The scepticism of George Santayana

pp. 51-57

in: Ramona Cormier, James K. Feibleman, Harold N. Lee, John Sallis, Donald H. Weiss, Epistemology II, Berlin, Springer, 1969

Abstract

Enough time has now elapsed since the death of George Santayana in 1952 for scholars to have gained the distance necessary for an objective evaluation of his contribution to philosophy. Santayana is no longer a flesh and blood contemporary whose polemic can be followed in the latest journal or in a steady stream of books; now he is a figure in the history of American thought whose importance can only be gauged by the positions he adopted and the intellectual movements with which he associated himself. If current philosophical scholarship be indicative of an ultimate assessment of Santayana's position, then it is as an epistemologist that he will be remembered. Recent critical articles by Jerome Ashmore, John Lachs, and Andrew Reck stand as indications of this scholarly trend.¹