William James

"The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."

Overview

William James was an original thinker in and between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy. His twelve-hundred page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology (1890), is a rich blend of physiology, psychology, philosophy, and personal reflection that has given us such ideas as "the stream of thought" and the baby's impression of the world "as one great blooming, buzzing confusion" (PP 462). It contains seeds of pragmatism and phenomenology, and influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America, including Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. James studied at Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School and the School of Medicine, but his writings were from the first as much philosophical as scientific. "Some Remarks on Spencer's Notion of Mind as Correspondence" (1878) and "The Sentiment of Rationality" (1879, 1882) presage his future pragmatism and pluralism, and contain the first statements of his view that philosophical theories are reflections of a philosopher's temperament or vision.

James hints at his religious concerns in his earliest essays and in The Principles, but they become more explicit in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897), Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine (1898), The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and A Pluralistic Universe (1909). James oscillated between thinking that a "study in human nature" such as Varieties could contribute to a "Science of Religion" and the belief that religious experience involves an altogether supernatural domain, somehow inaccessible to science but accessible to the individual human subject. James made some of his most important philosophical contributions in the last decade of his life. In a burst of writing in 1904-5 (collected in Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912)) he set out the metaphysical view most commonly known as "neutral monism," according to which there is one fundamental "stuff" which is neither material nor mental. He also published Pragmatism (1907), the culminating expression of a set of views permeating his writings.

Biographical Timeline

	1842. Born in New York City, first child of Henry James and Mary Walsh. James. Educated by tutors and at private schools in New York.
	1843. Brother Henry born.
	1848. Sister Alice born.
	1855-8. Family moves to Europe. William attends school in Geneva, Paris, and Boulogne-sur-Mer; develops interests in painting and science.
	1858. Family settles in Newport, Rhode Island, where James studies painting with William Hunt.

	1859-60. Family settles in Geneva, where William studies science at Geneva Academy; then returns to Newport when William decides he wishes to resume his study of painting.
	1861. William abandons painting and enters Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard.
	1864. Enters Harvard School of Medicine.
	1865. Joins Amazon expedition of his teacher Louis Agassiz, contracts a mild form of smallpox, recovers and travels up the Amazon, collecting specimens for Agassiz's zoological museum at Harvard.

	1866. Returns to medical school. Suffers eye strain, back problems, and suicidal depression in the fall.
	1867-8. Travels to Europe for health and education: Dresden, Bad Teplitz, Berlin, Geneva, Paris. Studies physiology at Berlin University, reads philosophy, psychology and physiology (Wundt, Kant, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Renan, Renouvier).
	1869. Receives M. D. degree, but never practices. Severe depression in the fall.
	1870-1. Depression and poor health continue.
	1872. Accepts offer from President Eliot of Harvard to teach undergraduate course in comparative physiology.
	1873. Accepts an appointment to teach full year of anatomy and physiology, but postpones teaching for a year to travel in Europe.
	1874-5. Begins teaching psychology; establishes first American psychology laboratory.
	1878. Marries Alice Howe Gibbens. Publishes "Remarks on Spencer's Definition of Mind as Correspondence" in Journal of Speculative Philosophy.
	1879. Publishes "The Sentiment of Rationality" in Mind.
	1880. Appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Harvard. Continues to teach psychology.
	1882. Travels to Europe. Meets with Ewald Hering, Carl Stumpf, Ernst Mach, Wilhelm Wundt, Joseph Delboeuf, Jean Charcot, George Croom Robertson, Shadworth Hodgson, Leslie Stephen.
	1884. Lectures on "The Dilemma of Determinism" and publishes "On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology" in Mind.
	1885-92. Teaches psychology and philosophy at Harvard: logic, ethics, English empirical philosophy, psychological research.
	1890. Publishes The Principles of Psychology with Henry Holt of Boston, twelve years after agreeing to write it.

	1897. Publishes The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Lectures on "Human Immortality" (published in 1898).
	1898. Identifies himself as a pragmatist in "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results," given at the University of California, Berkeley. Develops heart problems.
	1899. Publishes Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (including "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings" and "What Makes Life Worth Living?"). Becomes active member of the Anti-Imperialist League, opposing U. S. policy in Philippines.
	1901-2. Delivers Gifford lectures on "The Varieties of Religious Experience" in Edinburgh (published in 1902).
	1904-5 Publishes "Does ‘Consciousness’ Exist?," "A World of Pure Experience," "How Two Minds Can Know the Same Thing," "Is Radical Empiricism Solipsistic?" and "The Place of Affectional Facts in a World of Pure Experience" in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. All were reprinted in Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912).
	1907. Resigns Harvard professorship. Publishes Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, based on lectures given in Boston and at Columbia.
	1909. Publishes A Pluralistic Universe, based on Hibbert Lectures delivered in England and at Harvard the previous year.
	1910. Publishes "A Pluralistic Mystic" in Hibbert Journal. Abandons attempt to complete a "system" of philosophy. (His partially completed manuscript published posthumously as Some Problems of Philosophy). Dies of heart failure at summer home in Chocorua, New Hampshire.

Selected Writings on James

	Barzun, Jacques, A Stroll with William James. New York: Harper and Row, 1983.
	Bird, Graham, William James (The Arguments of the Philosophers). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986.
	Edie, James, William James and Phenomenology, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987.
	Feinstein, Howard M., Becoming William James. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984.
	Fontinell, Eugene, Self, God, and Immortality: A Jamesian Investigation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986.
	Gale, Richard M., The Divided Self of William James, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
	Goodman, Russell B., American Philosophy and the Romantic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, Chapter 3.
	Goodman, Russell B., Wittgenstein and William James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
	Levinson, Henry S., The Religious Investigations of William James. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981.
	Matthiessen, F. O., The James Family. New York: Knopf, 1947.
	McDermott, John, Streams of Experience: Reflections on the History and Philosophy of American Culture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986.
	Moore, G. E., "William James' ‘Pragmatism’", in Philosophical Studies, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922, pp. 138.
	Myers, Gerald, William James: His Life and Thought. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
	Perry, Ralph Barton, The Thought and Character of William James. Boston: Little, Brown, 1935, 2 vols.
	Poirier, Richard, Poetry and Pragmatism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
	Putnam, Hilary, The Many Faces of Realism. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1987.
	Putnam, Hilary, (with Ruth Anna Putnam), "William James's Ideas," in Putnam, Hilary, Realism with a Human Face (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990, pp. 217-231.
	Putnam, Ruth Anna, The Cambridge Companion to William James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
	Russell, B., The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 6, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1986, pp. 257-306.
	Simon, Linda, Genuine Reality: a life of William James , New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998.
	Seigfried, Charlene Haddock, Chaos and Context. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1978.
	Seigfried, Charlene Haddock, William James's Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.
	Sprigge, T. L. S., James and Bradley: American Truth and British Reality. Chicago: Open Court, 1993.
	Suckiel, Ellen Kappy, The Pragmatic Philosophy of William James, Notre Dame, IN and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982.
	Suckiel, Ellen Kappy, Heaven's Champion. Notre Dame, IN and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996.
	Taylor, Eugene, William James on Consciousness Beyond the Fringe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
	Wilshire, Bruce, William James and Phenomenology: A Study of "The Principles of Psychology". New York: AMS Press, 1979.

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Overview

Biographical Timeline

1842. Born in New York City, first child of Henry James and Mary Walsh. James. Educated by tutors and at private schools in New York.

1843. Brother Henry born.

1848. Sister Alice born.

1855-8. Family moves to Europe. William attends school in Geneva, Paris, and Boulogne-sur-Mer; develops interests in painting and science.

1858. Family settles in Newport, Rhode Island, where James studies painting with William Hunt.

1859-60. Family settles in Geneva, where William studies science at Geneva Academy; then returns to Newport when William decides he wishes to resume his study of painting.

1861. William abandons painting and enters Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard.

1864. Enters Harvard School of Medicine.

1865. Joins Amazon expedition of his teacher Louis Agassiz, contracts a mild form of smallpox, recovers and travels up the Amazon, collecting specimens for Agassiz's zoological museum at Harvard.

1866. Returns to medical school. Suffers eye strain, back problems, and suicidal depression in the fall.

1867-8. Travels to Europe for health and education: Dresden, Bad Teplitz, Berlin, Geneva, Paris. Studies physiology at Berlin University, reads philosophy, psychology and physiology (Wundt, Kant, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Renan, Renouvier).

1869. Receives M. D. degree, but never practices. Severe depression in the fall.

1870-1. Depression and poor health continue.

1872. Accepts offer from President Eliot of Harvard to teach undergraduate course in comparative physiology.

1873. Accepts an appointment to teach full year of anatomy and physiology, but postpones teaching for a year to travel in Europe.

1874-5. Begins teaching psychology; establishes first American psychology laboratory.

1878. Marries Alice Howe Gibbens. Publishes "Remarks on Spencer's Definition of Mind as Correspondence" in Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

1879. Publishes "The Sentiment of Rationality" in Mind.

1880. Appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Harvard. Continues to teach psychology.

1882. Travels to Europe. Meets with Ewald Hering, Carl Stumpf, Ernst Mach, Wilhelm Wundt, Joseph Delboeuf, Jean Charcot, George Croom Robertson, Shadworth Hodgson, Leslie Stephen.

1884. Lectures on "The Dilemma of Determinism" and publishes "On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology" in Mind.

1885-92. Teaches psychology and philosophy at Harvard: logic, ethics, English empirical philosophy, psychological research.

1890. Publishes The Principles of Psychology with Henry Holt of Boston, twelve years after agreeing to write it.

1897. Publishes The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Lectures on "Human Immortality" (published in 1898).

1898. Identifies himself as a pragmatist in "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results," given at the University of California, Berkeley. Develops heart problems.

1899. Publishes Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (including "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings" and "What Makes Life Worth Living?"). Becomes active member of the Anti-Imperialist League, opposing U. S. policy in Philippines.

1901-2. Delivers Gifford lectures on "The Varieties of Religious Experience" in Edinburgh (published in 1902).

1907. Resigns Harvard professorship. Publishes Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, based on lectures given in Boston and at Columbia.

1909. Publishes A Pluralistic Universe, based on Hibbert Lectures delivered in England and at Harvard the previous year.

1910. Publishes "A Pluralistic Mystic" in Hibbert Journal. Abandons attempt to complete a "system" of philosophy. (His partially completed manuscript published posthumously as Some Problems of Philosophy). Dies of heart failure at summer home in Chocorua, New Hampshire.

Selected Writings on James

Barzun, Jacques, A Stroll with William James. New York: Harper and Row, 1983.

Bird, Graham, William James (The Arguments of the Philosophers). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986.

Edie, James, William James and Phenomenology, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Feinstein, Howard M., Becoming William James. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Fontinell, Eugene, Self, God, and Immortality: A Jamesian Investigation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986.

Gale, Richard M., The Divided Self of William James, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Goodman, Russell B., American Philosophy and the Romantic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, Chapter 3.

Goodman, Russell B., Wittgenstein and William James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Levinson, Henry S., The Religious Investigations of William James. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981.

Matthiessen, F. O., The James Family. New York: Knopf, 1947.

McDermott, John, Streams of Experience: Reflections on the History and Philosophy of American Culture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986.

Moore, G. E., "William James' ‘Pragmatism’", in Philosophical Studies, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922, pp. 138.

Myers, Gerald, William James: His Life and Thought. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Perry, Ralph Barton, The Thought and Character of William James. Boston: Little, Brown, 1935, 2 vols.

Poirier, Richard, Poetry and Pragmatism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Putnam, Hilary, The Many Faces of Realism. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1987.

Putnam, Hilary, (with Ruth Anna Putnam), "William James's Ideas," in Putnam, Hilary, Realism with a Human Face (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990, pp. 217-231.

Putnam, Ruth Anna, The Cambridge Companion to William James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Russell, B., The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 6, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1986, pp. 257-306.

Simon, Linda, Genuine Reality: a life of William James , New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998.

Seigfried, Charlene Haddock, Chaos and Context. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1978.

Seigfried, Charlene Haddock, William James's Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

Sprigge, T. L. S., James and Bradley: American Truth and British Reality. Chicago: Open Court, 1993.

Suckiel, Ellen Kappy, The Pragmatic Philosophy of William James, Notre Dame, IN and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982.

Suckiel, Ellen Kappy, Heaven's Champion. Notre Dame, IN and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996.

Taylor, Eugene, William James on Consciousness Beyond the Fringe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Wilshire, Bruce, William James and Phenomenology: A Study of "The Principles of Psychology". New York: AMS Press, 1979.