A Moralist in an Age of Scientific Analysis and Skepticism: Habit in the Life and Work of William James

In this chapter I will review how James got from his earlier position, which so readily fit the scientific and skeptical tenor of his age, to his later position, and I will indicate how the views he began to articulate by the mid-1870s became central to the doctrines he presented in his magisterial Principles of Psychology (1890) and in his subsequent work in psychology and philosophy. Along the way I will make it clear that even before 1872, when he was attending lectures and doing physiological research in Harvard\u27s Medical School, James was a deeply engaged advocate of philosophy, which he was determined to advance through a thorough yet critical understanding of the biological foundations of human thought, feeling, and action. He viewed this scientifically oriented yet analytical approach to philosophy as a means of clarifying not just what is the case in human life, but also what should be life\u27s outcome. Morality, in short, was always interpolated in his thinking, teaching, researching, and writing. Although he took a biological view of cognition, and embedded it within a Darwinian selectionist framework (which he extended all the way up from the level of sensation through perception to cognition and beyond), his naturalist approach was not meant to eliminate consideration of struggling with temptation or the identification of the sources and targets of true moral energy, as he put it in Are We Automata? 5 Quite the contrary

Visions and Values: Ethical Reflections in a Jamesian Key

The purpose of this article is to provide a quick survey of William James\u27s views on the plurality of visions that humans have regarding reality, as a background for more extensive discussions of his views on the plurality of values that orient human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, as well as his views on the enactment of those values through active resistance to the ways things are and the risk-taking involved in striving to improve the human condition. Consonant with pluralism itself, I intend this discussion to open up rather than close off further considerations of James\u27s views on ethics

Immanuel Kant and the Development of Modern Psychology

Few thinkers in the history of Western civilization have had as broad and lasting an impact as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). This Sage of Konigsberg spent his entire life within the confines of East Prussia, but his thoughts traveled freely across Europe and, in time, to America, where their effects are still apparent. An untold number of analyses and commentaries have established Kant as a preeminent epistemologist, philosopher of science, moral philosopher, aesthetician, and metaphysician. He is even recognized as a natural historian and cosmologist: the author of the so-called Kant-Laplace hypothesis regarding the origin of the universe. He is less often credited as a psychologist, anthropologist, or philosopher of mind, to use terms whose currency postdated his time.1 Nonetheless, the thesis of this essay is that Immanuel Kant laid the foundation for later developments in the broad field of inquiry that had already been labeled psychology

William James on the Self and Personality: Clearing the Ground for Subsequent Theorists, Researchers, and Practitioners

The fundamental basis of William James\u27s psychology - the rock-bottom foundation on which it is constructed - is the stream of thought or the stream of consciousness. 1* The first and preeminent characteristic of our flowingly continuous experience of thought or consciousness, James (1890/1983d) said, is that it is personal (pp. 220-224). Every thought, every psychological experience, is mine, or hers, or his, or yours. For this reason, he suggested, the personal self rather than the thought [or consciousness] might be treated as the immediate datum in psychology (p. 221).2 Indeed, James was strongly convinced that no psychology ... can question the existence of personal selves. The worst a psychology can do is so to interpret the nature of these selves as to rob them of their worth (p. 221)

Authentic Tidings : What Wordsworth Gave to William James

It is widely recognized that William James had a profound and pervasive impact upon literary writers, works, styles, and genres, not to mention upon the encompassing frameworks of modernism and post-modernism, throughout the 20th century. Much less recognized is the impact of literature upon James’s life and work, whether in psychology or philosophy. This article looks at the influence of one particular author, William Wordsworth, primarily through his long 1814 poem The Excursion, from which James drew “authentic tidings” that helped him weather some early storms and create his distinctive way of thinking about the human mind and its place in nature

The Psychological Roots of William James\u27s Thought

... [H]ow exactly did James’s personal characteristics, experiences, and concerns impact upon his philosophy? To answer that question we will need to look further back, well before he started publishing the works for which he is best known within philosophy: before, that is, Prag-matism (1907), A Pluralistic Universe (1909), The Meaning of Truth (1909), and the posthumously collected Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912). Before and behind these works was the work that Santayana (among many others) called James’s greatest achievement (Santayana 1920/2009: 585); namely, his monumental Principles of Psychology (1890).2 So the questions we need to ask are: (1) What were the personal characteristics, experiences, and concerns – the personal psy-chology – that shaped James’s thought? (2) How was this personal psychology manifested in his professional psychology? and (3) How was his philosophy rooted in his psychology, both personal and professional? We will find that these questions are stated too simply, since the formation of James’s philosophical views was under way from the very beginning. But with appropriate qualifications along the way, this division of labor and progression – from the personal context of James’s life to the development of his psychology and thence to the articulation of his philosophy – will provide an effective means of elucidating the personal nature of James’s thought

Metaphors in the History of Psychology

Metaphors in the History of Psychology describes and analyzes the ways in which psychological accounts of brain functioning, consciousness, cognition, emotion, motivation, learning, and behavior have been shaped--and are still being shaped--by the central metaphors used by contemporary psychologists and their predecessors. The contributors to this volume argue that psychologists and their predecessors have invariably turned to metaphor in order to articulate their descriptions, theories, and practical interventions with regard to psychological functioning. By specifying the major metaphors in the history of psychology, these contributors have offered a new key to understanding this critically important area of human knowledge. This theme has become an issue of central concern in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics and literary studies to cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy. Through the identification of these metaphors, the contributors to this volume have provided a remarkably useful guide to the history, current orientations, and future prospects of modern psychology.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1169/thumbnail.jp

The Missing Person in the Conversation: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and the Dialogical Self

Wiley (2006) has argued for a relationship between pragmatism and the dialogical self, noting that both are rooted in the thought of William James and Charles S. Peirce. This commentary delves into the possible connection between James’s and Peirce’s ideas as well as the probable influence of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., on the development of dialogical conceptions of the self

The Fate and Influence of John Stuart Mill\u27s Proposed Science of Ethology

The years between 1840 and 1940 constituted an important period in the history of the human sciences. During this period, under the impulse of cataclysmic social events and the inspiration of rapid development in the physical and biological sciences, the previously existing moral sciences underwent radical development, and other new human sciences were proposed and formulated for the first time. In the early part of this crucial period in the history of the modern human sciences, few works were as important as John Stuart Mill\u27s System of Logic (1843), which culminated in the well-known Book VI, entitled On the Logic of the Moral Sciences. 1 This work attempted to bring rigorous thinking to the human sciences, especially as regards methods and standards of proof. It was both an indication of, and an influence upon, the developing self-consciousness with which nineteenth-century investigators sought to bring human affairs within the purview of strictly scientific procedures. Going through numerous editions-eight in Mill\u27s own lifetime-the work was a best seller for the rest of the nineteenth century

The Routledge Guidebook to James\u27s Principles of Psychology

The Routledge Guidebook to James’s Principles of Psychology is an engaging and accessible introduction to a monumental text that has influenced the development of both psychological science and philosophical pragmatism in important and lasting ways. Written for readers approaching William James’s classic work for the first time as well as for those without knowledge of its entire scope, this guidebook not only places this work within its historical context, it provides clear explications of its intertwined aspects and arguments, and examines its relevance within today’s psychology and philosophy. Offering a close reading of this text, The Routledge Guidebook to James’s Principles of Psychology is divided into three main parts: • Background • Principles • Elaborations. It also includes two useful appendices that outline the sources of James’s various chapters and indicate the parallel coverages of two later texts written by James, an abbreviated version of his Principles and a psychological primer for teachers. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand this influential work.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1289/thumbnail.jp