Royce, Josiah

Royce, Josiah

(1855–1916) philosopher: born in Grass Valley, Calif. The son of poor parents who had journeyed to California in the 1849 gold rush, he graduated from the University of California (1875), then studied in Germany, where he was influenced by post-Kantian idealism, and at Johns Hopkins University. In 1878, at William James's invitation, he joined the Harvard faculty, becoming one of its most celebrated teachers. In such works as Religious Aspects of Philosophy (1885) and The World and the Individual (1900–01), he developed a religiously oriented brand of absolute idealism. In later years he devoted increased attention both to technical problems of logic and mathematics and to moral and religious issues of broad interest.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Royce, Josiah

 

Born Nov. 20, 1855, in Grass Valley, Calif.; died Sept. 14, 1916, in Cambridge, Mass. American idealist philosopher.

In 1892, Royce became a professor of history and philosophy at Harvard University. He was strongly influenced by German classical idealism, chiefly the philosophy of I. Kant and G. Hegel, and by the English neo-Hegelian philosopher T. Green. Royce developed the concept of absolute voluntarism, according to which individual selves constitute in their totality a universal community that fulfills the will of the Absolute Self, drawing us into the “other” world of divine harmony. By joining in political, economic, and religious communities, individuals form a perfect order. Royce regarded American bourgeois society as the embodiment of the will of the Absolute and loyalty to the existing order as the supreme virtue.

Royce also wrote works on mathematical logic and the foundation of mathematics. His philosophy exerted an influence on American neopragmatism and personalism.

WORKS

The Religious Aspect of Philosophy. Boston-New York, 1885.
The World and the Individual. New York-London, 1901.
The Hope of the Great Community. New York, 1916.
Lectures on Modern Idealism. New Haven, Conn., 1919.
Logical Essays. Dubuque, Iowa, 1951.

REFERENCES

Iakovenko, B. “Filosofskaia sistema Zh. Roisa.” In the collection Novye idei v filosofii, collection 17. St. Petersburg, 1914.
Bogomolov, A. S. Burzhuaznaia filosofiia SShA XX veka. Moscow, 1974. Pages 24–35.
Buranelli, V. Josiah Royce. New York, 1964.
Fuss, P. The Moral Philosophy of Josiah Royce. Cambridge, Mass., 1965.

A. F. GRIAZNOV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.