George Santayana

Winds of Doctrine (Dodo Press) George Santayana

George Santayana (Jorge Agustin Nicolas de Santayana) (1863-1952) was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States, invariably wrote in English, and is considered an American man of letters. He wrote 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 humour. He also wrote poems and a few plays. Although Santayana was not a pragmatist, The Life of Reason (1906) arguably was the first extended treatment of pragmatism ever penned, and was the high point of his Harvard career. Amongst his other famous works were Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (1900), Three Philosophical Poets (1910), Winds of Doctrine (1913), Philosophical Opinion in America (1918) and Soliloquies in England (1922).