Life As Insinuation: George Santayana’s Hermeneutics Of Finite Life And Human Self

292 Pages·2019·2.92 MB·English

by  Katarzyna Kremplewska

Life as Insinuation
SUNY series in American Philosophy and Cultural Thought
—————
Randall E. Auxier and John R. Shook, editors
Life as Insinuation
George Santayana’s Hermeneutics of
Finite Life and Human Self
KATARZYNA KREMPLEWSKA
Cover image courtesy of dreamstime.com
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kremplewska, Katarzyna, 1973– author.
Title: Life as insinuation : George Santayana’s hermeneutics of finite life
and human self / Katarzyna Kremplewska.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Series:
SUNY series in American philosophy and cultural thought | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018021843 | ISBN 9781438473932 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781438473956 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Santayana, George, 1863–1952. | Self (Philosophy)
Classification: LCC B945.S24 K74 2019 | DDC 126—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021843
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Abbreviations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Chapter 1. Guises of the Self 1
Chapter 2. The Conception of the Self and Some Basic Concepts
of Santayana’s Philosophy 29
Chapter 3. The Hermeneutics of Human Self 59
Chapter 4. Life as Insinuation 97
Chapter 5. Coping with Finitude: Santayana Reading Heidegger 113
Chapter 6. The Tragic Aspect of Existence 149
Chapter 7. Beyond the Self (into the Political Realm):
The Essential Negativity of Human Being and
Rational (Self-)Government 195
Notes 211
Bibliography 251
Index 261

Abbreviations
Works by George Santayana
APS Apologia pro Mente Sua
DL Dialogues in Limbo
DP Dominations and Powers
HA “Hamlet” in: Selected Critical Writings of George Santayana
IPR Interpretations of Poetry and Religion
LR The Life of Reason: Or, The Phases of Human Progress
OS Obiter Scripta: Lectures, Essays and Reviews
POML Physical Order and Moral Liberty: Previously Unpublished Essays
of George Santayana
RB Realms of Being, one-volume edition
SAF Scepticism and Animal Faith: Introduction to a System of Philosophy
SiELS Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies
STTMP Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy: Five Essays
Works by Other Authors
BCAP Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy (M. Heidegger)
BPP Basic Problems of Phenomenology (M. Heidegger)
BT Being and Time (M. Heidegger)
CPR Critique of Pure Reason (I. Kant)
MM Matter and Memory (H. Bergson)
vii
viii / Abbreviations
OAA Oneself as Another (P. Ricoeur)
RSTV “Reflections on Santayana and Tragic Value” (C. Padron)
SSIFPP Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective
(D. Zahavi)
SSMMI The Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Ch.
Taylor)
SZ Sein und Zeit (M. Heidegger, the copy with Santayana’s marginal
notes)
Acknowledgments
This book originates, partially, from my PhD dissertation devoted to George
Santayana’s conception of aporetic self (Mask and Thought: The Conception
of the Aporetic Self in George Santayana’s Philosophy) written and defended
in 2015 under the supervision of professor Agata Bielik-Robson (Institute
of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences), whom I wish
to thank for an ongoing philosophical inspiration.
During the years of my scholarship leading to the emergence of this
book I was supported by the members of Santayana Society in many ways
and I would like to express my sincere gratitude for that. In particular I
would like to thank John Lachs and Charles Padron. My acquaintance
with John Lachs’s work and conversations with the author have been
invaluable for my scholarship. Charles Padron provided me with editorial
and linguistic support when preparing the article: “Coping with Finitude:
Santayana Reading Heidegger,” which was published in Transactions of the
Charles S. Peirce Society in 2015. An enlarged and revised version of this
article appears, with the consent by Indiana University Press, as chapter 5
in this book. I have also had an opportunity to confront my own reflec-
tions on the idea of the tragic in Santayana with those of Charles Padron
as contained in his dissertation on Santayana and the tragic value.
Moreover, as a participant of international conferences (SAAP, New
Jersey 2013; APA, Philadelphia 2014; 5th Conference on George Santayana,
Berlin 2016) and during my research stay in the United States in 2013
(sponsored by Kościuszko Foundation, New York) I had an opportunity
to talk to a number of outstanding international scholars of Santayana,
among them Michael Brodrick, Martin Coleman, who was also my guide
at Santayana Edition (IUPUI), Edward Lovely, Daniel Moreno, Richard
Rubin, Herman Saatkamp, Krzysztof Skowroński, and Glenn Tiller. Fur-
thermore, I would like to emphasize that the possibility of publishing
the fragments of my ongoing work in Overheard in Seville: Bulletin of
ix