Royce, Josiah (1855–1916)

Royce, Josiah(1855–1916)

Josiah Royce, the American idealist philosopher, was born in Grass Valley, California. He received his AB degree from the University of California in 1875 and his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1878. In the intervening years he studied in Germany at Leipzig and Göttingen, where he attended the lectures of Hermann Lotze. Royce returned to the University of California in 1878 as an instructor of English. Four years later, with the help of William James and George Herbert Palmer of the Harvard department of philosophy, he was invited to Harvard, where he taught for two years as a replacement for men on leave; in 1885 he received a regular appointment as assistant professor. Until his death Royce was one of the mainstays of the philosophy department in its so-called golden period. During that time he carried on his friendly debate with William James about the merits and demerits of absolute idealism, supervised the doctoral work of George Santayana, and delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Royce was a prolific writer and was much in demand as a public speaker.

Philosophical Orientation

Royce's philosophy is a unique synthesis of the rationalist metaphysic we associate with the system builders in the Western philosophical tradition and the appeal to experience and practice that has been dominant in American philosophy since 1875.

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