The Realms of Being

The Realms of Being is the last major work by Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

-American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

philosopher George Santayana

George Santayana

George Santayana was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters...

. Along with Skepticism and Animal Faith
Skepticism and Animal Faith
Scepticism and Animal Faith is a later work by Spanish-born American philosopher George Santayana. He intended it to be "merely the introduction to a new system of philosophy," a work that would later be called The Realms of Being, which constitutes the bulk of his philosophy, along with The Life...

and The Life of Reason
The Life of Reason
The Life of Reason, subtitled "the Phases of Human Progress", is a book published in five volumes from 1905 to 1906, by Spanish-born American philosopher George Santayana...

, it is his most notable work; the first two works concentrate primarily on epistemology and ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

respectively, whereas The Realms of Being is mainly a work in the field of ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

Santayana builds on his Skepticism and Animal Faith, which he described as a sort of precursor to "a new system of philosophy", that would be developed fully in the present work . He defines four realms of being, as follows:

The Realm of Essence

The Realm of Essence, in Santayana's view, has a type of primacy over the other realms. To him, essence is anything that is or has a character—this includes thoughts, imaginings, derivations of logic, and material objects. Nothing can be experienced but through these essences, and they "are the only things people ever see, and the last they notice." Essence is awareness, it is different from knowledge or from faith, which he defines later.

The Realm of Matter

Matter

Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...

is the objective, material stuff of the universe. Staying true to his materialism

Materialism

In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...

, Santayana holds matter as the "primordial existential flux" and believes it can be, at least in some sense, known. His conception of matter is similar to Spinoza's substance; matter has no purpose, but constitutes the limitations of what can be. Humans can know matter only from a distance, symbolically:
Thus, while Santayana reveres and deeply respects science (and believes it useful for everyday experiences), he does not deify it in the way many other philosophers of the 20th century have, and he limits it to a fallible approximation of truth.

The Realm of Truth

The Realm of Truth was thought of well after Santayana had thought of his other three realms; he envisions it as a sort of subdivision of the Realm of Essence. Truth is that part of the Realm of Essences instantiated by matter; indeed, he says:

As the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a free online encyclopedia on philosophical topics and philosophers founded by James Fieser in 1995. The current general editors are James Fieser and Bradley Dowden...

entry on Santayana says:
Santayana here departs from classical pragmatists

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...

, of whom he is often considered one, in that he believes truth has a strong element outside of experience, and must coincide with what actually is.

The Realm of Spirit

Spirit is, as used by Santayana, very much akin to consciousness; it is, according to John Lachs

John Lachs

John Lachs is the Centennial Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, where he has taught since 1967. Lachs received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1961. His primary focus is on American philosophy and German idealism.- Biography :Lachs has been a member of the Vanderbilt faculty since...

, "that part of a life constituted by its series of intuitions". Santayana believes that the mind is more accustomed to essence than it is to fact, and, as such, consciousness may at times manifest things that are not fact. Herein is to be found the Realm of Spirit; it is Santayana's attempt to reconcile the theories of Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

and the demands of reason

Reason

Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...