[MD] still going?

[John Carl]

DMB and all,

I forwarded Dave's assertions to Dr. Auxier and here is his learned reply
to the following of Mr. Buchanan's:



On Sunday, February 14, 2016, david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> From the Stanford Encyclopedia:

"Royce and James had always disagreed deeply concerning the proper
understanding of religious phenomena in human life. When James delivered
the Gifford Lectures in 1901 and 1902, he directed many arguments against
Royce's idealism, though he did not there target his friend by name.
James's lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience, were
a popular and academic success . Royce believed that James, who had never
been regularly affiliated with an established church or religious
community, had in that work placed too much emphasis on the extraordinary
religious experiences of extraordinary individuals. Royce's first education
was into a strongly Protestant world view, he always retained a respect for
the conventions of organized Christianity, and his writings exhibit a
consistent and deep familiarity with Scripture. He sought a philosophy of
religion that could help one understand and explain the phenomena of
ordinary religious faith as experienced by communities of ordinary people.
There was a deeper difference between them, as well, and it centered on a
metaphysical point. Royce's 1883 insight concerning the Absolute was at
bottom a religious insight. Contrary to the open-ended pluralism and
pragmatism of James, Royce was convinced that the object and source of
religious experience was an actual, infinite, and superhuman being."

.
R
Randall Auxier
to me
23 hours ago
Details
The Stanford encyc. is right on everything except in asserting that Royce
retained respect for historical organized religion. He respected living
communities. He did not see very much to respect in any church that existed
historically after Christianity was institutionalized.

James was more religious than Royce in the traditional sense of the term
"religious." James kept up a spiritual praxis, and like Fox Mulder, wanted
to believe. Royce was quite beyond any such nonsense. On the other hand,
James did not have a "theology" and Royce did --unfortunately not
published. The Augustus Graham Lectures, Brooklyn, 1896, contain Royce's
theology. There is no point discussing his theism until you and Dave
(whoever he is) have read this. I think it's up on the website of the Royce
Edition project, but you have to read it in manuscript, as I did. The only
part that was ever published was The Problem of Job, which was extracted
from the fifth lecture, as I recall.

Royce was religious in about the sense that, say, Carl Sagan was:

There is order. It is amazing. It isn't about us. It includes us. We will
cease someday. That's ok.

If this is religious, then Royce is religious. If not (and most would say
not), then he's not religious.

The Stanford encyc. is right about Royce's knowledge and continual use of
Scripture. He was raised on it, knew it inside out and backward and
forward, and loved the Bible. He did not like the practice of religion and
never participated.


RA
-- 
"Qui tacet consentit."

Randall Auxier
Professor of Philosophy
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901-4505