Author	Jarvis, Edward A. author
Title	The Conception of God in the Later Royce [electronic resource] / by Edward A. Jarvis
Imprint	Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands, 1975
Connect to	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1659-9
Descript	XXIV, 199 p. online resource

Dr. Jarvis kindly invited me to undertake this Foreword. According to his suggestion, I here intend to complement his work by creating a context for it. To do so, prior notice of a common misrepresentation of Royce and of his contemporary relevance seems needed, before briefly sketching his biography and interest in religion. Finally, to orient the reader to the present study, I will point out Royce's main works and the spirit of the man. In the year 2150 A. D. , what will people be saying about Harvard? If the reported prediction of a self -effacing William James comes true, the common answer will be, "Harvard? Oh, that's the place where Royce taught. " And yet, now that almost a century has passed since Royce began teaching at Harvard, most Americans do not recognize the name "Josiah Royce. " Of those who do, few know him as a significant American philosopher of community. And of these few, far fewer recall either that religious problems first drove Royce to philosophy or that he said such problems "of all human interests, deserve our best efforts and our utmost loyalty. " 1 Little wonder, then, that when Americans survey our "classic" philosophers-Peirce, James, Royce, Santayana, Dewey, Whitehead-few of them respond to Royce as the most explicitly and persistently religious philosopher of them all. Fortunately, however, popularity contests do not accurately weigh the merit of a philosopher

I. The Early Thought of Royce -- 1. Moral Theory -- 2. Empirical Theism -- 3. Postulates. The Right to Believe -- 4. Idealism as an Hypothesis Based on Postulates -- 5. Skepticism and the Possibility of Error -- 6. Common Sense and the Problem of Error -- 7. Solution and Conclusion to Absolute Idealism -- 8. Absolute Idealism and the Nature of Error -- 9. The Problem of Evil -- 10. The Conception of God. Critique -- II. The Middle Thought of Royce -- 1. Transition to โ{128}{156}The World and the Individualโ{128}{157} -- 2. โ{128}{156}The World and the Individualโ{128}{157}: Introduction -- 3. Realism -- 4. Mysticism -- 5. Critical Rationalism -- 6. The Internal and External Meaning of Ideas -- 7. The Fourth Conception of Being -- 8. The Proof of Godโ{128}{153}s Existence -- 9. The One, the Many, and the Infinite -- 10. The Temporal and the Eternal -- 11. The Moral Order and the Problem of Evil -- 12. Immortality -- 13. The Conception of God. Summary -- III. The Later Theory of Community -- 1. Transition to โ{128}{156}The Problem of Christianityโ{128}{157} -- 2. โ{128}{156}The Problem of Christianityโ{128}{157}: Introduction -- 3. The Moral Burden of the Individual -- 4. Guilt and Atonement -- 5. The Beloved Community -- 6. The Community and the Time-Process -- 7. The Body and Its Members -- 8. The Nature of Interpretation -- 9. The Will to Interpret -- IV. The Later Conception of God -- 1. The World of Interpretation -- 2. The Theoretical and the Practical -- 3. Peirceโ{128}{153}s โ{128}{156}Neglected Argumentโ{128}{157} -- 4. The Conception of God -- 5. Elements in Royceโ{128}{153}s Later Conception of God Which are Similar to and Continuous with Earlier Conceptions -- 6. Elements in Royceโ{128}{153}s Later Conception of God Which are Different from His Earlier Conceptions. Summary