Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 34 Fall 2016

              Comment on Nancy Ogle's
"Santayana and Voice"
Nancy Ogle's engaging essay on voice in the works of George Santayana
gives us a close reading of The Last Puritan as a demonstration of the
significance of utterance and vocal tone in Santayana's thought. The essay
traces an interesting expression of the relation of spirit, essence, and matter. As such
it reveals concrete details of human experience that underlie Santayana's system—
his ontology and method. As a way to appreciate and extend the insights of Ogle's
essay I want to relate it to the work Morris Grossman, the Santayana scholar and
musician, who, in his essay "Drama and Dialectic" also remarked upon voice in the
thought of Santayana—especially the variety of voices that Santayana's method was
committed to preserving in the face of sometimes stiflingly authoritative reason.
According to Ogle, voice is pervasive but often overlooked—like essence for
Santayana. But voice also is akin to matter. Ogle refers to Santayana's assertion that
voice gives form to essence. And through their voices the characters of The Last
Puritan show their relations as spirits to matter. Voice seems to be an ontological
nexus. And this could explain the philosophical import Grossman finds in voice
because the spiritual activity of philosophy cannot ignore the variety of essence and
the force of material flux.
Grossman was concerned with how to regard all of the voices we notice after we
become aware of them. He discussed two broad ways: drama and dialectic. Drama
is the more or less deliberately controlled presentation of contrary viewpoints.
Dialectic is the logical elaboration of viewpoint and consideration of statements
entailed with respect to consistency (Grossman 216-17). Dialectic is concerned
with the elimination of contradictions by surprising them when they arise. Drama
is concerned with the domestication of contraries to allow for their co-existence.
Grossman thought the best philosophers chose wisely between drama and
dialectic in their philosophical expression. Like Ogle, Grossman thought Santayana
followed an example set by Plato; in this case, in the use of drama and dialectic.
Grossman cited an essay by Santayana called 'The Search for the True Plato"
(Santayana, The Idler and His Works 54-73), in which Santayana observed that it
is not difficult conceiving that Plato, instead of moving definitely and finally from
one style (drama or dialectic) to another, "should have tappedhis various interests at
various times," adapting expression to theme. Plato, according to Santayana, "knew
the limitations of art and the often ambiguous complexities of dialectic" (quoted in
Grossman 213). Grossman thought the same of Santayana. Santayana recognized
that dialectic can silence contrary viewpoints, while excessive drama in trying to
make room for every voice can lead to confusion.
Ogle seems to sense the same tension when she writes of the different voices
heard in The Last Puritan that "the assertions of the various characters are intended
to express points of view which may not be philosophically arguable" (Ogle 36).
This seems to disqualify the attempt to preserve various voices as philosophical. But
if voice gives form to essence, thenvoice,byleadingusinto the realm of discourse
and contradiction, also ushers us into the realm of essence, which is, of course, the