The doctrine of essence in the philosophy of George Santayana
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Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to present and evaluate George Santayana's doctrine of essence from two perspectives, one epistemological and the other ontological. The interrelation of these two areas of thought renders isolated treatment possible. For this reason essence is demonstrated to be at once (1) a primordial form of being, (2) a necessary condition for thought to occur, and (3) the content of thought.
Stayana's theory of knowledge rests on a distinction between transitive knowledge and intransitive intuition, the latter not being knowledge at all. His position is that when judgement and belief are suspended in intuition, so also is knowledge, Santayana demonstrates this by exercising a radical skepticism which he does no rest until an indubitable is reached. For the skeptic the experience of this indubitable is the intuition of a datum or essence. This intuition of a datum is not knowledge because it is immediate, direct and intransitive whereas knowledge is mediate transitive and referential. [TRUNCATED]
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Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University
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