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William James (January 11, 1842, New York - August
26, 1910 Chocorua, New Hampshire), philosopher and elder brother of the writer Henry
James, was born in New York, son of a Swedenborgian theologian, Henry
James, Sr. He received an eclectic and trans-Atlantic education as his eccentric father's son.
Together with Charles Sanders Peirce, who coined the
term, James founded the philosophical school or (perhaps more accurately) orientation of pragmatism.
James received his degree in medicine at Harvard, and taught anatomy there from 1872, philosophy after 1882.
He first made a mark with Principles of
Psychology (1890), which criticized both the English associationist school and the Hegelianism of his day as competing
dogmatisms, of little explanatory value, and which sought to re-conceive of the human mind as inherently purposive and
selective.
Epistemology
James defined truth as that which works in the way of belief. "True ideas lead us into
useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. The lead to consistency, stability and
flowing human intercourse" but "all true processes must lead to the face of directly verifying sensible experiences somewhere,"
he wrote.
Pragmatism as a view of the meaning of truth is considered obsolete in contemporary philosophy, because the predominant trend
of thinking in the years since James' death (1910) has been toward non-epistemic
definitions of truth, i.e. definitions that don't make truth dependent upon the warrant of a belief.
A contemporary philosopher or logician will often be found explaining that the statement "the book is on the table" is true if
and only if the book is on the table.
Pragmatism remains an important contribution, though, to discussions of the theory of knowledge, i.e. the question of when we can be said to know
Philosophy of Religion
James also did important work in the study and philosophy of religion, providing a wide-ranging account of The Varieties
of Religious Experience (1902) and interpreting them according to his pragmatic
leanings. Some of the important claims he makes in this regard:
- Religious genius should be the primary topic in the study of religion, rather than religious institutions--since institutions
are merely the remnant of genius.
- The intense, even pathological varieties of experience (religious or otherwise) should be sought by psychologists, because
they represent the closest thing to a microscope of the mind--that is, they show us in drastically enlarged form the normal
processes of things.
- In order to usefully interpret the realm of common, shared experience and history, we must each make certain "over-beliefs"
in things which, while they cannot be proven on the basis of experience, help us to live fuller and better lives.
Quotes from The Varieties of Religious Experience
The entire text online http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JamVari.html
Theory of Emotion
James is one of the two namesakes of the James-Lange theory of emotion, which he
formulated independently of Carl Gustav Lang in the 1880s. The theory holds that emotion is the mind's perception of
physiological conditions that result from some stimulus. In James' oft-cited example; it is not that we see a bear, fear it, and
run. We see a bear and run, consequently we fear the bear. Our mind's perception of the higher adrenaline level, heartbeat, etc., is the emotion.
This way of thinking about emotion has great consequences for the philosophy of aesthetics. Here is a passage from his great work, "Principles of Psychology," that spells out those
consequences.
"[W]e must immediately insist that aesthetic emotion, pure and simple, the pleasure given us by certain lines and masses, and
combinations of colors and sounds, is an absolutely sensational experience, an optical or auricular feeling that is primary, and
not due to the repercussion backwards of other sensations elsewhere consecutively aroused. To this simple primary and immediate
pleasure in certain pure sensations and harmonious combinations of them, there may,
it is true, be added secondary pleasures; and in the practical enjoyment of works of art by the masses of mankind these secondary
pleasures play a great part. The more classic one's taste is, however, the less relatively important are the secondary pleasures
felt to be, in comparison with those of the primary sensation as it comes in. Classicism and romanticism have their battles over this
point. Complex suggestiveness, the awakening of vistas of memory and association, and the stirring of our flesh with picturesque
mystery and gloom, make a work of art romantic. The classic taste brands these effects as coarse and tawdry, and prefers the
naked beauty of the optical and auditory sensations, unadorned with frippery or foliage. To the romantic mind, on the contrary,
the immediate beauty of these sensations seems dry and thin. I am of course not discussing which view is right, but only showing
that the discrimination between the primary feeling of beauty, as a pure incoming sensible quality, and the secondary emotions
which are grafted thereupon, is one that must be made."
One can readily block out the subsequent history of art (subsequent to James, not to
us!)with the aid of that passage. Modernism in literature and abstractionists in the visual arts expelled
the romantics, and constituted a return to what James saw as the essence of classic taste. In painting, especially, the "frippery
and foliage" that they stripped away included not just the picturesque mystery and gloom that, James says here, "make a work of
art romantic," but the very act of representing the world.
Likewise, modernism in its turn has been expelled for now by post- modernism, and in the visual arts representation, along
with "complex suggestiveness," have made their comeback. The classic/romantic pendulum continues to swing, and James has defined
fairly well in this brief passage the two halves of its arc.
Philosophy of History
One of the long-standing schisms in the philosophy of history concerns the role of individuals in producing social change.
One faction sees individuals ("heroes" as Thomas Carlyle called
them) as the motive power of history, and the broader society as the page on which they write their acts. The other sees society
as moving according to holistic principles or laws, and sees individuals as its more-or-less willing pawns. In 1880, James waded
into this controversy with "Great Men and Their Environment," an essay published in the Atlantic Monthly. He took Carlyle's side,
but without Carlyle's one-sided emphasis on the political/military sphere, upon heroes as the founders or over-throwers of states
and empires.
"Rembrandt must teach us to enjoy the struggle of light with darkness," James wrote. "Wagner to enjoy peculiar musical
effects; Dickens gives a twist to our sentimentality, Artemus Ward to our humor; Emerson kindles a new moral light within
us."
see also:
William James - British naval
commander (1720-1783)
References
Richard Kirkham, Theories of Truth, MIT Press: 1992. Chapter 3 contains a good discussion of James's views about ontology and
truth.
R.W.B. Lewis, The Jameses, Farrar, Straus, Giroux: 1991. Crucial biographical reference.
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