ABSTRACT
SANTAYANA, GEORGE: ANIMAL FAITH Animal faith refers primarily to the natural and abiding conviction that we are part of and confronted with a dynamic physical world. This is a principal doctrine in Santayana’s philosophy, one that marks the intersection of his epistemology and ontology. His official presentation of the doctrine is found in his 1923 work Scepticism and Animal Faith and its full implications are set out in the 1930 sequel The Realm of Matter, the second book of his magnum opus Realms of Being. But like many central ideas in Santayana’s philosophy, the basic elements of the doctrine are evident in his earliest writings.
