Santayana and His “Hero”
When George Santayana left us in 1952, it was easy to see where he ranked among philosophers in at least two respects. In the domain of eloquence, Santayana is clearly among his profession’s pantheon. Together with such pre-decessors as Plato, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, Santayana is one of philosophy’s greatest prose stylists. Virtually all of his books have a number of quotable passages, most famously his comment that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (Santayana 1905, 284). Santayana also has to his name a best-selling philosophical novel, The Last Puritan, as well as his massive autobiography, Persons and Places, an enjoyable read known as much for its literary flair as for the profundity of its ideas.