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Josiah Royce —Theist or Pantheist?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

Paul E. Johnson
Paul E. Johnson
Affiliation:
Hamline University, st. Paul, Minnesota
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Extract

The philosophy of Josiah Royce speaks often of the Absolute and of God, but has left his readers somewhat in doubt as to his exact theistic position. Those who have expressed their doubts attack the Royce an conception of the Absolute from two directions. Some find it not unified enough, others too unified, to be theistic. The former of these call attention to certain discussions in which Royce explains his world unity as a unity of meaning, or a mathematical infinite, or an all-inclusive concept, drawing there from the inference that the unity which he intended was only that of a logical possibility. Or, further, it is insisted that even if Royce may have intended real unity, there is serious question as to the success of his philosophic achievement. The Absolute is made to comprise such contradictory and discordant features that its harmony at least seems incongruous or forced. A unity composed of vigorously conflicting selves must be an aggregate rather than an organic whole.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , July 1928 , pp. 197 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1928

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References

1 The World and the Individual, II, 1902, p. 417.

2 The World and the Individual, I, 1900, pp. 401, 424.

3 The World and the Individual, I, p. 394.

4 Ibid.

5 The Religious Aspects of Philosophy, 1885, p. 477.

6 Ibid.

7 The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 1892, preface, p. vii.

8 Ibid., p. 347. Mary W. Calkins quotes this as ground for the statement that “Dr. Royce explicitly labels himself ‘a theist.’” But the reference reads, “In what sense, above all, can I pretend to be a theist, and to speak of the Absolute Self as the very essence and life of the whole world?” which hardly seems an explicit confession. Even if Royce is here admitting his own position, it is not contrasted with pantheism but with atheism. The uncertainty at issue with us here, and presumably with Miss Calkins, is thus not materially relieved by this reference. See Mary W. Calkins, ‘The Foundation in Royce's Philosophy for Christian Theism,’ in Papers in Honor of Josiah Royce, edited by J. E. Creighton, 1916, p. 55.

9 The New World, vol. I, pp. 289–310; reprinted in Studies of Good and Evil, 1898, p. 141.

10 The Conception of God, p. 49.

11 The World and the Individual, I, preface, p. xiii.

12 Ibid., I, preface, p. ix.

13 James, W., Pragmatism, 1907, p. 17.Google Scholar

14 Buckham, John W., ‘The Contributions of Professor Royce to Christian Thought,’ Harvard Theological Review, vol. VIII, 1915, p. 231.Google Scholar

15 Papers in Honor of Josiah Royce, p. 55.

16 The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, p. 349; see also pp. 380 and 425.

17 William James, and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life, 1911, p. 168.

18 William James, and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life, 1911, p. 286.