The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human ProgressSantayana, George
Philosophy
The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress
Santayana, George
Philosophy
Psychology as a solvent.—Misconceived rôle of intelligence.—All
criticism dogmatic.—A choice of hypotheses.—Critics
disguised enthusiasts.—Hume’s gratuitous scepticism.—Kant’s
substitute for knowledge.—False subjectivity attributed to
reason.—Chimerical reconstruction.—The Critique a work on
mental architecture.—Incoherences.—Nature the true system of
conditions.—Artificial pathos in subjectivism.—Berkeley’s algebra
of perception.—Horror of physics.—Puerility in morals.—Truism and
sophism.—Reality is the practical made intelligible.—Vain “realities”
and trustworthy “fictions”. Pages 84-117
CHAPTER V
NATURE UNIFIED AND MIND DISCERNED
Man’s feeble grasp of nature.—Its unity ideal and discoverable only
by steady thought.—Mind the erratic residue of existence.—Ghostly
character of mind.—Hypostasis and criticism both need
control.—Comparative constancy in objects and in ideas.—Spirit and
sense defined by their relation to nature.—Vague notions of nature
involve vague notions of spirit.—Sense and spirit the life of nature,
which science redistributes but does not deny. Pages 118-136
CHAPTER VI
DISCOVERY OF FELLOW-MINDS
Another background for current experience may be found in alien
minds.—Two usual accounts of this conception criticised: analogy
between bodies, and dramatic dialogue in the soul.—Subject and
object empirical, not transcendental, terms.—Objects originally
soaked in secondary and tertiary qualities.—Tertiary qualities
transposed.—Imputed mind consists of the tertiary qualities
of perceived body—“Pathetic fallacy” normal, yet ordinarily
fallacious.—Case where it is not a fallacy.—Knowledge succeeds only by
accident.—Limits of insight.—Perception of character.—Conduct divined,
consciousness ignored.—Consciousness untrustworthy.—Metaphorical
mind.—Summary. Pages 137-160
CHAPTER VII
CONCRETIONS IN DISCOURSE AND IN EXISTENCE
So-called abstract qualities primary.—General qualities prior to
particular things.—Universals are concretions in discourse.—Similar
reactions, merged in one habit of reproduction, yield an idea.—Ideas
are ideal.—So-called abstractions complete facts.—Things concretions
of concretions.—Ideas prior in the order of knowledge, things in the
order of nature.—Aristotle’s compromise.—Empirical bias in favour of
contiguity.—Artificial divorce of logic from practice.—Their mutual
involution.—Rationalistic suicide.—Complementary character of essence
and existence. Pages 161-183
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE RELATIVE VALUE OF THINGS AND IDEAS
Moral tone of opinions derived from their logical
principle.—Concretions in discourse express instinctive
reactions.—Idealism rudimentary.—Naturalism sad.—The soul akin to
the eternal and ideal.—Her inexperience.—Platonism spontaneous.—Its
essential fidelity to the ideal.—Equal rights of empiricism.—Logic
dependent on fact for its importance, and for its subsistence.—Reason
and docility.—Applicable thought and clarified experience. Pages 184-204
CHAPTER IX
HOW THOUGHT IS PRACTICAL
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