Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewJosiah Royce for the Twenty-First Century delivers what it promises: a collection of new essays that show the breadth and depth of Royce's philosophy and make a compelling case for its relevance to the present world. Essays by both prominent Royce scholars and a new generation of interpreters make this volume essential reading for students of Royce and the American philosophical tradition and for those who are seeking critical alternatives to the main trends in contemporary pragmatist, analytic, and Continental philosophies. -- Scott L. Pratt, University of Oregon
The editors of this volume call it a rediscovery of Royce’s work—it is more than that. Here one finds a deployment of Royce’s ideas that will surprise any who work with the stereotypical notion that Royce was just an old-fashioned American Hegelian. The essays trace important but less well documented influences on Royce’s work: Leibniz, Kant (in both metaphysics and ethics), Lotze, Nietzsche, and Peirce. More importantly, they place Royce’s ideas in the contemporary setting dealing with issues such as communitarianism, neo-pragmatism, philosophy of mind, linguistic reference, developmental psychology, and philosophy of religion. In doing so, they put Royce into conversation with the likes of Rorty, Brandom, the Churchlands, Searle, Arendt, Margolis, Levinas, and a host of other thinkers. The book is important as a corrective to much that has been written about Royce by uninformed critics, and it is useful in detailing Royce’s ongoing relevance for philosophy in the twenty-first century. -- Douglas Anderson, University of North Texas
The philosophical depth, thickness and significance of Royce’s writing are herein met head-on with these informed and trenchant essays. The authors set Royce smack-in-the-middle of major contemporary philosophical issues, such that the hanging on of shibboleths as to his being trapped in an out-of-date portfolio must now be abandoned. In this book, Royce is philosophically alive and worthy of sustained attention. -- John J. McDermott, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Texas A&M University
Kelly A. Parker’s and Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski’s Josiah Royce for the Twenty-first Century: Historical, Ethical, and Religious Interpretations is a monumental testament to the nascent international revival of Josiah Royce’s philosophy among contemporary philosophers, especially those who are historians of late nineteenth and early twentieth century North American idealism, historians of classical American pragmatism, or contemporary scholars working in pragmatism broadly defined. This collection brings together well-known Royce scholars and scholars who are encountering Royce’s thought for the first time. It is also a good primer on most of the major themes in contemporary Royce scholarship. In addition, several of the contributors offer a much needed historical reinterpretation of Royce’s thought, particularly with respect to his metaphysics, his philosophy of art, and his pragmatism. Moreover, several of the contributors work to bring Royce’s thought into the twenty-first century by identifying the contributions it can make to contemporary epistemology, metaphysics, moral philosophy, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion. It also places Royce in conversation not only with the usual suspects – for example, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey, Immanuel Kant, Rudolf Hermann Lotze, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, George Santayana, and George Herbert Mead – but also with thinkers not normally associated with Royce – for example, Richard Rorty and John Searle. -- Dwayne Tunstall, Grand Valley State University
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Contemporary Readings of Josiah Royce Kelly Parker and Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski Part I. Historical Reinterpretations Chapter 1: Psychological, Phenomenological, and Metaphysical Individuality in Royce’s Philosophy Randall E. Auxier Chapter 2: Some Kantian Extrapolations from Royce Marc M. Anderson Chapter 3: Riddles & Resolutions: Infinity, Community and the Absolute in Royce’s Later Philosophy Gary L. Cesarz Chapter 4: Man as Sign and Man as Self-Surrender: Peirce, Royce and an Attempted Trans-valuation of the Concept of Humanity Rossella Fabbrichesi Part II. Ethics: Interpretations of Loyalty Chapter 5: “Loyalty”: Royce’s Post-Kantian, Pragmaticist Conception of Ethics Ludwig Nagl Chapter 6: The Incompleteness of Loyalty Bette J. Manter Chapter 7: Josiah Royce’s Loyalty in the Context of Values and Powers Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski Chapter 8: Training for Loyalty to a Lost Cause as a Method of Royce's Social Pedagogy Zbigniew Ambrozewicz Part III. Religious Philosophy Chapter 9: Searching for Rhymes: Royce’s Idealistic Quest Matthew Caleb Flamm Chapter 10: Pragmatism as Idealist Monotheism: Royce, Rorty and the Pragmatist Philosophy of Religion Claudio Marcelo Viale Chapter 11: Royce and the Recovery of the Personal Thomas O. Buford Chapter 12: Atonement and Eidetic Extinction Kelly A. Parker Part IV. Contemporary Implications Chapter 13: Mind as Personal and Social Narrative of an Embodied Self Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley Chapter 14: The Fourth Conception of Being and the Problem of Reference Ignas K. Skrupskelis Chapter 15: On Being Loyal (to the Wrong Hegel): Rorty and Royce between Literary Culture and Redemptive Truth Wojciech Malecki Chapter 16: Towards a Roycean Poetics Richard A. S. Hall
