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David Dilworth on Santayana To read or listen to David Dilworth riff1 on the great philosophers of the past is something of a tremendously challenging tutorship. I would like to think that I can provide a useful perspective, if for no other reason than that I was once an undergraduate student of his — not just that, twenty years ago I was a very green philosophy major who made a real pedagogical connection with him and discovered my love of American philosophy through his inspiring lectures. It would not be overstating things to say that I owe my life occupation to Professor Dilworth, and this opportunity to discuss his scholarship on Santayana is a tremendous privilege. So, apologies in advance for injecting some of these assessments with personal associations, but they are included for honest reasons; from that early connection I would like to think that I obtained a kind of leg-up appreciating his uniquely brilliant angle of vision. On first acquaintance his perspective for some can be dizzying and perhaps overwhelming. Dilworth speaks with substantive appreciation of a staggering array of major figures, and traditions from across the spectrum of arts and letters spanning Western and Eastern traditions. Meantime too, his reliance at times on highly technical conceptual vocabulary — even sometimes in idle conversation — is apt to confound. And yet, I believe that Dilworth is that very rare instance of a scholar who can rise to a level of insight proportionate to the genius possessed by the subjects under analysis. Moreover, and this is the feature of his perspective that I hope comes through here, he is at heart a poet, a lover of the music of language in a sense that is astonishing in a scholar so adept at the same time at thinking in terms of the great philosophic systems.2 Now the task at hand is to convey something of Dilworth's contribution to our understanding of Santayana. This is no straightforward task. When I first became acquainted with Professor Dilworth, Santayana held a place of privilege in his historical understanding that I discern has declined over the years. Or at any rate, it might be fairer to say that over the years Peirce has figured more centrally in Dilworth's historical understanding, with Santayana coming increasingly to seem to him more derivative than previously estimated.3 To make the task manageable here I shall focus primarily on the analysis of Santayana that Dilworth provides in his 1989 book Philosophy in World Perspective (Yale University Press). In this remarkable book Dilworth makes use of a comparative hermeneutic that is of great interest, or ought to be so, to anyone hoping to situate Santayana in "world perspective." Once this task is accomplished I shall conclude with some observations about the perspective of Santayana that seems to have developed in Dilworth's more recent philosophic reflections, and in the meantime too I shall consider his trenchant critique of contemporary academic scholarship. 1 "Riff" for some reason is an apt characterization. 2 Wallace Stevens and William James receive equal bill of appreciative consideration in Dilworth's scholarly assessments as Kant, Aristotle, and Peirce. 3 I shall reserve room for this point in my concluding remarks. For Dilworth's most recent statements on Santayana, see his "Mediterranean Aestheticism, Epicurean Materialism" in Santayana at 150: International Interpretations (Lexington Books, 2014), 53-87.
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Title | page43 |
Item ID | BulletinSantayana2014-044_page43.tiff |
Transcript | David Dilworth on Santayana To read or listen to David Dilworth riff1 on the great philosophers of the past is something of a tremendously challenging tutorship. I would like to think that I can provide a useful perspective, if for no other reason than that I was once an undergraduate student of his — not just that, twenty years ago I was a very green philosophy major who made a real pedagogical connection with him and discovered my love of American philosophy through his inspiring lectures. It would not be overstating things to say that I owe my life occupation to Professor Dilworth, and this opportunity to discuss his scholarship on Santayana is a tremendous privilege. So, apologies in advance for injecting some of these assessments with personal associations, but they are included for honest reasons; from that early connection I would like to think that I obtained a kind of leg-up appreciating his uniquely brilliant angle of vision. On first acquaintance his perspective for some can be dizzying and perhaps overwhelming. Dilworth speaks with substantive appreciation of a staggering array of major figures, and traditions from across the spectrum of arts and letters spanning Western and Eastern traditions. Meantime too, his reliance at times on highly technical conceptual vocabulary — even sometimes in idle conversation — is apt to confound. And yet, I believe that Dilworth is that very rare instance of a scholar who can rise to a level of insight proportionate to the genius possessed by the subjects under analysis. Moreover, and this is the feature of his perspective that I hope comes through here, he is at heart a poet, a lover of the music of language in a sense that is astonishing in a scholar so adept at the same time at thinking in terms of the great philosophic systems.2 Now the task at hand is to convey something of Dilworth's contribution to our understanding of Santayana. This is no straightforward task. When I first became acquainted with Professor Dilworth, Santayana held a place of privilege in his historical understanding that I discern has declined over the years. Or at any rate, it might be fairer to say that over the years Peirce has figured more centrally in Dilworth's historical understanding, with Santayana coming increasingly to seem to him more derivative than previously estimated.3 To make the task manageable here I shall focus primarily on the analysis of Santayana that Dilworth provides in his 1989 book Philosophy in World Perspective (Yale University Press). In this remarkable book Dilworth makes use of a comparative hermeneutic that is of great interest, or ought to be so, to anyone hoping to situate Santayana in "world perspective." Once this task is accomplished I shall conclude with some observations about the perspective of Santayana that seems to have developed in Dilworth's more recent philosophic reflections, and in the meantime too I shall consider his trenchant critique of contemporary academic scholarship. 1 "Riff" for some reason is an apt characterization. 2 Wallace Stevens and William James receive equal bill of appreciative consideration in Dilworth's scholarly assessments as Kant, Aristotle, and Peirce. 3 I shall reserve room for this point in my concluding remarks. For Dilworth's most recent statements on Santayana, see his "Mediterranean Aestheticism, Epicurean Materialism" in Santayana at 150: International Interpretations (Lexington Books, 2014), 53-87. |
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