Commentary on Mathew A. Foust, "Tragedy and the Sorrow of Finitude: Reflections on Sin and Death in the Philosophy of Josiah Royce"

Kenneth W. Stikkers, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Mathew Foust is right to focus upon the themes of "sin," "death," "tragedy," "sorrow," and "finitude" with respect to the philosophy of Josiah Royce, for it is in precisely such issues that Royce stands as a giant on the landscape of American philosophy: to borrow the famous distinction of Gabriel Marcel, whom Royce significantly influenced, while pragmatists tend to see life as an endless series of problems always to be solved, Royce invites us to contemplate the mystery of our finitude and suffering. Foust is right, too, along with Royce, in suggesting an intimate relationship between sin and atonement, on the one hand, and death, on the other: sin and death are both, for Royce, expressive of life's "incompleteness at every instant, with the sorrow of finitude in every moment of the natural world." Moreover, Foust implies, although I wish he had been more explicit on these points, that the overcoming of sin, through atonement, and the possibility of overcoming death (i.e., the possibility of salvation) both entail, for Royce, first, the realization of certain goods which could not have emerged without the finitude and "incompleteness" of sin and death and, second, loyal participation in one's beloved community. I wish here to expand this relationship between sin and death while, at the same time, articulating it differently, in light of the phenomenologies of Martin Heidegger and Max Scheler.