George Santayana on Meaning in Life

This is an audio clip from a great book entitled "The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Great Philosophers of the Western World" by Will Durant, narrated by Grover Gardner. Since there's been a very interesting discussion going on recently on meaning in life started by Veritas48's video 'Why I Am Not An Atheist', I thought many would find this relevant. It presents the views of American philosopher and atheist George Santayana, with regards to meaning in life. Bertrand Russell was influenced by him, and I think you can recognize the roots of Russell's views on this subject, which ProfMTH discussed in his recent video response to Veritas48, 'Unyielding despair, you say?'

Photos from Life:

http://www.life.com/Life/


I highly recommend this book, you can get it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Philosophy-Opinions-Greatest-Philosophers/dp/0671...

Info on George Santayana:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/santayana/

Info on Will Durant:

http://www.willdurant.com/home.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant


Veritas48's initial video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb6Rp7I0-J0

ProfMTH's response:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbGpm9Cwr2I

Category:

Education

Tags:

• George
• Santayana
• philosophy
• ultimate
• meaning
• life
• livable
• Will
• Durant
• pragmatism
• naturalism
• Veritas48
• ProfMTH
• atheism
• theism
• Christianity
• religion

[Eduduquepindado]

Es para mí una tremenda sorpresa encontrarme con un vídeo de tio Jorge en You tube,,, enhorabuena para "riversonthemoon" por subir algo tan importante para mí... Mil gracias!!!

[riversonthemoon]

Me disculpo. No hablo español. Pude haber entendido mal. ¿Es él realmente su tío?

¡Usted es agradable!

[neothomist1275]

Wisdom:

"To dream with one eye open, to be detached from the world without being hostile to it"

[riversonthemoon]

That's one of my favorites, too.

[riversonthemoon]

Btw, thanks for featuring this video on your channel!

[NATEandtheMONKEY]

that was fantastic. thank you

[riversonthemoon]

You're welcome.

[Captain7510]

Nice video, indeed.

Thanks for this Santayana's video, unique on youtube.

[KORTOKtheSTRONG]

wow

[carlos123gallardo]

Truth....is it worth finding?

[Shredding]

Holy shit... All of you talk/write like geniouses!!

Awesome:P

[mellowtribe]

And your thoughts are? RUBBISH

[mopsius]

Begin with weak straws,

progress to trash, exclaim "Rubbish!"

and take your offal off into the dark

pit of your absurd God's law.

EAC

[mellowtribe]

rubbish

[mopsius]

His best book is Scepticism and Animal Faith, which is the essence of his philosophy.

Read it--Santayana himself will tell you what his philosophy is.

Meditate upon what he says and you will be reading it again in ten years and again ten years after that.

[ursocoolomg]

I have to do a lesson to my peers in class about the theories of George Santayana, can you give me some basic knowledge from the ideas of Santayana? What did he believe, what was he trying to prove?

thanks:)

[OneHeart75]

Senor Jorge...vaya con su vida y su Dios!!!

[mopsius]

Yes--Santayana had a much more subtle understanding of Spinoza than most Americans could muster.

But don't credit Durant with much philosophical understanding. He had his moments as a journalist historian--no Burckhardt and not original but useful.

Santayana is the second greatest of the American philosophers, after the genius Peirce.

But notice how clumsy Peirce is when he confronts Schopenhauer.