The Life of Reason, or, The Phases of Human Progress Book Reviews

The Life of Reason, or, The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana Book Summary

All five volumes of George Santayana's philosophical masterwork exploring the manifestations of reason in life are united in this superb edition.

The Life of Reason begins boldly, with Santayana explaining his concept of reason in great detail. How a mind may embark and progress on applying rational thought to life is explained, and the practical value of such thinking methods are demonstrated. More abstractly, Santayana expounds on how a rational mind confers value to the person, and considers how such value may be measured.

The second volume sees the author questioning whether men can be exhorted to virtuous behaviors without the concept of a creator, heaven, hell or other supernatural concepts. Realizing that morality has never been divorced from aspects of spirituality, Santayana dismisses the concept of a purely rational society as a fancy of various philosophers. However, he notes that many virtuous but non-supernaturally aligned persons result from a healthy upbringing and social life.

The third volume, Reason in Religion, is an emotional and at times autobiographical account of Santayana's own struggles with faith. Though raised in the Spanish Catholic faith, personal problems with the organized and hierarchical expression of religion led the philosopher to distance himself. Yet Santayana is unhappy with the satiric barbs hurled at established religions such as Catholicism, and notes that one can never understand mankind without also comprehending faith.

Volumes four and five concern science and art, respectively. The basis of artistic expression and its grounding in reasoning is discussed, with chapters dedicated to the visual art of painting and also music. Santayana begins his analysis of science by distinguishing between types of scientific thought, before discussing the scientific method, and the moral questions surrounding scientific experiment and progress.

Towards the conclusion of his life, Santayana was urged by his publisher to condense the myriad teachings of The Life of Reason into a single volume. While the author was successful in this task, it is the original, five-volume edition which clearly - and in many instances, utterly - express the philosophical ideas.

In popular culture, The Life of Reason is most famous for containing many of Santayana's most celebrated aphorisms, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Beyond this frank wisdom, it is a treatise profoundly personal and intellectual, brimming with knowledge and a provocative yet fresh approach to age-old questions.

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