The Via Christa: Library: Josiah Royce

Josiah Royce

Josiah Royce (1855–1916) was the leading American proponent of absolute idealism, the metaphysical view (also maintained by G. W. F. Hegel and F. H. Bradley) that all aspects of reality, including those we experience as disconnected or contradictory, are ultimately unified in the thought of a single all-encompassing consciousness. Royce also made original contributions in ethics, philosophy of community, philosophy of religion and logic. His major works include The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885), The World and the Individual (1899–1901), The Philosophy of Loyalty (1908), and The Problem of Christianity (1913).

Royce's friendly but longstanding dispute with William James, known as "The Battle of the Absolute," deeply influenced both philosophers' thought. In his later works, Royce reconceived his metaphysics as an "absolute pragmatism" grounded in semiotics {a general philosophical theory of signs and symbols that deals especially with their function in both artificially constructed and natural languages and comprises syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics}. This view dispenses with the Absolute Mind of previous idealism and instead characterizes reality as a universe of ideas or signs which occur in a process of being interpreted by an infinite community of minds. These minds, and the community they constitute, may themselves be understood as signs. Royce's ethics, philosophy of community, philosophy of religion, and logic reflect this metaphysical position.

We, those of the Elect who travel the Via Christa, hold to the original tenets of Platonic Idealism. Royce embodies the intellectual schism introduced by the strict materialists of the Endarkenment (which the world calls the Enlightenment), who identified themselves as "Technocrats" in the early 20th Century, and as Globalists or the Global Elite in the early 21st Century.

– Linda Mihalic, Via Christa site editor

Selected Works of Josiah Royce

The Conception of Immortality
» Read it here »

Lectures on Modern Idealism
» Read it here »

The Religious Aspect of Philosophy
» Read it here »

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Josiah Royce, Ph.D.
1885–1916
American Neo-Hegelian idealist philosopher,
Professor, History of Philosophy, Harvard University.

JosiahRoyce

References

Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “semiotics,” accessed December 25, 2022.

Parker, Kelly A., "Josiah Royce", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2014 Edition, Edward N. Zalta (ed.) [accessed December 5, 2018].

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