William James and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life is a collection of essays written by Josiah Royce, an American philosopher and teacher. The book includes several essays on the life and work of William James, one of the most influential American philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to the essays on James, the book also includes essays on other notable figures in philosophy, such as Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche. Royce's essays explore the philosophical ideas and contributions ...
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William James and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life is a collection of essays written by Josiah Royce, an American philosopher and teacher. The book includes several essays on the life and work of William James, one of the most influential American philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to the essays on James, the book also includes essays on other notable figures in philosophy, such as Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche. Royce's essays explore the philosophical ideas and contributions of these thinkers, as well as their impact on broader philosophical and cultural movements.Throughout the book, Royce provides a nuanced and thoughtful analysis of the complex issues and ideas that have shaped modern philosophy. He explores questions of ethics, morality, religion, and the nature of human existence, offering insightful commentary and analysis that will be of interest to both students and scholars of philosophy.Overall, William James and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history and development of modern philosophy, as well as the enduring questions and debates that continue to shape our understanding of the world and ourselves.This Is A New Release Of The Original 1912 Edition.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
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An upcoming conference at the Harvard Divinity School, "William James and Josiah Royce a Century Later: Pragmatism and Idealism in Dialogue" has encouraged me to read or reread some of the works of James (1842 -- 1910), a great American pragmatist, and his dear friend the idealist philosopher Royce, (1855 -- 1916). Royce's work, a product of an idealistic tradition that remains in disfavor in contemporary American philosophy, is less accessible than that of his famous colleague. But it remains worth reading nonetheless.
Royce's collection of five essays, "William James and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Life" (1911) constitutes an excellent bridge between the works of these two American philosophers. The book suggests how much James and Royce held in common. Importantly, both Royce and James thought philosophy too important to be left to specialists; they both wrote with the hope that philosophy, the love of wisdom, had something of importance to give to the nonspecialist in, as Royce put it in the Preface to this collection, forming "sound ideals for the conduct of life". I think James's philosophy owes more to idealism than is sometimes supposed. In any event, this short book helps to bring out the similarities and differences between James and Royce.
The opening essay in this collection "William James and the Philosophy of Life" was Royce's tribute to his then recently-deceased friend, and it remains one of the most insightful treatments of James's thought. Royce characterizes James as one of three Americans who, together with Jonathan Edwards and Ralph Waldo Emerson, had made distinctive and original contributions to philosophy. Royce identifies evolutionary theory and the developing science of psychology as key formulative influences on the thought of William James, and he explores James's contributions to the development of American religious life in the "Varieties of Religious Experience," to pragmatism in his book of that name, and to ethics, particularly in James's early essay, "The Will to Believe". This latter work, and its voluntarism owes much to Royce's thought.
Royce writes that James "lavishly used the resources of the naturalist, of the humanist, and of the ethical dialectician. He saw the facts of human life as they are, and he resolutely lived beyond them into the realm of the spirit. He loved the concrete, but he looked above towards the larger realm of universal life." Royce concludes his essay by describing his friend as "a prophet of the nation that is to be." This essay is an excellent introduction to the thought of both James and Royce.
The other essay in this collection that I found of great interest was Royce's 1906 address to the International Congress of Philosophy at Heidelberg titled, "The Problem of Truth in the Light of Recent Discussion." The problem of truth, as Royce characterizes it remains at the forefront of contemporary philosophical discussion. For example, a short recent book "What's the Use of Truth" consists of a sharp debate between Richard Rorty and Pascal Engel on issues involving truth. Royce would have understood the debate, even though he might not have shared the views of either participant. For Royce opens his essay by pointing out that questions on the nature of truth arise during a critical, reflective age, when people have difficulty addressing or even formulating issues of metaphysics. He then points to pragmatism, or instrumentalism, as one of the three factors -- the other two are the rise of individualism and the great progress being made early in the 20th Century in science and in mathematical logic -- that contibute to the difficulty in understanding truth. Royce uses developments in logic, combined with his voluntarism, to argue in favor of an absolutist concept of truth. Royce's answer, differs from the answers of both Rorty and Engel and their debate, as well as from the answers of most contemporary philosophers. But Royce's issues remain much the same as those of contemporary thinkers, and a great deal can be learned from reading him.
The remaining three essays include "Loyalty and Insight" in which Royce develops his view that the meaning of human life lies in finding a cause and a community larger than oneself in which one believes and finds value. In his essay, Royce ties his philosophy of loyalty to idealistic and Kantian metaphysics.
The longest essay in the collection, "What is Vital in Christianity" explores issues that Royce would later discuss in great detail in his 1913 book, "The Problem of Christianity." The broad theme of the essay is the meaning that modern people can, with their skepticism and science, find in religion, as Royce develops fine distinctions between religious practice on the one hand and the nature of religious belief on the other hand. The most interesting part of this essay consists of Royce's discussion of the medieval mystic, Eckhart and of Royce's endorsement of what he views as Eckhart's teaching that "whatever is vital in Christianity concerns in fact the relation of the real individual human person to the real God" or "the eternal relation of the real soul to the real God."
The final essay in the collection deals with the difficult topic "Immortality". Here I find Royce redirecting and refocusing his inquiry away from the title as he deals with questions such as the nature of time and of the relationship between individual persons and the philosophical absolute in a philosophical system of absolute idealism. This essay shows Royce at his most voluntaristic, under the great influence of Schopenhauer. Insofar as its voluntarism is concerned, the essay is also markedly similar to James' "Will to Believe" with which the book, and this review, began.
Readers who love philosophy and who want to explore the works of two great American thinkers will enjoy this too-little known collection of essays by Josiah Royce.
