George Santayana Collection (VMF147) | MSS Manuscripts

George Santayana (December 16, 1863- September 26, 1952) was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás in Madrid, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American. He attended Boston Latin School and Harvard University. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, in 1886, Santayana studied for two years in Berlin. He then returned to Harvard to write his dissertation on Hermann Lotze and teach philosophy. In 1912, Santayana resigned his Harvard position to spend the rest of his life in Europe.

Santayana's main philosophical work consists of The Sense of Beauty (1896), his first book-length monograph and perhaps the first major work on aesthetics written in the United States; The Life of Reason (Five volumes, 1905–1906); Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923); and The Realms of Being (Four volumes, 1927–40). His views on religion are outlined in his books Reason in Religion, The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, and Interpretations of Poetry and Religion. He wrote also books and essays on a wide range of subjects, including philosophy of a less technical sort, literary criticism, the history of ideas, politics, human nature, morals, the subtle influence of religion on culture and social psychology, all with considerable wit and humor. While his writings on technical philosophy can be difficult, his other writings are far more accessible and pithy. He wrote poems and a few plays, and left an ample correspondence, much of it published only since 2000.  Santayana is known for the sayings, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”