Courteously, Professor Jacquelyn Kegley, in her helpful and balanced book Josiah Royce in Focus, allocates her summary of responses to my 1976 hypothesis.2 My hypothesis stated that Royce’s intellectual development from 1875 to 1916 was aptly imagined as a triple-peaked affair.3 The jagged line of the Sierras’ peaks with its three highest may unduly distract from the emphasis also needed on the continuity and unique identity of the whole course of Royce’s thought and of the entire range of the Sierras (...) in the United States.Kegley draws upon Royce’s own image of new growth with distinct yet consistent additions.4 I now see both of these starting images as helpful yet limited for the whole of... (shrink)

This article aims to clarify how these two thinkers interacted philosophically to develop, challenge and enrich each other's thinking. To this end, the article employs a chronological order, tighter than Perry's, of six periods of interaction: Royce's pre-Harvard period, four at Harvard, and one after James's death. Pertinent to the genesis of James's will-to-believe doctrine, in his "Principles of Psychology" James credited Royce's account of the psychology of belief as the clearest he knew. When James later compared Bradley's "Appearance and (...) Reality" with Royce's self-confessedly "hasty and unsound" "Conception of God", James's suspicions about Royce's argument for the "absolute" were further aroused. (shrink)

: This article aims: 1) to review several, key, earlier studies of Josiah Royce's relations to Asian thinkers (mainly Indian); 2) to discover through a survey of Royce's writings how widely and deeply Royce familiarized himself with, and employed Hindu, Buddhist, and other Asian traditions; and, 3) to measure how relevant Royce's most mature philosophy (1912–1916) is for the currently needed inter-cultural, inter-religious, and inter-faith dialogues. Parts One and Two supply foundations which reveal Royce's lifelong commitment to open "windows" to (...) Eastern thought, in order to dialogue with Asian thinkers and invite other Westerners to do the same. The article climaxes in Part Three by revealing the relevance of the late Royce's "philosophy of the 'Spirit,' his "philosophical pneumatology." I trace ten of its implied positions, significant for contemporary philosophers of religion and theologians. I conclude by showing that Royce's "philosophy of the 'Spirit"' and its implied positions are all rooted in Royce's view of a "middle faith." Such a faith supports his view of the "invisible church," his "Beloved Community of all "Christians"—"Christians" taken in his wider sense of "all genuine loyalists who are members of a Beloved Community.". (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Biography The Issues Royce Confronted Developments that Royce Fostered The Chief Significance of Royce's Mature Work.

In his first summer lecture at Berkeley in 1914, Josiah Royce, American philosopher of community, confessed as follows.

Josiah Royce (1855-1916), philosopher of community, taught that social consciousness arises from ego-alter contrasts and is guided by taboos and, before George H. Mead, by reciprocal gestures. A major Roycean contribution was his five conditions for coexperiencing consciousness of genuine community. Related to Freud (via Putnam), Royce did early work on “identification theory” and helped midwife psychotherapy’s birth in America. Contrasting with William James’s basic differentiation of consciousness according to the quality of its contents (feeling, thought, and conduct), Royce preferred (...) a norm of increasing self-agency (shown in sensitivity, docility, and initiative). The temperaments of James as artist and of Royce as rational interpreter differentiated their approaches to psychology. (shrink)

This article aims: 1) to review several, key, earlier studies of Josiah Royce's relations to Asian thinkers ; 2) to discover through a survey of Royce's writings how widely and deeply Royce familiarized himself with, and employed Hindu, Buddhist, and other Asian traditions; and, 3) to measure how relevant Royce's most mature philosophy is for the currently needed inter-cultural, inter-religious, and inter-faith dialogues. Parts One and Two supply foundations which reveal Royce's lifelong commitment to open "windows" to Eastern thought, in (...) order to dialogue with Asian thinkers and invite other Westerners to do the same.The article climaxes in Part Three by revealing the relevance of the late Royce's "philosophy of the 'Spirit,' his "philosophical pneumatology." I trace ten of its implied positions, significant for contemporary philosophers of religion and theologians. I conclude by showing that Royce's "philosophy of the 'Spirit"' and its implied positions are all rooted in Royce's view of a "middle faith." Such a faith supports his view of the "invisible church," his "Beloved Community of all "Christians"—"Christians" taken in his wider sense of "all genuine loyalists who are members of a Beloved Community.". (shrink)

First, I offer an introduction to set the context suited for scholars engaged in studies of Josiah Royce, focusing upon how “process” operates in Royce’s late philosophy. After that, I want to offer signposts to inform Royce scholars about several paths of possible future research.For students of Royce’s late philosophy, frequent encounters with the terms “Community” and “the Holy Spirit” may seem indeed to overshadow the usage of the term “process.” Granted, the index of Royce’s Problem of Christianity cites ten (...) entries under the term “process.” Yet John Clendenning’s own indexes to Royce’s Letters and his revised Life of Royce do not mention the term “process” in their lists. Students of Royce, both old and... (shrink)

This article discusses and describes the contents of a large newly acquired addition to the Papers of Josiah Royce, Harvard University Archives. The material includes Royce unpublished manuscripts (1 box), incoming correspondence (4 boxes), logicalia (1 box), correspondence of Royce and Head families (5 boxes), family photographs (1 box), manuscripts of Katherine Royce (1 box), notebooks, diaries, etc. (1 box), Royce's published work (2 boxes), miscellanea (4 boxes). Appendix A lists Royce's correspondents alphabetically. Appendix B prints letters by Royce and (...) Peirce. (shrink)

: Josiah Royce, a Johns Hopkins Fellow (1876–1878), polished two manuscripts for publication: "The Spirit of Modern Philosophy" (SMP; 62 pp.), and his dissertation, "The Interdependence of the Principles of Knowledge" (IPK; xi + 332 pp.). Although he penned the texts in blue ink and headers and footnotes in red, he never published either work. SMP—not Royce's 1892 work of the same title—critiqued Francis Bowen's Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartman, and created a new epistemology. My essay ventures (...) the hypotheses that Royce prudently abstained from publishing SMP to avoid alienating Bowen, a Harvard board-member for faculty admissions, and IPK to avoid advancing an interpretation of Kant he felt unsure of and would later publicly disown. Mainly, however, this paper inquires whether, in drafting SMP, Royce created an outline for IPK. I sketch Royce's life at Hopkins and present context and content of these two MSS. From these I unearth seven philosophical themes running parallel in SMP and IPK. This grounds the paper's major hypothesis that Royce's overriding aim in SMP was less to critique Bowen than to create an outline for the long Introduction and Part One of IPK. (shrink)

Josiah Royce, a Johns Hopkins Fellow (1876–1878), polished two manuscripts for publication: "The Spirit of Modern Philosophy" (SMP; 62 pp.), and his dissertation, "The Interdependence of the Principles of Knowledge" (IPK; xi + 332 pp.). Although he penned the texts in blue ink and headers and footnotes in red, he never published either work. SMP—not Royce's 1892 work of the same title—critiqued Francis Bowen's Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartman, and created a new epistemology. My essay ventures the (...) hypotheses that Royce prudently abstained from publishing SMP to avoid alienating Bowen, a Harvard board-member for faculty admissions, and IPK to avoid advancing an interpretation of Kant he felt unsure of and would later publicly disown. Mainly, however, this paper inquires whether, in drafting SMP, Royce created an outline for IPK. I sketch Royce's life at Hopkins and present context and content of these two MSS. From these I unearth seven philosophical themes running parallel in SMP and IPK. This grounds the paper's major hypothesis that Royce's overriding aim in SMP was less to critique Bowen than to create an outline for the long Introduction and Part One of IPK. (shrink)

i am proud to honor the legacy of Frank M. Oppenheim. This legacy is broad and deep. First, Oppenheim has played a major role in remedying the neglect of the life and work of Josiah Royce. He has done so with probing articles on central concepts in Royce’s philosophy and with a series of longer studies that delineated unexpected developments in Royce’s thought and life, demonstrating how Royce, throughout his career, refined and rethought his central philosophical ideas (...) and created entirely unique and new directions of philosophical reflection. With superb interpretive and mediating skills, Oppenheim has provided the scholarly world with a finely nuanced picture of the context of Royce’s thought in terms of his... (shrink)

Frank Mathias Oppenheim was born in Coldwater, Ohio, on May 18, 1925, and studied at Xavier, Loyola, and Saint Louis Universities. He joined the Chicago Province of the Jesuit Order in 1942 and was ordained on June 15, 1955. He is the author of four books on Josiah Royce’s philosophy: Royce’s Journey Down Under, Royce’s Mature Philosophy of Religion, Royce’s Mature Ethics, and Reverence for the Relations of Life: Re-Imagining Pragmatism via Josiah Royce’s Interactions with Peirce, James, and (...) Dewey, in addition to scores of journal articles devoted to Royce. Oppenheim is also the editor of Josiah Royce’s Late Writings: A Collection of Unpublished and Scattered Works, and was... (shrink)

Fr. Frank Oppenheim’s body of work dedicated to the philosophy of Josiah Royce exhibits a degree of objectivity and admiration not evidenced in philosophical circles since Ralph Barton Perry’s magisterial The Thought and Character of William James.1 Royce once derisively referred to his own system Σ as akin to a Boston attic—a “junk heap” in which everything is there, but best of luck in getting anything out! It is helpful to consider the entire body of Oppenheim’s Royce-work (...) as the combination of a “Boston attic” and the most ideal image of the “kitchen sink”—the contents not only all there, but neatly separated, perfectly arranged, and brilliantly displayed. The purpose of this essay is to situate Oppenheim’s... (shrink)

The present article examines the philosophical temperaments of James and Royce, as well as the kind and development of their philosophical styles. After surveying their stances toward the universe, attitudes toward the more, and their openness to other philosophers’ ideas and critiques, this article focuses on the streams of philosophical thought from which James and Royce chose to “drink”-British, German, Asian, and the work of logicians. Some evidence is drawn from their correspondence and places of study. Their philosophical styles, despite (...) many common traits, differed in ageric tone, use of dichotomies, and frequency of reduplicative expressions, here called “double-barreled shotgun expressions.” Clearly, this research constitutes only one piece in the full mosaic of the increasingly studied James-Royce relationship. (shrink)

The present article examines the philosophical temperaments of James and Royce, as well as the kind and development of their philosophical styles. After surveying their stances toward the universe, attitudes toward the more, and their openness to other philosophers’ ideas and critiques, this article focuses on the streams of philosophical thought from which James and Royce chose to “drink”-British, German, Asian, and the work of logicians. Some evidence is drawn from their correspondence and places of study. Their philosophical styles, despite (...) many common traits, differed in ageric tone, use of dichotomies, and frequency of reduplicative expressions, here called “double-barreled shotgun expressions.” Clearly, this research constitutes only one piece in the full mosaic of the increasingly studied James-Royce relationship. (shrink)

Using six decades of researches unknown to Perry, I here aim to survey carefully the various factors affecting the personal temperaments of William James and Josiah Royce. Such a survey creates a background against which later one can better examine their philosophical interactions. Initially, a comparison-contrast of their temperaments symbolizes James as an "eye" and Royce as an "ear". Then a more detailed study explores their differences in age and health, personal gifts, the "significant others" in their lives, educational opportunities, (...) and their religious upbringing and attitudes. These factors significantly illumine the decades-long philosophical interaction of these two American philosophers. (shrink)