Abstract

Continuing from the defense of non-reductive naturalism in the previous chapter, this chapter considers, first, George Santayana’s attempt to naturalize and fictionalize religious discourses of transcendence. Such attempts to render our aspirations toward transcendence metaphysically harmless are found wanting, and a Jamesian pragmatist approach is argued to be preferable (though not unproblematic). The chapter thus also prepares ground for the more comprehensive treatment of James’s pragmatism and its concerns with the transcendent, to be continued in the following chapter.