Dialectics After Santayana

Abstract

Despite apparently holding diametrically opposed attitudes toward dialectical logic, both George Santayana and the early Frankfurt School critical theorists posit a close link between the concepts of reason and domination. It is argued that a broadly-speaking Hegelian philosophical project can survive Santayana’s critiques, albeit by benefitting from the latter’s, as well as from the Frankfurt School’s, re-centering of nature in the history of domination. In the alternative, Santayanaists who would reject Hegel must reckon with the proximity and affinity, notwithstanding Santayana’s suggestions to the contrary, of their perspectives on the ultimately tragic structure of history.