 In his last period Royce embraced what may be called a hermeneutic epistemology. While he still maintained the central notion that a true idea correctly represents its object, he arrived at a new understanding of the nature of representation. Earlier, he had rather uncritically taken “representation” to be a straightforward correspondence relation in which the idea merely copied its object. Under the influence of Peirce’s theory of signs, however, Royce came to appreciate the creative, synthetic, and selective aspects of representation. The new semiotic conception is detailed in the chapter of The Problem of Christianity entitled “Perception, Conception and Interpretation.” Knowledge is not at bottom merely the accurate and complete perception of an object, as empiricism would have it. Nor is it the accurate and complete conception of an idea, as rationalism maintains. Knowledge is instead a process of interpretation: the true idea selects, emphasizes, and re-presents those aspects of the object that will be meaningfully fulfilled in subsequent experience. Royce’s “absolute pragmatism,” like other versions of pragmatism, thus offers an alternative to rationalism and empiricism.