of which we carry with us as beings capable of reason.  The Universal Reason was immanent in the universe, though, not beyond it, something which was material and could be such according to the physics of the time.  C.S. Peirce felt that the universe, though chaotic in its inception, has a tendency towards reason, forming reasonable relations and even laws by virtue of the interaction of its parts.

I feel they may have been on to something, but it's just a feeling and I recognize that it's just that.  Feelings don't inspire respect though they're an essential part of us (perhaps a contempt for such feelings is something Dewey felt was a weakness of the militant atheists he refers to which separates them from nature).  Perhaps if I thought I could do so without inciting ridicule or contentiousness I would venture to air this view in a certain forum I've frequented, but it is a very practical view and the practical seems to be something increasingly frowned on by those who participate in it.  Theorists are an intolerant bunch, and philosophers are nothing if not theorists; nothing but theorists, I suppose.  When one deals in contention as a job, it's no enjoyment to be exposed to it in one's free time.  Such forums are tedious if they can't be enjoyed.

Perhaps religion is an intensely practical thing just as ancient philosophies such as Stoicism and Epicureanism were practical.  Or at least religion can be and has been practical in the sense of being concerned with how we live in the universe.  That practicality began to diminish as people focused on the transcendent and a next life instead of the one we actually live.  Given social conditions in the later Roman Empire, it's likely that many were so miserable that the promise of some life other than that being lived made Christianity and the mystery religions quite enticing.  One would think that this disregard of life would dissipate as life gets easier to live, but it seems life isn't easy enough yet, or that we're still seduced by our own dreams of transcendence.

The Appeal of Santayana

I'm given to speculate regarding just what it is that attracts me to this philosopher, this man who was, I think, more than a philosopher--a kind of Renaissance Man to the extent someone who lived most of his life in the 20th Century can be considered such.  Not "just" a philosopher, but a noted poet and novelist.  I wonder sometimes if there is something of the old Catholic in him which speaks to the old Catholic in me, or something of the Latin in him that speaks to the Latin in me.

He writes so well and in such a fashion I think it's sometimes difficult to think of him as writing philosophy.  He doesn't seem to write of things as a philosopher would, though it is clear that he is engaged in a most piercing analysis of the subject matter he addresses.  Perhaps that in itself is the basis for his appeal.  He seems both rigorous and artful, even artistic, in his approach to things.

In certain ways it seems that his concerns and assertions are contradictory, but I think this is part of a universalism which perhaps may be said to have characterized Catholicism at one point, paganism as well, at one point; that can even be said to have been pretended to by Rome, or dreamt of by it's more noble exponents, like Virgil, who wrote of the skill of the Roman being that of ruling the various and dissimilar nations in peace.  He respects and acknowledges the place of ritual, ceremony, art, mysticism in human life, but he also subjects them to analysis--and thereby elucidates their flaws and limitations--even while honoring them and although he seems to believe that they are necessary aspects of the way we live.  He does the same, I think, to science and philosophy.  He is a proponent of reason but speaks of its limitations as well, and accepts them.

As should be apparent, I find it hard to think of him without thinking of Wallace Stevens' poem about him, To an Old Philosopher in Rome.  In that poem we see glimpses of the Catholic and the Roman, sometimes as day to day appearances and perhaps sometimes more than that.  "Total grandeur of total edifice, Chosen by an inquisitor of structures, For himself...."  It amazes me that such a man should have been so completely devoted to naturalism and yet devoted to those characteristics of humanity and those works of humanity which evoke seemingly the desire if not the claim that there is something more, something greater, than nature.  One feels as if he noted and painstakingly studied what it is to be human in all respects, without bias and even coldly and with no illusions, and yet at the same time appreciative of a certain grandeur or at least the capacity for grandeur.

There is something of the stoic in him, I think, that comes with the acknowledgement of limitations and even to a certain extent the inevitability if not appropriateness of those limitations.  Something of the pragmatist as well, though it seems a very individual pragmatism, more like Peirce than James or Dewey.  Dewey's philosophy was a very social philosophy, and Santayana does not strike me as a social thinker.

But there's something else as well, and I think that something may well be the better, or at least the singular, part of him  I'm finding it very hard to define let alone describe just what that is, though I suspect that if I ever do so I'll have discovered what it is that makes him such a unique and--to me at least--fascinating figure.

The Significance of Ritual

Santayana in his autobiography refers to Catholicism as the most human of religions, if treated humanly.  He does so because, he claims, it is fundamentally pagan (it has a pagan foundation), but supplements paganism with metaphysics.  By "pagan" I think we must assume he means pagan, pre-Christian, religion as opposed to pagan philosophy.  Much of pagan philosophy seethed with metaphysics, of course.

I'm interested in the "if treated humanly."  I happen to think that metaphysics, though it clearly has occupied human thought (far too much), is not particularly human.  This is because I think it to be concerned with matters that should not occupy humans to any great extent.  It should not because, much as it may be pretended otherwise, it does not address human concerns.  It seeks to transcend the miserably mundane world in which humans live, act, love, hate, procreate and die.  If it could, it would ignore humans utterly, as well as the world in which they live.  The truth as well as anything truly important to metaphysicians is to be sought elsewhere.

If I understand Santayana correctly, he may disagree with me about metaphysics.  However, he also seems to feel that Catholicism, and by implication I think all religion, is treated humanly when it is treated as a human activity; in other words, as conduct on the part of human animals by which they seek to experience transcendence.  Religion, therefore, is a very human, very natural, activity.

"Activity" is an important word here.  Humans are inclined to action and inclined to act in a particular way when being religious.  They have engaged in rituals while being religious for thousands of years.  Particular actions have been deemed to allow us to partake of the divine in some special sense.  Catholicism took on many ancient pagan rituals prevalent in the Roman Empire just as it took on much of the empire's administrative organization.  Generally, rituals are presided over by a priesthood--those peculiarly knowledgeable regarding the ritual.

Catholicism as it was practiced in Santayana's time was still very much devoted to ritual.  One could go to a Church anywhere in the world and observe the same ritual performed in the same Latin.  The Reformation sought to do away with ritual, as well as a kind of priesthood, and the use of images (idols, icons) in the ritual.  Catholicism sought to do the same with and after Vatican II.

Christ became in that way more human than divine.  There is little or nothing new under the sun, it seems.  In the ancient Church, there were many who refused to accept Christ as divine in the same sense as the Father.  Using the metaphysics of the time, they thought him of similar substance to the Father, but not of the same substance.  Eventually, this view was made a heresy, and the Church proclaimed Christ to be "one in being with the Father."  Icons were also condemned by some in the ancient Church, and this to was eventually condemned by it, only to come up again in Protestantism, and now.  We have a rather unfortunate way of repeating ourselves.

I suspect we will be tending towards ritual again in our religion, soon enough.  We may have already commenced that movement.  The spare, dull, communal "happy" get-togethers which were religious celebrations the last time I visited one seemed to me particularly bland. 

I don't mean to claim that ritualistic religion is in some way better than other religion.  But like Santayana I suspect that we humans find ritual to be comforting, and pleasing, even in a profound sense.

Santayana and Life in the Middle

Judgment Day not having taken place as predicted (yet again), I'm free to continue my musings without being interrupted by the reign of the Antichrist or whatever it is that is supposed to happen after the elect are "raptured" (I take it for granted I will not be among them).  I've been reading Santayana again.  He intrigues me.

He probably writes better than any philosopher who writes or has written in English--he certainly writes better than any I've read, and I've read a few.  Reading him is therefore a delight, and it may be that this in itself makes him attractive as a thinker.  But what I find particularly interesting is that though he was ultimately committed to naturalism, much like Dewey and others of the pragmatists, he seems to have managed somehow to combine it with aspects of thought which one might describe as spiritual and artistic which are not normally associated with naturalism as such.

Santayana seems to have had little patience with metaphysics, particularly as he matured as a thinker, and as a critic of the "Quest for Certainty" he seems at times much more severe than Dewey (or perhaps I should say more sardonic--Santayana was a witty man, and his wit was ironic and sardonic; Dewey surprises me sometimes with his wit, but is at all times in his writings extremely earnest).  We are animals, says Santayana, and we know things as animals know things.  We are not apart from life, we know and we act as creatures in the middle of life.

And yet having minds, we have imaginations, and it seems that he found in our imaginations something which he found lacking in pragmatism and other philosophical "schools" of his time, like positivism and its offspring.  Humans are not merely tool-users and problem-solvers to Santayana.  He had a kind of aristocratic distaste for the pursuit of wealth, for the more materialistic aspects of American culture in particular.  He sees in religion and art expressions of human imagination which are themselves natural in the sense of being consequences of existing as human animals.

Naturalism seems reasonable.  It's difficult even to conceive of the supernatural, if we're honest with ourselves.  Humans refer to supernatural beings which seem to have characteristics, desires, intentions we are familiar with only through our existence in and participation in nature.  We may claim to believe in a transcendent being, but cannot really conceive of what it would be like to exist "outside of nature" as nature, or at least a small part of it, is all we know.

Is it possible to accept naturalism and yet still accept the spiritual, even the religious?  Some seem to have done so--the Stoics, Spinoza, and Santayana as well, I think.  But they have done so in ways foreign to those accepted by those considered religious typically, in the West at least.  Which is to their credit, I think. 

Santayana and the Tea-Partiers

I just completed Santayana's Character and Opinion in the United States, and was struck by what he writes regarding liberty in the final essay of that book.  He was comparing what he calls "English liberty" favorably with other conceptions of liberty, and those "other conceptions" seem disturbingly familiar in these disturbing times.

Conceptions of liberty, like most things, may be reasonable or unreasonable.  Reasonable conceptions of liberty, according to Santayana as I understand him, acknowledge limitations to liberty, because it is necessary to do so to achieve anything resembling harmony in our affairs.  X's liberty may infringe on that of Y; it may be necessary to restrict liberty in some cases to foster the common good; we shouldn't have the liberty to trample upon others, much as we may wish to do so, merely because we may do so, still less because we think we should do so.  "English liberty" which was largely the conception of liberty acknowledged by those we insist on calling the Founders of this glorious Republic, and the political system they put in place is therefore one which operates as a series of "checks and balances" on power as we were all taught, or perhaps simply told, in the happy days of our youth.

Conceptions of liberty which maintain that we all should be free to do whatever we like are unreasonable.  Too often, those who maintain this view actually mean that they should be free to do whatever they like.  It is a conception of liberty which seems essentially (and inevitably) selfish.  Santayana notes that it is often a highly romantic view, having its basis not only in self-love but in the belief that we are entitled to unlimited freedom because this is required for us to achieve some goal set either by some God or ourselves in some personal quest for glory or renown, or because this is a kind of birthright we have merely by being humans (or better humans than others).  It is the conception of liberty peculiar to the martyr, the madman and the criminal according to Santayana.

This conception of liberty seems to have taken hold of some of us.  I confess to having libertarian leanings, but the tendency of some to object to almost all government action of any kind and to object to it because it infringes on our self-proclaimed sacred liberty is a matter of concern.  It is, first, unrealistic.  Any thinking person in these times must know that his/her liberty is necessarily restricted, and that he/she wants the liberty of others to be restricted.  It is hypocritical.  If something bad happens to one holding this conception of liberty, it may reasonably be expected that they will be shrieking that the government should be doing something about it.

It seems to have its basis in a romantically nostalgic view of a past which likely never existed.  The cowboy, a kind of 19th century migrant-worker, probably didn't celebrate his freedom much.  His life was likely a Hobbesian one, nasty, brutish and short.  The very wealthy and well-off doubtless had pretty much their way with everyone else in the past; it's not that long ago that the robber-barons did whatever they pleased, and if we but think a bit it will occur to us that most of us would not have been then, and are not now, in a position to do whatever we please, and that we'd rather not see others doing as they pleased.

Limitations on government (and especially government spending) are desirable.  But the current anti-government movement is too often infantile and short-sighted.  Those limitations should be intelligent limitations.  The fact is that most of those on our hectic political stage are not seeking limitations in any intelligent sense.  They are as beholden to special interests and certain government programs as any other politicians.  If they are brave enough to support cuts in spending, they will not do so with respect to that spending those who support them consider to be their bread and butter.

The Magnificent Seven (American Philosophers)

There was quite a bit going on in American philosophy, starting in the late 19th century and extending well into the 20th.  These names stand out, I think:  C.S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Josiah Royce, Ralph Barton Perry, George Santayana and Roy Wood Sellars.

Santayana was actually born in Spain, of course, but spent only his early years there; his philosophical career can fairly be called American.  And, I don't mean to discount other American philosophers of prominence in the 20th century, some in the pragmatic tradition, some not.  But these seven seem to me to be of particular significance.  Perry and Sellars, unfortunately, are mostly forgotten, it seems.

They were all, naturally enough, influenced by the theory of evolution.  They were all not religious in any traditional sense.  They all had concerns which related to practical and social (science, education, politics, art, law) matters in addition to any concern they may have had with the "special" metaphysical or epistemological concerns of philosophy which seem, to me at least, so apart from the way we live our lives (Peirce perhaps can be said to have had more of an interest in certain of the "special" concerns than the others, but as the creator of the pragmatic method he was something of a revolutionary and turned the focus of those concerns to us and the world in which we live, and away from futile speculations induced by the tendency to "doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts").  And, they all felt philosophers could, as philosophers, address those concerns; and they addressed them.

One wonders if the time in which they worked contributed to their emphasis on the real.  There were great changes being made in technology, the character of America was changing with massive immigration, there was the Great War, the new movements in art, music and literature.  The world was rather hard to ignore.  Some think we live in a similar time.  Perhaps we'll be fortunate, and we'll encounter similar minds.

Of course, they differed in very significant respects as well.  But they were all participants in an effort to "recover" philosophy, to use Dewey's word, to addressing the "problems of men" to use Dewey's phrase.  I think that philosophy may have returned to the contemplation of the practically useless for a time.  But there are indications that might be changing.  In any case, I hope that's changing.