For many Californians, Josiah Royce, whose concept of loyalty Gov. Jerry Brown cited in his January 3 inaugural address as the key to overcoming partisanship, might be almost as familiar a name to most Californians as Thomas Starr King.
Said Brown:
“One of our native sons, Josiah Royce, became for a time one of the most famous of American philosophers. He was born in 1855, in a mining camp that later became the town of Grass Valley. I mention him because his “Philosophy of Loyalty” is exactly what is called for. Loyalty to the community, to what is larger than our individual needs.
Royce was a philosopher of the late 19th and early 20th century who, as the Democratic governor noted, was born in what was later named Grass Valley.
He was the “leading American proponent of absolute idealism,