Why We Remember Royce: An Introduction

Why do some philosophies endure, while others endure seemingly permanent neglect? Both Josiah Royce and his student George Santayana were brilliant thinkers whose erudition was virtually unmatched. Santayana commented that Royce “could discourse broadly on any subject; you never caught him napping. Whatever the text-books and encyclopedias could tell him, he knew; and if the impression he left on your mind was vague, that was partly because, in spite of his comprehensiveness, he seemed to view everything in relation to something else that remained untold” (98). Both student and teacher were prolific writers and published many fine books. Yet Royce’s thought came roaring back after a half century or so out of the spotlight, and Santayana’s has not. The Royce movement has been underway for more than ten years; it consists of dozens of energetic individuals actively promoting Royce’s ideas. But just try to start a conversation with a philosopher about Santayana. I once made the mistake of confessing to a colleague that I had written a doctoral dissertation on Santayana’s theory of spirituality. “I do not like Santayana,” he said. We began discussing Royce.

Royce’s thought addresses our needs in ways that feel familiar and right. Perhaps this is because he wrote within a Judeo-Christian framework stretched to fit an increasingly secular age. But Santayana often did the same. To find the difference, we need to look at how the two frameworks are set up with respect to morality. For Santayana, values emerged more or less by accident from complex organisms that were themselves products of blind evolution. Values added beauty and meaning to life, but they were random “ethereal” effects, not purposive causes. For Royce, on the other hand, the very structure of the universe was normative. “To be,” he said, meant “to fulfill a purpose” (204). Life was not only not meaningless but fundamentally meaningful; not only complete in some sense but necessarily complete down to the last detail; not only not disappointing but essentially fulfilling. Philosophy for Royce was metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and ethics, yet morality pervaded the logic, epistemology, and metaphysics no less than the ethics. Royce’s thought has the virtues of pragmatism: it finds its fulfillment in action; it appeals to specialists but speaks to everyone. But as important if not more so is that it also has the virtues of idealism: it sees everything in human terms and assures us that our finitude does not preclude salvation. This moral center radiating outward on all sides and suffusing the whole is what makes Royce’s thought idealistic, and it is Royce’s idealism that gives his thought enduring appeal. Few philosophies are better equipped to address the moral problems of today’s half-religious, half-secular world. We need theories that lead to practical improvements and that do not exclude, but we still need access to the ancient assurances once associated exclusively with traditional religious faith. Royce gives us both, which is one reason why Royce feels right, and why we should be loyal to the cause of rediscovering his life and thought.

Josiah Royce died one hundred years ago this year on 14 September 1916. Prompted by the anniversary of Royce’s death, this commemorative issue of the Pluralist examines his legacy through the eyes of contemporary scholars, all of whom draw from a growing body of Royce scholarship. Their diverse themes and perspectives pay tribute to the fertility of Royce’s mind, yet beneath that diversity, there is, appropriately, unity. What I hope to accomplish in the remainder of this introduction is to provide an overview of the six articles collected here, from the standpoint of the Roycean moral commitments that unify them. In this way, I want to suggest that what best explains the staying power of Royce’s thought is its moral core. I will close by offering some reflections on the burdens and benefits of organizing one’s philosophy around human values.

John Clendenning and Frank Oppenheim have long disagreed on how best to describe the trajectory of Royce’s life. For Oppenheim, Royce reached his peak at the very...