Yes, But Not Quite: Encountering Josiah Royce's Ethico-Religious Insight

Notes

Notes  preface 1. Frank M. Oppenheim, S.J., Royce’s Voyage Down Under (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1980), 25. 2. Some readers might wonder why I call Royce’s idealism an ‘‘absolutistic idealism’’ rather than an ‘‘absolute idealism.’’ I use the phrase ‘‘absolute idealism’’ to describe Hegel’s idealism and its philosophical descendants, and Royce’s idealism, contrary to popular opinion, is not any sort of Hegelian idealism (see ‘‘Author’s Preface,’’ in Problem of Christianity (1913) [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001], 39, where Royce denies any allegiance to Hegelian idealism). However, the absolute is at the heart of Royce’s idealism, so I decided to call his idealism, ‘‘absolutistic idealism,’’ to distinguish it from Hegelian absolute idealism. 3. The reasons why I turned away from Royce’s absolutistic idealism are documented in my article ‘‘Concerning the God That Is Only a Concept: A Marcellian Critique of Royce’s God,’’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 42.3 (Summer 2006): 394–416. introduction encountering josiah royce’s ethico-religious insight 1. Josiah Royce, Fugitive Essays, ed. J. Loewenberg (1920) (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, Inc., 1968), 9–10. 2. All of these essays are reprinted in ibid. 3. See James H. Cotton, Royce on the Human Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), quoted in Josiah Royce’s Late Writings: A Collection of Unpublished and Scattered Works, vol. 1, ed. Frank M. Oppenheim, S.J. (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press), 34. 4. All biblical citations are from Zondervan KJV Study Bible (Grand Rapids , Michigan: Zondervan, 2002) unless otherwise noted. {  }  notes to pages 3–10 5. The literature on Royce’s philosophy, especially dealing with his ethical thought and his philosophy of nature, has grown rapidly over the last few decades or so. A majority of this literature, though, attempts to describe Royce’s philosophy in secular philosophical terms to fit more readily into contemporary philosophical conversations and to have more philosophers willing to examine Royce’s thought. Here are a few examples of contemporary articles, essays, and books written by Royce scholars who engage in this practice: José-Antonio Orosco, ‘‘Cosmopolitan Loyalty and the Great Global Community: Royce’s Globalization,’’ in Journal of Speculative Philosophy 17.3 (2003): 204–15 and Griffin Trotter, The Loyal Physician: Roycean Ethics and the Practice of Medicine (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1997). 6. John Dewey, A Common Faith, in Later Works of John Dewey, vol. IX, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989), 1–60. 7. Rufus Burrow, Jr., Personalism: A Critical Introduction (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999). chapter one the ‘‘conception of god’’ debate: setting the stage for royce’s personalism 1. See Oppenheim, Royce’s Voyage Down Under; he divides Royce’s philosophical career into three periods: the early period (1883–95), middle period (1896–1911), and mature period (1912–16)—although in recent years he refers to this as his late period; I follow this designation. 2. I admit that Royce placed a tremendous amount of importance on logic in his philosophizing. He notes the importance of logic to philosophical inquiry as late as December 1915 in his informal ‘‘Autobiographical Sketch,’’ given on the occasional of the American Philosophical Association ’s celebration of his sixtieth birthday (Josiah Royce, The Basic Writings of Josiah Royce, vol. I [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969], 40). Yet there are already first-rate scholarly books documenting the importance of logic to Royce’s thought. This book serves as a corrective to the tendency among many contemporary Royce scholars to emphasize his logic over his ethico-religious insight. 3. Josiah Royce initially referred to this omniscient and omni-benevolent judge as ‘‘Absolute Thought’’ in The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885) and later referred to this same judge as ‘‘Absolute Experience,’’ in The Conception of God (1895). See Oppenheim, Royce’s Voyage Down Under: Royce’s Mature Philosophy of Religion (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame notes to pages 10–11  Press, 1987) 18; and ‘‘High Points in Josiah Royce’s Intellectual Development ,’’ in Metaphysics, ed. William Ernest Hocking, Richard Hocking, and Frank Oppenheim (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), xv, for more details concerning this initial insight in Royce’s philosophical career. 4. I realize that in contemporary academic writing the usage of the third-person masculine pronouns and possessive pronoun is considered insensitive , inappropriate, and, at worst, outright offensive, even when...