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Chapter 7. The Idealism of Josiah Royce
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Chapter 7 The Idealism of Josiah Royce T he juxtaposition of Josiah Royce with William James makes one of the most fascinating comparisons and contrasts in philosophy. On the personal level they enjoyed the best of friendship, and philosophically they opposed each other on some very key issues. While James insisted on the incompatibility of the idea of “The Absolute” with human freedom and with a religious notion of God, Royce argued that a meaningful notion of truth as well as human freedom and religion require a belief in the Absolute. James and Royce related not only as friends, but also as neighbors, and both were part of the first great philosophy faculty at Harvard, a faculty that set the tone for the development of philosophy in the United States.1 James brought Royce to Harvard and played a very instrumental role in fostering his career. Further, James’s philosophical ideas contributed to Royce’s thought in some important ways especially the pragmatic notion that ideas have a dynamic character and achieve their fulfillment in the action of the person who holds them.2 This section on Royce presents his metaphysical idealism and the implications of his idea for understanding the human person, followed by his insights on ethics and religion. Royce presented his fundamental metaphysical views in the Gifford Lectures, titled The World and the Individual, delivered in 1899 and 1900.3 These lectures provide the necessary philosophical foundation for understanding his ideas on human freedom and on the relationship between the individual and the community. His approach to these questions centers on the relationship between ideas and reality. Therefore he asks as we must, what is an idea? What is reality? And, what is the relationship between an idea and reality? Royce identifies four historical views about the relationship of ideas to reality, which he calls the “four historical conceptions of being.” He identifies 67 the first conception as “Realism,” which holds that things really subsist independently of our ideas. The second conception, “Philosophical Mysticism,” dismisses the multiplicity of things as unreal and believes that only the Self is real. The third, “Critical Rationalism,” defines the real in terms of possible experience. The fourth conception, Idealism, which Royce himself espouses, sees the real as “that which finally presents a whole system of ideas.” But to understand what he means by Idealism, we must start from the beginning and get a clear understanding of the alternatives against which he defines his position. Ideas and Reality Royce offers as the most fundamental metaphysical questions: “What is an idea?” and “How are ideas related to reality?” He makes a distinction between ideas, which the intellect holds, and images of things. Ambiguity abounds in the use of the word “idea” in modern philosophy. The empiricist tradition of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, calls anything present to consciousness an idea, and distinguishes between simple and complex ideas. What the empiricists call a simple idea, namely, a perception, Royce calls an image. What Royce calls an idea of the intellect, the empiricists call a complex idea. To avoid confusion, we must stipulate what Royce meant by an idea. An image of an object does not in itself constitute an idea of the object. In Royce’s definition, an idea always involves a proposed course of action in relation to the object. On this point, Royce agrees with the pragmatists, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. The human mind does not serve merely as a passive receptacle of images; its work involves actively planning and executing plans. Ideas belong to the willing, striving, acting side of our life. For example, every scientific idea entails a program of action. The idea directs the scientist toward collecting more data, or forming the next hypothesis, or setting up the appropriate experiment. The practical nature of ideas also holds true of those ideas that we may have about such things as industry, politics, agriculture, and economics, as well as our personal ideas about morality, careers, finances, personal relationships, health care, and life goals. All of these involve courses of action. Royce defines an idea as a state of consciousness that expresses a single conscious purpose. To be more precise, he says that an idea can be “viewed as at least the partial expression of a single conscious purpose” (WI, I, 22–23). For example, a simple state of consciousness, such as being hot or cold, becomes an idea if it leads to a purpose such as consciously deciding...