Josiah Royce

Objective Idealist Philosopher

  • Born: November 20, 1855
  • Birthplace: Grass Valley, California
  • Died: September 14, 1916
  • Place of death: Cambridge, Massachusetts

American philosopher

Royce was the last major philosopher of the twentieth century to integrate theological or religious topics with idealistic philosophy and to present his system to general readers in terms of community and loyalty. He advanced philosophic idealism and played a significant role in Harvard University’s intellectual development.

Areas of achievement Philosophy, religion and theology

Early Life

Josiah Royce was born to Josiah Royce, Sr., and Sarah Bayliss Royce, who had come to California during the gold rush of 1849. His parents were pious, evangelical Christians. Because Royce’s father was never successful in any of his various business activities and, as a salesperson, was often absent from the home, his mother played a major role in shaping young Royce’s world. He was a sickly boy, short, freckled, with wild red hair; his mother did not allow him to play with the other children in the community. According to later autobiographical remarks, Royce was fascinated by the problem of time: He considered his hometown old, yet people referred to Grass Valley as a “new community.” Meanwhile, in 1866, Royce entered Lincoln Grammar School in San Francisco, the family having moved there for better economic opportunities and educational possibilities for “Jossie.” After a year at San Francisco Boys’ High School, which in 1869 had a distinct militaristic manner that Royce hated, he entered the preparatory class at what was then the Oakland-based campus of the new University of California (now Berkeley). Within five years, Royce received his bachelor of arts degree in classics. As a result of his achievement, local patrons of the university sponsored him for a year’s study in Germany.

Accordingly, from 1875 to 1876, Royce studied at Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Göttingen. His area of study was philosophy. His early concerns about time, the individual, and the community now found expression in his study overseas and at Johns Hopkins University, the pioneer institution in graduate study and research. Enrolling in 1876, Royce completed his Ph.D. degree at Johns Hopkins within two years. Jobs teaching philosophy were scarce, and very unwillingly Royce returned to the University of California, where he taught English rhetoric and literature for the next four years. He did not, however, give up his study of philosophy.

In 1880, Royce married Katharine Head; the couple produced three sons. Royce kept his public role and private life separate, although the latter often indirectly revealed itself in his letters. Having met William James while at Johns Hopkins, Royce corresponded with him, and in 1883 Royce joined the Harvard faculty as a temporary replacement for James, who was on academic leave. Royce could now be a full-time philosopher.

Life’s Work

Having published fifteen articles by the time of his temporary appointment, Royce worked very hard, teaching and writing, to gain a permanent place on the Harvard faculty. Within six years he would achieve tenure and have a nervous breakdown. The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885) was based on lectures that he published as a book. This was a method he used for nearly all of his books. Exceptions were California from the Conquest in 1846 to the Second Vigilance Committee in San Francisco, 1856: A Study of American Character (1886), a state history, and The Feud of Oakfield Creek (1887), a novel; both books were early reflections of Royce’s lifelong interest in community and individual behavior.

After spending most of the year 1888 traveling to Australia as a cure for his nervous condition, Royce returned to Harvard with a fuller grasp of his ideas as well as the energy to express them. After publishing The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892), he was appointed professor of the history of philosophy at Harvard. He continued to write on an extraordinary range of topics, but his basic focus was on religious values and philosophy; The Conception of God (1897) and Studies of Good and Evil (1898) were typical expressions of that focus. During the years 1894 through 1898, Royce was chair of the department of philosophy, and he significantly shaped the courses and the faculty at Harvard.

Royce published his Gifford Lectures as The World and the Individual (1899-1901). In the last sixteen years of his life, his scholarship was truly remarkable. His writing continued to be both broad and technical; Outlines of Psychology: An Elementary Treatise, with Some Practical Applications (1903), The Philosophy of Loyalty (1908), and Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Problems (1908) were the results of his efforts to have philosophy inform both the scholar and the general public.

While his scholarly achievements were many, in his personal life Royce suffered many setbacks. His marriage was a strain. His wife was often caustic and hypercritical, and his children disappointed him in various ways. Christopher, his oldest son, who suffered from mental illness most of his adult life, was committed to Danvers State Hospital in 1908. Christopher died two years later. A month before, William James had died; he was Royce’s closest and dearest friend.

Despite these tragic events, Royce continued to work, publishing William James and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life (1911). Within a year he had completed The Sources of Religious Insight (1912). Despite a major stroke, Royce struggled back to health and continued his philosophic work with a significant book, The Problem of Christianity (1913).

World War I was a philosophical crisis for Royce. After much thought, he became a strong advocate for American intervention. Worn out by personal worries and poor health, Royce died on September 14, 1916, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Significance

Royce left no school of thought nor prominent disciples. His philosophy of metaphysical idealism fell out of fashion as pragmatism, logical positivism, and existentialism gained currency in academia and the larger society. His use of the German idealism of Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel also limited Royce’s appeal. It would, however, be premature to downgrade Royce’s lasting contributions.

In his varied writings, Royce stressed the primacy of the individual while holding fast to his emphasis on community. Royce recognized the damage done to individuals and to society by the alienation in American life. Also significant in his thought was the distinction between the world of appreciation or value and the world of factual description. The world of appreciation gives meaning, shape, and value to the human condition.

Finally, Royce was not a naïve thinker. He recognized evil in the world in various manifestations. His philosophy of the Absolute recognized three kinds of evil: metaphysical evil anything short of the Absolute is not perfect; natural evil anything that offends a person’s ethical sense or which humans cannot accept because of their limited human intelligence (the problem of Job); and human evil sin or voluntary inattention. Royce was a philosopher whose ideas have application to the modern world. Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, Josiah Royce during his lifetime and in his writing contributed to the golden age of American philosophy.

Bibliography

Clendenning, John. The Life and Thought of Josiah Royce. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Based essentially on Royce’s letters, this biography follows a chronological scheme in which the philosopher’s writings are related to the personal developments in his life. Royce’s personality is clearly presented. He had a strong sense of humor and an attraction toward the ironic. The thesis is that a close relationship exists between the particulars of Royce’s life and the universality of his system of thought.

Kuklick, Bruce. Josiah Royce: An Intellectual Biography. Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972. A solid history of Royce’s ideas, this book relates him to the issues of his time. In the process, Royce’s place in the history of American philosophy is clearly developed.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977. An outstanding history of the Department of History at Harvard University, this book clearly places Royce in the changing context of American philosophy as it moved from a general pursuit of the truth to being part of academic professionalism. Well written; includes an extensive bibliography.

Oppenheim, Frank M. Reverence for the Relations of Life: Re-Imagining Pragmatism via Josiah Royce’s Interactions with Peirce, James, and Dewey. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Oppenheim examines Royce’s ideas in relation to three other American philosophers, concluding that Royce was in the center of American thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Royce’s Voyage Down Under: A Journey of the Mind. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1980. With a modest use of psychohistory, Oppenheim’s book explores the philosophical consequences of Royce’s trip to Australia as a cure for his nervous condition. In fact, Royce’s greatest philosophical achievements were ahead when he returned to Harvard.

Royce, Josiah. The Basic Writings of Josiah Royce. Edited by John J. McDermott. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. A handy introduction to Royce’s writings, given that some of the original editions are out of print. Organized by topic. The introduction is informative. The annotated bibliography of Royce’s publications makes this book an invaluable source.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Letters of Josiah Royce. Edited by John Clendenning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Clendenning’s introduction places the letters in their proper historical and philosophical contexts, revealing a writer who moved from the mundane to the sublime often in the same letter. Taken together, the letters constitute an interesting autobiography.

Royce, Sarah B. A Frontier Lady: Recollections of the Gold Rush and Early California. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1932. A personal narrative of the Royce family overland trip to California as written by Josiah’s mother. A basic document in understanding her influence on Royce’s later philosophy on community and history.

Starr, Kevin. Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. A solid presentation via cultural history and analysis and biographies of the California of Royce’s youth. Starr explains how the state rapidly changed as a result of many types of influences (not the least of which was to gain wealth) and how Royce’s philosophic concern for community grew out the state’s colorful past.

Trotter, Griffin. On Royce. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001. An overview of Royce’s philosophy aimed at students and readers seeking a general introduction to his ideas.

1901-1940: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism; 1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education; 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy; September 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy; 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought.