The Imagination, Poetry, and Religion in the Aesthetics of George Santayana

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Suez University - Faculty of Arts - Department of Philosophy

Abstract

     The philosophy of George Santayana (1863-1952) revolves around his belief in the abilities of the mind granted to him, on the basis of which horizons are opened for this mind in order to achieve its ambition. By his belief in these abilities, he can reconcile two worlds full of contradictions and contrasts, and we mean by them the external world (i.e. the objective world) and the internal world (i.e. the self). However, the matter did not stop at this point; the science of the self also includes contrasts, but of a different kind: the mind on the one hand, and imagination and emotions on the other hand, which may refer to the rationality of thought on the one hand, and the irrationality of imagination and emotions on the other hand.
        Therefore, the importance of the study came in: How did philosophers care about literary and poetic activity in ancient and modern times, and did they look at this literary activity as an aesthetic activity or did they look at it as thought with its own tools, and how did the modern philosopher look at the relationship between mental and emotional processes (imagination as a model), and did they give these emotional processes meaning Metaphysically? We seek answers to these questions from Santayana to understand his aesthetics in light of his influence by ancient Greek literature.              

Keywords

Main Subjects

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics