Arte, vita, valore. L’estetica vitalistica di George Santayana

Perhaps no twentieth-century thinker has thought about the connection of art and life in such a close and intense way as the American philosopher George Santayana. His thought provides an important contribution to aesthetics making possible the discovery of a broader experience of feeling and a wider vision of art and life. His philosophy is based on a sense of naturalism soaked in irony and detachment. And philosophy is intended to be neither a strict system nor a profession, but rather a way of being and a style of life. His thought always starts from experience and natural life, and constantly refers back to them, cultivating doubt, and choosing common sense and the middle way. For this reason, his aesthetics as art of life and theory of value contains nothing but the questions that have always animated philosophical investigation: what is life? What is art? What is the mystery of beauty? Where do they come from and what is their purpose?