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Josiah Royce- From a Mining Community in Grass Valley to
Harvard- The Building of Community from Isolated Individuals
Biography
A flaming red-haired Californian, raised in the mining community
of Grass Valley, graduated from U.C. Berkley in first class, spent
a year studying in Germany, received PhD. at John Hopkins,
taught in California and then by invitation from William James
went to Harvard and remained there for 33 years.
Major Works
 The Religious Aspect of Philosophy-1881
 California-1886
 The Spirit of Modern Philosophy-1892
 Studies of Good and Evil-1898
 The World and the Individual-1899-1901
 1903-Outlines of Psychology
 1908-The Philosophy of Loyalty & Race Questions
 1911-Sources of Religious Insight; 1913- The Problem of
Christianity & The Principles of Logic
 1916-Hope of the Great Community
Empiricist- and Phenomenologist= Philosophy based on the
commonly experienced
1. Studied the life of “minded selves”- their psychology, logic,
ethics, and religious experiences.
2. Insisted that social and temporal are essential aspects of
human consciousness and the conditions for self-awareness
and knowledge.
3. Stressed the function of language in the genesis and
development of minded beings.
Knowledge, Truth and Reality
1. Knowledge of external reality, all knowledge of nature is
born out of a social context; it is communal.
2. Community experience distinguishes inner from outer; more
reliability granted to the data of sight and touch; Nature- is
a realm which we conceive as known or knowable to
various men in precisely the general sense in which we
regard it as known or knowable to our private selves.
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3. Science is necessarily social and historical in nature- it is
social needs of various kinds that guided the development
of scientific knowledge, e.g. drive to quantify.
4. Data is “theory-ladened”- “We let facts speak but we also
talk back.” We interpret as well as report.
5. However, there is in scientific knowledge both coercive
“thereness” and “meanings freely created.”
6. Truth is both absolute and relative. Thought if constructive
of reality, logic is instrumental and a logic of will. Thus,
“relation” and “class” unite creation and discovery- they are
found in empirical facts such as a particular relation
between father and son, or in classification of physical
objects. (These are conventional). But logical constants
also are absolute. Such logical facts such as the difference
between yes and no are not dependent on the contingent
aspect of our sensations. Their necessity depends upon the
fact that without them no rational action of any kind is
possible.
7. Conceptual schemes have functional efficacy in unifying our
knowledge and the search for truth is open-ended.
Nevertheless necessary truths are to be found. Truth is
useful but it is also true.
8. There are three kinds of knowledge which deal with three
different kinds of things known- perception, conception, and
interpretation.
9. There is continuity between nature and the human self.
Unconscious and conscious nature shares the following four
features: (1) irreversibility; (2) communication; (3) the
formation of habits; and (4) evolutionary growth. “We have
no right whatever to speak of really unconscious nature but
only of uncommunicative nature. There is a difference in
temporal and appreciative span.
The Human Self and Individual
1. Anti-Cartesian- “Whatever the self is, it is not a thing, a
substance.” It is a process having both a public, physical,
behavioral aspect which is an empirical self, and a private
inner aspect, the self as inner life, the series of states of
consciousness, feelings, thoughts, desires, memories,
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emotions, moods. The self is a totality of facts-public &
private.
2. Human consciousness is intentional and purposive- selective
attention is fully at work. Thus, the world is seen by me
from a particular, often narrow point of view. This demands
transcendence of self and checking things out with fellow
selves. Objectivity is intersubjectivity.
3. The self is not known directly-only through interaction and
interpretation. Self-reflection is interpretation of self to self.
4. A self is an expression of purpose- “By this meaning of my
life plan…,I am defined and created a Self.”
5. Individuality and individuation is an ethical matterindividuals are “affective objects of interest,” “a beloved this
and no other.”
6. The human self rises to moral life through a transformation
out of a state of alienation from society or of an isolated
individual into authentic loyalty of a genuine community.
Community
1. For Royce genuine individuals cannot exist without genuine
communities; individuals without genuine communities are
empty; communities without genuine individuals are blind.
2. Community is an essential concept for Royce. In The
Problem of Christianity he discusses the conditions for a genuine
community. The first condition is the power of the individual to
extend his life beyond self. Communication among selves that
involves attentive listening to the ideas and hopes of others is
the second condition of community. Interpretation, then, is the
process that creates community. Achievement of unity is the
third condition.
3. Royce fully recognizes the presence of evil and less than
satisfactory communities. He develops the concept of loyalty to
loyalty as the ultimate ethical principle. This principle posits the
cause of universal loyalty-this is an authentic and resolute will to
promote the building of more and more community and to
promote the authentic moral growth of all individuals.
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