'Everyone who follows the thought of Josiah Royce will welcome this collection of essential documents. Randall Auxier has gathered an impressive body of critical essays, reviews, and chapters from books that shows how Royce's works were received and discussed during his lifetime. Many of these documents, most of which were previously scattered in obscure publications, are presented to the reader for the first time. All serious researchers in the history of American thought of the nineteenth century will want to have Critical Responses to Josiah Royce on their bookshelves.'
- Professor John Clendenning, author of the definitive biography The Life and Thought of Josiah Royce 'Critical Responses to Josiah Royce provides a much needed and quite handy gathering of views from incisive thinkers who were familiar with the philosophy of the early and middle Royce.'
- Professor Frank M. Oppenheim, S. J., foremost authority on Royce and author of many books on Royce's thought
This set collects for the first time the most important responses to the philosophy of Josiah Royce (1855-1916), perhaps the most influential philosophical idealist America has yet produced. Royce's works in theology, metaphysics, logic, history, psychology, epistemology, social policy, ethics, and even his fiction are still widely read and discussed. These volumes contain reviews of his most important books and ideas and are indispensable for the study of American philosophy and the history of philosophy.
Volumes one and two bring together items published about Royce during his lifetime and volume three reprints in its entirety the collection of essays assembled by the editors of the Philosophical Review in honor of Royce's 60th birthday. It is a scarce treasure containing classic essays by the leading lights of American thought, such as John Dewey, Morris R. Cohen, William Ernest Hocking and C.I. Lewis.
--collects in one place a wide variety of scattered reviews of all of Royce's major works, many of them rare and difficult to find. It is unlikely that any single library holds all these materials, and even among those which do, the materials are often fragile, brittle, decaying or lost
--features reviews by the most well-known figures who wrote about Royce, including William James, John Dewey, William Ernest Hocking, Samuel Alexander, and many of the leading lights of Royce's day
--makes available the full text of the extremely scarce 'Conception of God' debate Royce had with G. H. Howison and his colleagues before the Philosophical Union in Berkeley in 1895, including Royce's 'Supplementary Essay' of 1897
