To Thomas N. Munson
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. June 15, 1947
Dear Father Munson,
Your difficulties in understanding my philosophy do not surprise me, and I think they are insurmountable so long as you reason on Scholastic axioms such as nihil dat quod non habet. Since the “quod” or “quid” is defined as an essence–nothing existent is definable–the system of the world becomes entirely a system of essences, and their connections logical: that makes the system meta-physical. But I have no metaphysics: essence, truth and spirit are indeed non-physical; but for that very reason they are not to be invoked at all in physics or cosmology, which deals with common sense facts–assumed to exist by themselves–and studies their factual relations without pretending to explain or understand them. The perfect innocence of genuine men of science in this respect is admirable and touching.
Now, I leave all matters of fact to be catalogued in this unexplained way by the natural sciences: and my epistemology and psychology are radically and wholly biological, not conceptualistic or metaphysical at all. Naturally they do not meet the requirements of a metaphysical system. But does any fact do so? Are smell, sound, and light impossible data of sense unless they exist first as such in camphor, bells, and etherial vibrations?
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941–1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.