The Santayana Society, including its President, dr. Richard Rubin, should be thanked for help with organizing an international online seminar on February 16, 2018. Our 2-hour-long discussion – click the recording above – circled around the following issues/questions:
- How does Santayana characterize the spiritual life in PSL and did his characterization of the spiritual life change or develop in his later works?
- What does Santayana mean by ‘contemplation’ of essences?
- To what extent is Santayana’s naturalistic concept of spirit an interpretation of supernatural conceptions?
- What is the relationship between the spiritual life and knowledge?
- Is it possible, and if so to what extent, to lead a spiritual life without having gone through a process of metanoia or disintoxication of values?
- How do we explain the separation of moral from spiritual life, when morality is impossible without spirit?
- Did Santayana think that a life devoted to purely spiritual concerns is a desirable way to live and did he think a detached or observing life preferable to an engaged one?
- Did Santayana live a spiritual life and is his system of philosophy a version of the spiritual life?
- Santayana claims that “Pure spiritual life cannot be something compensatory, a consolation for having missed more solid satisfactions” (PSL). What does Santayana mean by this claim and does the spiritual life offer any sort of moral consolation?
- Does Santayana’s account of spirit and the spiritual life have any connections to contemporary, popular views of mindfulness or meditation?
Leave a Reply