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Quote by Josiah Royce

“Philosophers have actually devoted themselves, in the main, neither to perceiving the world, nor to spinning webs of conceptual theory, but to interpreting the meaning of the civilizations which they have represented, and to attempting the interpretation of whatever minds in the universe, human or divine, they believed to be real.”

Quote by Josiah Royce

Work

Josiah Royce: Selected Writings

Josiah Royce: Selected Writings is a compilation of key essays and lectures by Josiah Royce, showcasing his philosophical ideas and theories. The book covers a range of topics including metaphysics, ethics, and the nature of reality, providing insight into Royce's intellectual development and his impact on the field of philosophy. more

Author

Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce

Josiah Royce was an American philosopher known for his work in moral philosophy, religious philosophy, and metaphysics. His ideas have had a profound impact on 20th-century philosophy. more

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“If usually the "present age" is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as thehistory of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.”

“A self is, by its very essence, a being with a past. One must look lengthwise backwards in the stream of time in order to see theself, or its shadow, now moving with the stream, now eddying in the currents from bank to bank of its channel, and now strenuously straining onwards in the pursuit of its chosen good.”

“The unique eludes us; yet we remain faithful to the ideal of it; and in spite of sense and of our merely abstract thinking, it becomes for us the most real thing in the actual world, although for us it is the elusive goal of an infinite quest.”

“Man you can define; but the true essence of any man, say, for instance, of Abraham Lincoln, remains the endlessly elusive and mysterious object of the biographer's interest, of the historian's comments, of popular legend, and of patriotic devotion.”