The Religious Aspect of Philosophy: A Critique of the Bases of Conduct and of Faith

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Houghton, Mifflin, 1885 - 484 pages
 

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Page 340 - which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such a manner, and according to such rules as he himself hath ordained, and are by us termed the laws of nature.
Page 162 - unquenchable as the fires of the sun, real as these impulses that even now throb in thy own little selfish heart. Lift up thy eyes, behold that life, and then turn away and forget it as thou canst; but if thou hast known that, thou hast begun to know thy duty.
Page 158 - feeling, as somehow different in sort from thine. Thou hast said: " A pain in him is not like a pain in me, but something far easier to bear." Thou hast made of him a ghost, as the imprudent man makes of his future self a ghost. Even when thou hast
Page 120 - no matter what he said." Or again : — " ' To be or not to be ? ' Ere I decide I should be glad to know that which is being; 'T is true we speculate both far and wide, And deem, because we see, we are all-seeing. For my part,
Page 32 - Holy Grail. The spirits I have raised abandon me, The spells which I have studied baffle me — The remedy I recked of tortured me. I lean no more on superhuman aid.
Page 317 - not to Nature, but to the ineradicable prejudice of our own minds in favor of regularity and simplicity. All our thought is determined, in great measure, by this law of least effort, as it is found exemplified in our activity of attention. But attention is not the only influence that goes to transform
Page 425 - an incomplete thought, that to a higher thought, which includes it and its intended object, is known } as having failed in the purpose that it more or less clearly had, and that is fully realized in this higher
Page 409 - thoughts about him, then Thomas could possibly see John's error. That is what is meant by the error in John's thought. But mere disagreement of a thought with any random object does not make the thought erroneous. The judgment must disagree with its chosen object. If John never has Thomas in thought at all, how can John
Page 53 - That certain blunders hurt us more than our lesser crimes, and that our remorse for them is like our remorse for venial immorality, only more intense, is nowadays a matter of frequent remark. You ride using another man's season-ticket, or you tell a white lie, or speak an unkind word, and conscience, if a little used to such things, never
Page 297 - A postulate is a mental way of behavior. In so far it is like all other thought. In general, to believe that a thing exists is to act as if it existed. But the act may be forced upon one, or it may be freely chosen. One cannot fail to act upon the

About the author (1885)

Josiah Royce was the leading idealistic philosopher in the United States during the period of the development of American pragmatism. Born in Grass Valley, California, he was educated in San Francisco and at the University of California. After his graduation in 1873, he studied in Germany for a year at Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Gottingen. He then returned to the United States and took a doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. He taught English composition at the University of California and in 1882 was invited to Harvard University to "fill in" for William James (see also Vols. 3 and 5). He was appointed to an assistant professorship at Harvard in 1885 and remained there for the rest of his career. Influenced by Hegel (see also Vol. 3), Royce developed his own philosophy of absolute or objective idealism, in which it is necessary to assume that there is an "absolute experience to which all facts are known and for which all facts are subject to universal law." He published his major works from 1885 onward, including his Gifford Lectures, The World and the Individual (1900--01). Along with James, Royce had a great influence on the advanced students who were to become the next generation of American philosophers.

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