Josiah Royce was born on 10 November 1855 in Grass Valley, California. Royce is best known for his absolute idealism and was the founder of American idealism. His first appointment was as an instructor in English at the University of California, Berkeley in 1878. In 1882, he accepted a one-year position at Harvard, replacing William James, who was on sabbatical. Attaining a permanent position as Assistant Professor of Philosophy in 1885, he went on to become Professor of the History of Philosophy in 1892.
Royce’s ‘A Word for the Times’ (1914) was quoted in the 1936 State of the Union Address by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His major works include The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885), The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892), The Conception of God (1897), The World and the Individual (2 vols., 1899–1900), The Philosophy of Loyalty (1908), Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Problems (1908), The Sources of Religious Insight (1912), The Problem of Christianity (1913), War and Insurance (1914), and The Hope of the Great Community (1916).
