Josiah Royce: Pragmatist, Ethicist, Philosopher of Religion

In October 2015, the Warburg Haus, Hamburg, held a conference on the American philosopher Josiah Royce that brought together German and American scholars. The papers given at the conference led to this new book, Josiah Royce: Pragmatist, Ethicist, Philosopher of Religion. Edited by the German scholars Christoph Seibert and Christian Polke, the volume includes eleven essays, nine delivered at the 2015 conference, together with additional contributions by Seibert and Polke, the conference organizers.It is valuable to see contemporary German scholars engaging with Royce and to compare their approach with that of American scholars. Americans tend to approach Royce through the tradition of pragmatism in the company of William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey, and to minimize the metaphysics in Royce's thought and its idealistic influences.The book has the goal of developing Royce's thought to show how its insights and concerns may be valuable for contemporary life, not only for scholars of differing philosophical traditions. In their Introduction, Seibert and Polke describe Royce as a "pragmatist of his own kind" (3) and identify three themes in his philosophy. The first is community, which was central to Royce from the beginning and, following his serious study of Peirce, "became the ultimate principle of both his metaphysics and his philosophy of life" (3). The second theme is religion, which, for Royce, involved the "search for the ultimate meaning of his own life, as well as that of his fellows' lives" (3). The third broad theme in Royce is ethics and a lifelong concern with the nature of the examined life. Royce developed his ethical philosophy from an original critique of moral skepticism to the "never-ending task of building communities within and through mankind by way of a critical spirit of true and mutual loyalty" (3). Among these three, the editors consider religion as the most important. They state: "Religion is a very important theme of Royce's philosophy: one may even assume that it is the central subject, which implies that his philosophy may be properly understood only if it is regarded as a philosophy of religion" (8). The centrality of religion is apparent in the essays. Consideration here must be brief.The book's first section, "Bridging Two Continents: Royce between Pragmatism and Idealism," includes three broad-ranging essays that work toward a synthesis between pragmatism and idealism in the thought of Royce. Ludwig Nagl's contribution, "Toward a Global Philosophical Discourse on Religion," discusses Royce's posthumously published "Lectures on Modern Idealism." Nagl uses this work, together with Royce's adaption of Peirce, to help create a bridge between pragmatism and idealism. He further explores Royce's interest in Eastern religion to suggest how Royce's thought might support a broad philosophical study of religion, not restricted to Christianity. Co-editor Seibert's article, "The Ethical Nucleus of Reality," focuses on Royce's epistemology and his ethics, while touching briefly on religion. The essay shows how Royce combined pragmatic and idealistic threads from his earliest writings, with particular attention to his book The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (SM). Royce's SM is also central to the American philosopher Douglas Anderson's essay "What Philosophy Meant to Josiah Royce." In SM, Royce argues that philosophy constitutes a critical reflection on experience that may be practiced by every person, not only by professional philosophers. Anderson, however, also identifies and criticizes a more elitist, professional aspect in Royce's conception of philosophy. For Anderson, Royce's thought had a pragmatist dimension in that philosophy was a "voluntarily chosen attitude toward conducting our lives" (80). Royce's thought also was idealistic in its recognition of the finite character of human life and in the search for the whole. Anderson writes that, for Royce, "to understand our experiences and to gain some control of our futures, we must see those experiences in their relations to all of what is—no easy task" (80).The book's second section includes four contributions about "The Individual and the Community: The Ethics of Loyalty." The American scholar Dwayne Tunstall's essay "We Are Destined to Be Moral Failures" shares with Anderson's essay and several others an appreciation of the importance of human finitude for Royce. Due to human finitude, we fall short in our efforts to build inclusive human communities. Tunstall argues persuasively that Royce's philosophy of loyalty has a religious dimension that often is overlooked.The following two essays compare Royce's ethical philosophy with that of the American philosopher George Herbert Mead and the German sociologist Georg Simmel. Alexander Filpovic's essay "Royce and Mead on the Foundations of Ethics" stresses social thought. Filpovic argues that Royce and Mead develop their pragmatism in related but different ways. Royce's pragmatism has an ethical and moral dimension from the outset while Mead develops his social pragmatism naturalistically. Filpovic concludes that, with their differences, Royce and Mead have provided insight into "real problems within culture, society, and politics" (120). In his essay "Choose Your Cause and Then Serve It," Magnus Schlette compares Royce's 1908 book The Philosophy of Loyalty with Simmel's 1913 essay "The Law of the Individual." He finds that both Simmel and Royce try to propose an ethics of self-realization without falling into narcissism or hedonism. While Simmel and Royce have much in common, the difference appears to be between a naturalistic approach and a more immediately religious approach.Co-editor Polke's essay "Loyalty and Covenant" makes a fitting conclusion to this section as he argues that in Royce's later work, the "close link between Royce's late social philosophy and questions of religion and metaphysics becomes even more obvious" (140). Extrapolating from the American theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, Polke argues that Royce's philosophy of loyalty is shaped by a "covenantal" structure, and he describes Royce's thought as "spiritual communitarianism." This essay traverses broad ground from Royce's "wise provincialism" to broad spiritual and metaphysical considerations.The final part of the book, "Interpreting Religious Experience: The Meaning of the Absolute," begins with the American philosopher Robert Cummings Neville's essay "Royce's Philosophy of Religion." Neville acknowledges that Royce's philosophy of religion "cannot be separated from his philosophical orientation as a pragmatist and his approach to ethics" (163). His essay aims "to sketch a systematic critical appraisal of Royce's philosophy as it bears upon religion" (165). The author of a three-volume treatise on the philosophy of religion, Neville sketches his own views, which he then uses as a basis for considering the views of Royce. Neville praises Royce for his many insights while also finding his philosophy of religion lacking in many ways, primarily in giving insufficient weight to the individual.Gesche Linde's essay "A Religion of Social Consciousness" views religion as central to Royce's thought and is overtly Christian in tone. Her essay begins with Royce's writings on California and community but soon moves to a consideration of The Problem of Christianity (PC). Linde argues that Royce's social philosophy is an interpretation of Christian or Reformed, specifically Pauline, faith. She also points out that Royce's study of Peirce led to important modifications in his thinking and turned the practice of philosophy into, in her words, a "soteriological enterprise" (188–89). Linde discusses how Royce both adopted Pierce's theory of interpretation and parted company with it. Both Royce and Peirce, she concludes, intended their work to be a transformation of the "Trinitarian Dogma" (210). Linde argues that the philosophy of social consciousness that Royce articulated in PC is a "religion" because "it not only implies a certain metaphysics and a moral code but also demands genuine commitment" (214). She finds it a religion attuned to Christianity because she believes Christianity introduced the "ideal of the community of mankind" to the world (214).Heiko Schultz's essay "The Unsurpassable Good" finds religious questions at the heart of Royce's philosophy and offers a close examination of Royce's treatment of the problem of evil. Unlike most of the contributors to the volume, Schultz understands Royce as an absolute idealist who modified his position late in life to an absolute pragmatism (220). Schultz finds a mutual dependence between Royce's absolute idealism and his theodicy. In a lengthy analysis, Schultz rejects Royce's solution. Schultz suggests that reason and theory cannot resolve the problem of evil and that, as Christianity teaches, reconciling God with the existence of evil is a matter for faith.Martin Wende's essay "The Interpreter Who Interprets All to All" concentrates on the PC and explores the relation of that book's Interpreter-Spirit with the Absolute of German idealism. Wende understands Royce as a pragmatist in his emphasis on the individual and on the importance of practice. Still, Wende sees a close relationship between Royce and the idealist tradition. In particular, Wende argues for a strong connection between the late Royce and the late Schelling in that both argued for a whole (Spirit or Absolute) that allowed for human freedom and practice without destroying the independence of the individual. Wende first discusses the role of the Interpreter-Spirit in Royce. He then develops the concept of the Absolute in German idealism, emphasizing the late Schelling, whom he describes as the "presently the most popular German idealist" (264). Wende suggests that there are valuable elements in both the late Royce and the late Schelling and that much could be learned from putting the best insights of each together. Wende's essay is provocative for placing Royce in the context of German thought, which may not be familiar to American readers, and for giving content to the understanding of Royce as a pragmatic idealist.I have been studying Royce for some time, and I learned a great deal from this book. It is fascinating to see contemporary philosophers engaging once again with Royce and with broad questions of metaphysics and religion and in trying to show the importance of these questions to contemporary individuals and communities.