Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce (/rɔɪs/; November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916) was an American Pragmatist and objective idealist philosopher and the founder of American idealism. His philosophical ideas included his joining of pragmatism and idealism, his philosophy of loyalty, and his defense of absolutism.
Josiah Royce | |
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Royce, c. 1910 | |
| Born | November 20, 1855 Grass Valley, California, U.S. |
| Died | September 14, 1916 (aged 60) |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA) Johns Hopkins University (PhD) |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | American philosophy Western philosophy |
| School | American Pragmatism Objective idealism American idealism |
| Thesis | Interdependence of the Principles of Human Knowledge (1878) |
| Academic advisors | William James Hermann Lotze Charles Sanders Peirce Wilhelm Windelband Wilhelm Wundt |
| Doctoral students | Curt John Ducasse C. I. Lewis George Santayana Henry M. Sheffer |
| Other notable students | Ella Lyman Cabot Mary Whiton Calkins William Henry Chamberlin (philosopher) Morris Raphael Cohen W.E.B. DuBois T.S. Eliot Edwin Holt Horace Kallen Victor Lenzen Alain Locke William Pepperell Montague Robert E. Park Franklin D. Roosevelt Anna Boynton Thompson Norbert Wiener |
Main interests | Ethics, philosophy of religion, metaphysics |
Notable ideas | the possibility of error, philosophy of loyalty, international insurance |
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Royce's "A Word for the Times" (1914) was quoted in the 1936 State of the Union Address by Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "The human race now passes through one of its great crises. New ideas, new issues – a new call for men to carry on the work of righteousness, of charity, of courage, of patience, and of loyalty. [...] I studied, I loved, I labored, unsparingly and hopefully, to be worthy of my generation."
Royce is the only Classical American philosopher who also studied and wrote history. His historical works mainly focused on the American West.