since its origins in herbert spiegelberg's 1960 Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, the question of the rapport between Royce and Husserl has been generally framed according to a perspective that is at once conceptual and methodological. More specifically, Spiegelberg's attempt has been that of finding an equilibrium among this twofold perspective and Royce's theory of meaning and social self:
Royce's theory of meaning as a purpose, which can be fulfilled by “reality,” or his concern for the identity of meanings among several individuals as the basis for his theory of the social self have counterparts in Husserl's phenomenology of intentionality. . . . Royce's social idealism with its insistence on the role of the individual within the Absolute might have gone well with Husserl's later theory of intersubjectivity and with his idea of a community of transcendental monads. (Spiegelberg 146)
If, for Spiegelberg, the conceptual dimension allows...
