- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Acknowledgements
- Preface to the Fordham University Press Edition
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Bibliographic Abbreviations
- Editor's Note on the Text
-
Part I An Autobiographical Sketch -
1 Words of Professor Royce at the Walton Hotel at Philadelphia December 29,1915 -
Part II The American Context -
2 The Struggle for Order: Self-Government, Good-Humor and Violence in the Mines -
3 An Episode of Early California Life: The Squatter Riot of 1850 in Sacramento -
4 The Settlers at Oakfield Creek -
5 The Pacific Coast: A Psychological Study of the Relations of Climate and Civilization -
6 William James and the Philosophy of Life -
Part III The European Background -
7 Shelley and the Revolution -
8 Pessimism and Modern Thought -
9 The Rediscovery of the Inner Life: From Spinoza to Kant -
10 The Concept of the Absolute and the Dialectical Method - Part IV Religious Questions
-
11 The Possibility of Error -
12 The Conception of God Address by Professor Royce -
13 Immortality -
14 Monotheism - Part V The World and the Individual
-
15 Self-Consciousness, Social Consciousness and Nature -
16 The Religious Problems and the Theory of Being -
17 The Internal and External Meaning of Ideas -
18 The Fourth Conception of Being -
19 The Linkage of Facts -
20 The Temporal and the Eternal - American Philosophy Series Douglas R. Anderson and Jude Jones, series editors
The Internal and External Meaning of Ideas
The Internal and External Meaning of Ideas
- Chapter:
- (p.491) 17 The Internal and External Meaning of Ideas
- Source:
- The Basic Writings of Josiah Royce, Volume I
- Author(s):
- John J. McDermott
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
This chapter, taken from Josiah Royce's Gifford Lectures of 1899, shows that “mere generality always means practical defect.” In a complex argument, it seeks to turn the tables on those who hold that absolute truth denies individuation. The fulfillment of our purpose and the realization of a determinate idea is achieved by wider access to other “cases” of our ideas. Should we have access to all the possible instances which could illustrate one present idea, our experience would be: first, the complete fulfillment of your internal meaning, the final satisfaction of the will embodied in the idea; but second, also, that absolute determination of the embodiment of your idea as this embodiment would then be present—that absolute determination of your purpose, which would constitute an individual realization of the idea.
Keywords: ideas, generality, defect, truth, Josiah Royce
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Acknowledgements
- Preface to the Fordham University Press Edition
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Bibliographic Abbreviations
- Editor's Note on the Text
-
Part I An Autobiographical Sketch -
1 Words of Professor Royce at the Walton Hotel at Philadelphia December 29,1915 -
Part II The American Context -
2 The Struggle for Order: Self-Government, Good-Humor and Violence in the Mines -
3 An Episode of Early California Life: The Squatter Riot of 1850 in Sacramento -
4 The Settlers at Oakfield Creek -
5 The Pacific Coast: A Psychological Study of the Relations of Climate and Civilization -
6 William James and the Philosophy of Life -
Part III The European Background -
7 Shelley and the Revolution -
8 Pessimism and Modern Thought -
9 The Rediscovery of the Inner Life: From Spinoza to Kant -
10 The Concept of the Absolute and the Dialectical Method - Part IV Religious Questions
-
11 The Possibility of Error -
12 The Conception of God Address by Professor Royce -
13 Immortality -
14 Monotheism - Part V The World and the Individual
-
15 Self-Consciousness, Social Consciousness and Nature -
16 The Religious Problems and the Theory of Being -
17 The Internal and External Meaning of Ideas -
18 The Fourth Conception of Being -
19 The Linkage of Facts -
20 The Temporal and the Eternal - American Philosophy Series Douglas R. Anderson and Jude Jones, series editors
