Royce, Josiah

ROYCE, JOSIAH - Philosopher, b. Nov. 10, 1855 at Grass Valley (California) and d. Sept. 14, 1916 at Cambridge; professor at Harvard University. Besides Kant and Hegel, Schopenhauer (v.), Peirce and James (v.), that is, German idealism and American pragmatism, influenced his thought.

Of his numerous writings the most significant remain: The world and the individual (2 vols., New York 1899-1901; Ital. trans., Bari 1913-16); The philosophy of loyalty (New York 1903; Ital. trans., Bari 1911); The problem of Christianity (New York 1913; Ital. trans., Florence 1924-25).

Under the influence of pragmatism (v.) R. distinguishes between the "external meaning" and the "internal meaning" of an idea, whose truth consists not in correspondence to an exterior reality, but in the end ("internal meaning") that it proposes to realize. The idea is an "instrument" of an end; more than an intellectual process, it is a volitional process, a will that wills to realize itself. However, the end of an idea must be considered in relation to the absolute end (of which every end is a moment), which can only be the act of an absolute Consciousness or infinite Will, to which are present (and which preserves them) all the ends or truths of finite consciousnesses. Therefore this Consciousness is comprehensive of all particular subjects, implies the totality of time, is an actual present inclusive of all the moments of the temporal process. This Consciousness or God, for R., is the world itself, which is an "individual totality," in which the fragments of finite experience are found enclosed and our individualities completed and perfected. In God thus conceived there find a place not only time, but also error, sorrow, defeat, etc., and together the correction and overcoming of all these limits and, consequently, the fulfillment and fullness of individual wills. The world, which is God himself, is the realizing, through us, of God's perfection and, with it, of our own, insofar as in God individual consciousnesses are preserved, contrary to what F. H. Bradley (v.) had maintained. It was difficult for R. to justify this preservation of finite subjects in a conception so radically pantheistic. He attempted twice the impossible enterprise: first, availing himself of the theory of numbers of G. Cantor and R. Dedekind (the Absolute - the World or God - is a self-representative system, in which is preserved the multiplicity of individuals, who are one with him, insofar as it is structurally one - a single system - and at the same time infinite as a chain of realized ends); and subsequently utilizing Peirce's (v.) concept of "interpretation," as a third cognitive process (the other two being perception and thought). Interpretation involves three terms: the interpreter who interprets something to someone. Now, for R., the process of interpretation makes of the universe a realizable spiritual community. No individual in the world can save himself alone and alone find the truth; this is possible in the universal community. This would be, according to R., "the problem of Christianity," especially that of St. Paul (v.), who finds realized in the Church or communion of the faithful the Kingdom of heaven. Christian love means fidelity to the community, and fidelity to a freely chosen mission is the foundation of morality.

Evidently "the communion of the faithful," the Church, and God in St. Paul and in Christianity have a very different meaning from that given by R. in his pantheism with pragmatistic-idealistic tints, which is its negation or antithesis. It suffices to think that R. points to the system of insurance as the instrument of the realization of the "Great Community" (The hope of the Great Community, New York 1916).

Michele Federico Sciacca