Knower

Josiah Royce (1855 – 1916) was an American objective idealist philosopher.
Royce stands out starkly in the philosophical crowd because he was the only major American philosopher who spent a significant period of his life studying and writing history, specifically of the American West, “As one of the four giants in American philosophy of his time […] Royce overshadowed himself as historian, in both reputation and output”

Royce's key works include The World and the Individual (1899–1901) and The Problem of Christianity (1913), both based on lectures, given at the Gifford and Hibbert lectures series respectively. The heart of Royce's idealist philosophy was his contention that the apparently external world has real existence only as known by an ideal Knower, and that this Knower must be actual rather than merely hypothetical. He offered various arguments for this contention in both of his major works. He appears never to have repudiated this view, even though his later works are largely devoted to expositing his philosophy of community.
Two key influences on the thought of Royce were Charles Sanders Peirce and William James.
Horatio W. Dresser evidently did doctoral work with both William James and Royce.
Royce addressed the seventh annual New Thought convention in 1907 as did Dr. R.C. Cabot