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The Heart of William James
On the one hundredth anniversary of the death of William James, Robert Richardson, author of the magisterial "William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism," assembles a wide-ranging selection of essays and writings that reveal the evolution of James s thought over time, especially as it was continually being shaped by the converging influences of psychology, philosophy, and religion throughout his life.
Proceeding chronologically, the volume begins with What Is an Emotion, James s early, notable, and still controversial argument that many of our emotions follow from (rather than cause) physical or physiological reactions. The book concludes with The Moral Equivalent of War, one of the greatest anti-war pieces ever written, perhaps even more relevant now than when it was first published. In between, in essays on The Dilemma of Determinism, The Hidden Self, Habit, and The Will; in chapters from The Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience; and in such pieces as On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings, What Makes a Life Significant, and Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results, we witness the evolution of James s philosophical thinking, his pragmatism, and his radical empiricism. Throughout, Richardson s deeply informed introductions place James s work in its proper biographical, historical, and philosophical context.
In essay after essay, James calls us to live a fuller, richer, better life, to seek out and use our best energies and sympathies. As every day is the day of creation and judgment, so every age was once the new age and as this book makes abundantly clear, William James s writings are still the gateway to many a new world.
Proceeding chronologically, the volume begins with What Is an Emotion, James s early, notable, and still controversial argument that many of our emotions follow from (rather than cause) physical or physiological reactions. The book concludes with The Moral Equivalent of War, one of the greatest anti-war pieces ever written, perhaps even more relevant now than when it was first published. In between, in essays on The Dilemma of Determinism, The Hidden Self, Habit, and The Will; in chapters from The Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience; and in such pieces as On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings, What Makes a Life Significant, and Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results, we witness the evolution of James s philosophical thinking, his pragmatism, and his radical empiricism. Throughout, Richardson s deeply informed introductions place James s work in its proper biographical, historical, and philosophical context.
In essay after essay, James calls us to live a fuller, richer, better life, to seek out and use our best energies and sympathies. As every day is the day of creation and judgment, so every age was once the new age and as this book makes abundantly clear, William James s writings are still the gateway to many a new world.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published August 31, 2010
About the author
William James
360 books1,246 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be one of the greatest figures associated with the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of the functional psychology. He also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty.
Born into a wealthy family, James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr and the brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential books are Principles of Psychology, which was a groundbreaking text in the field of psychology, Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in philosophy, and The Varieties of Religious Experience, which investigated different forms of religious experience.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James received an eclectic trans-Atlantic education, developing fluency in both German and French. Education in the James household encouraged cosmopolitanism. The family made two trips to Europe while William James was still a child, setting a pattern that resulted in thirteen more European journeys during his life. His early artistic bent led to an apprenticeship in the studio of William Morris Hunt in Newport, Rhode Island, but he switched in 1861 to scientific studies at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf. He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end. Two younger brothers, Garth Wilkinson (Wilky) and Robertson (Bob), fought in the Civil War. The other three siblings (William, Henry, and Alice James) all suffered from periods of invalidism.
He took up medical studies at Harvard Medical School in 1864. He took a break in the spring of 1865 to join naturalist Louis Agassiz on a scientific expedition up the Amazon River, but aborted his trip after eight months, as he suffered bouts of severe seasickness and mild smallpox. His studies were interrupted once again due to illness in April 1867. He traveled to Germany in search of a cure and remained there until November 1868; at that time he was 26 years old. During this period, he
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be one of the greatest figures associated with the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of the functional psychology. He also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty.
Born into a wealthy family, James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr and the brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential books are Principles of Psychology, which was a groundbreaking text in the field of psychology, Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in philosophy, and The Varieties of Religious Experience, which investigated different forms of religious experience.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James received an eclectic trans-Atlantic education, developing fluency in both German and French. Education in the James household encouraged cosmopolitanism. The family made two trips to Europe while William James was still a child, setting a pattern that resulted in thirteen more European journeys during his life. His early artistic bent led to an apprenticeship in the studio of William Morris Hunt in Newport, Rhode Island, but he switched in 1861 to scientific studies at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf. He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end. Two younger brothers, Garth Wilkinson (Wilky) and Robertson (Bob), fought in the Civil War. The other three siblings (William, Henry, and Alice James) all suffered from periods of invalidism.
He took up medical studies at Harvard Medical School in 1864. He took a break in the spring of 1865 to join naturalist Louis Agassiz on a scientific expedition up the Amazon River, but aborted his trip after eight months, as he suffered bouts of severe seasickness and mild smallpox. His studies were interrupted once again due to illness in April 1867. He traveled to Germany in search of a cure and remained there until November 1868; at that time he was 26 years old. During this period, he
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July 7, 2024
A Visit With William James
In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the death of William James (1842 -- 1910), Robert Richardson prepared and edited "The Heart of William James", this collection of seventeen essays by the great American philosopher. Richardson is an independent scholar who wrote a celebrated biography of James in 2006 "William James:in the Maelstrom of American Modernism", together with earlier biographies of Emerson and Thoreau. In this anthology, Richardson offers a brief introductory essay to James and his thought. Richardson also offers short perceptive comments introducing each individual essay, a chronology of James' life, and a basic bibliography. Readers new to James might well read "The Heart of William James" together with Richardson's biography.
The novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson has written a recent review of Richardson's anthology and of James' thought in "The Nation." I was interested in tracing James' influence on Robinson. She has written a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, "Gilead" which focuses on religion and its role in American life. Robinson has also written about the relationship between religion and science in a collection of lectures, in "Absence of Mind". James' influence is strong in both the novel and the essays. Robinson's review of "The Heart of William James" is titled "Risk the Game". Robinson focuses upon the religious character of James' thought. Other focuses on this complex, many-sided thinker are also possible. The phrase "Risk the Game" in Robinson's title derives from James' essay, "The Dilemma of Determinism" included in Richardson's collection in which James offers a careful discussion of the differences between philosophies of free will and determinism. Instead of contrasting determinism with freedom, James juxtaposes it more modestly with the concept of chance. Near the end of the essay, James explains his preference for the latter term. "Whoever uses ['chance'] instead of 'freedom' squarely and resolutely gives up all pretence to control the things he says are free. For him, he confesses that they are no better than mere chance would be. It is a word of impotence, and is therefore the only sincere word we can use, if, in granting freedom to certain things, we grant it honestly, and really risk the game. 'Who chooses me must give and forfeit all he hath.'" (p. 43) This early essay with its emphasis of change, uncertainty, risk, and individual action captures much of James.
The seventeen essays in "The Heart of William James" are a mix of the familiar and unfamiliar. They are arranged in chronological order beginning with the essay "What is an Emotion" (1884) and concluding with the famous essay "The Moral Equivalent of War." (1910). Most of the essays were published as free-standing works or lectures. Richardson also includes selections from James' books, including "The Perception of Reality" taken from "Principles of Psychology", "Habit" from James' abridgement of the "Principles", "The Will" from "Talks to Teachers", "The Sick Soul" from "The Varieties of Religious Experience" and "Concerning Fechner" from "A Pluralistic Universe". There are no selections from "Pragmatism". Richardson offers instead James' 1899 lecture at Berkeley, "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results" in which James used and explained the term "pragmatism" for the first time.
James' thought resists easy summarization, and it is well to be cautious with the single word "pragmatism". Other short descriptive phrases such as "radical empiricism" and "pluralism" are at least equally apt. Readers can study each of these 17 essays in sequence and consider the extent to which they offer a single cohesive philosophy or a philosophical vision which changes with time. Taken individually or as a series, each of these essay offers insights and provocative thinking. Philosophy, for James, is a transformative discipline which effects the manner in which one understands and lives one's life.
The earlier essays, such as "What is an Emotion", "The Perception of Reality" or "The Hidden Self" are among the densest in the collection as James struggles with psychological and philosophical issues in a technical, academic manner. These early essays tend to focus on James the scientist. The penultimate essay in the book, "Concerning Fechner" shows James in a highly speculative mood which may surprise new readers who tend to see James as something of a hard-headed empiricist.
In most of the essays, James tends to write more for an audience of non-specialists than for psychologists or academic philosophers. In his passion, clarity, and immediacy, James writes masterfully. The style of the essays is intertwined with their thought in their individuality and force. James rejects the philosophical idealism of his day together with scientific materialism as presenting one-sided, abstract, monistic views of life. James uses anecdotes and examples from daily life together with quotation and discussion from writers such as Tolstoy, Robert Stevenson, Emerson, and Walt Whitman to capture a sense of individuality and pluralism and to draw the reader in to life in its complexity and messiness.
Readers new to James may enjoy most three related essays in the middle of the collection, "The Gospel of Relaxation", "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings", and "What Makes a Life Significant". In the first of these essays, James describes and critiques the tendency of Americans to stress, overwork, and tense, unfulfilling effort. In "On a Certain Blindness", a favorite of James himself, James explores questions of toleration and openness to others and to ideas different from one's own in a democratic society. Richardson points out that this essay "deserves a place among the defining documents of American democracy". (p.145) In "What Makes a Life Significant" James continues his exploration of the value of differences in ideals and in ways of living. He combines this question with the more basic and difficult question of what living a valuable and rewarding life involves. Too many writers and philosophers since James have tended to back away from this question. James answer combines wisdom with eloquence of expression as he maintains that a life worth living is one that combines ideals of the individual with "pluck and will" and action. While conditions change with time and progress, the contours of a good life, for James, remain largely constant. He summarizes: "The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing -- the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man's or woman's pains. -- And whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage to take place." (p.181)
James's works will reward close reading and rereading and reflection. Richardson's anthology delivers the promise of its title by presenting "the heart" of William James. Interested readers might proceed to longer, additional works such as "The Varieties of Religious Experience", "Pragmatism" and "A Pluralistic Universe." This collection will benefit both readers new to James and readers who wish to revisit him.
Robin Friedman
In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the death of William James (1842 -- 1910), Robert Richardson prepared and edited "The Heart of William James", this collection of seventeen essays by the great American philosopher. Richardson is an independent scholar who wrote a celebrated biography of James in 2006 "William James:in the Maelstrom of American Modernism", together with earlier biographies of Emerson and Thoreau. In this anthology, Richardson offers a brief introductory essay to James and his thought. Richardson also offers short perceptive comments introducing each individual essay, a chronology of James' life, and a basic bibliography. Readers new to James might well read "The Heart of William James" together with Richardson's biography.
The novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson has written a recent review of Richardson's anthology and of James' thought in "The Nation." I was interested in tracing James' influence on Robinson. She has written a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, "Gilead" which focuses on religion and its role in American life. Robinson has also written about the relationship between religion and science in a collection of lectures, in "Absence of Mind". James' influence is strong in both the novel and the essays. Robinson's review of "The Heart of William James" is titled "Risk the Game". Robinson focuses upon the religious character of James' thought. Other focuses on this complex, many-sided thinker are also possible. The phrase "Risk the Game" in Robinson's title derives from James' essay, "The Dilemma of Determinism" included in Richardson's collection in which James offers a careful discussion of the differences between philosophies of free will and determinism. Instead of contrasting determinism with freedom, James juxtaposes it more modestly with the concept of chance. Near the end of the essay, James explains his preference for the latter term. "Whoever uses ['chance'] instead of 'freedom' squarely and resolutely gives up all pretence to control the things he says are free. For him, he confesses that they are no better than mere chance would be. It is a word of impotence, and is therefore the only sincere word we can use, if, in granting freedom to certain things, we grant it honestly, and really risk the game. 'Who chooses me must give and forfeit all he hath.'" (p. 43) This early essay with its emphasis of change, uncertainty, risk, and individual action captures much of James.
The seventeen essays in "The Heart of William James" are a mix of the familiar and unfamiliar. They are arranged in chronological order beginning with the essay "What is an Emotion" (1884) and concluding with the famous essay "The Moral Equivalent of War." (1910). Most of the essays were published as free-standing works or lectures. Richardson also includes selections from James' books, including "The Perception of Reality" taken from "Principles of Psychology", "Habit" from James' abridgement of the "Principles", "The Will" from "Talks to Teachers", "The Sick Soul" from "The Varieties of Religious Experience" and "Concerning Fechner" from "A Pluralistic Universe". There are no selections from "Pragmatism". Richardson offers instead James' 1899 lecture at Berkeley, "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results" in which James used and explained the term "pragmatism" for the first time.
James' thought resists easy summarization, and it is well to be cautious with the single word "pragmatism". Other short descriptive phrases such as "radical empiricism" and "pluralism" are at least equally apt. Readers can study each of these 17 essays in sequence and consider the extent to which they offer a single cohesive philosophy or a philosophical vision which changes with time. Taken individually or as a series, each of these essay offers insights and provocative thinking. Philosophy, for James, is a transformative discipline which effects the manner in which one understands and lives one's life.
The earlier essays, such as "What is an Emotion", "The Perception of Reality" or "The Hidden Self" are among the densest in the collection as James struggles with psychological and philosophical issues in a technical, academic manner. These early essays tend to focus on James the scientist. The penultimate essay in the book, "Concerning Fechner" shows James in a highly speculative mood which may surprise new readers who tend to see James as something of a hard-headed empiricist.
In most of the essays, James tends to write more for an audience of non-specialists than for psychologists or academic philosophers. In his passion, clarity, and immediacy, James writes masterfully. The style of the essays is intertwined with their thought in their individuality and force. James rejects the philosophical idealism of his day together with scientific materialism as presenting one-sided, abstract, monistic views of life. James uses anecdotes and examples from daily life together with quotation and discussion from writers such as Tolstoy, Robert Stevenson, Emerson, and Walt Whitman to capture a sense of individuality and pluralism and to draw the reader in to life in its complexity and messiness.
Readers new to James may enjoy most three related essays in the middle of the collection, "The Gospel of Relaxation", "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings", and "What Makes a Life Significant". In the first of these essays, James describes and critiques the tendency of Americans to stress, overwork, and tense, unfulfilling effort. In "On a Certain Blindness", a favorite of James himself, James explores questions of toleration and openness to others and to ideas different from one's own in a democratic society. Richardson points out that this essay "deserves a place among the defining documents of American democracy". (p.145) In "What Makes a Life Significant" James continues his exploration of the value of differences in ideals and in ways of living. He combines this question with the more basic and difficult question of what living a valuable and rewarding life involves. Too many writers and philosophers since James have tended to back away from this question. James answer combines wisdom with eloquence of expression as he maintains that a life worth living is one that combines ideals of the individual with "pluck and will" and action. While conditions change with time and progress, the contours of a good life, for James, remain largely constant. He summarizes: "The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing -- the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man's or woman's pains. -- And whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage to take place." (p.181)
James's works will reward close reading and rereading and reflection. Richardson's anthology delivers the promise of its title by presenting "the heart" of William James. Interested readers might proceed to longer, additional works such as "The Varieties of Religious Experience", "Pragmatism" and "A Pluralistic Universe." This collection will benefit both readers new to James and readers who wish to revisit him.
Robin Friedman
April 25, 2014
William James stands for a bygone era of philosophy that, in some ways, never really materialized at all. A missed opportunity in which philosophy, not yet forced down the narrow tracks of academic specialization, had to be expansive, creative and passionate. Pragmatism, for James, never meant a dullard's acceptance of what appears to be the case. The Heart of William James gathers together a collection of James' keen and compassionate ruminations on a number of different issues. The heart of William James, as a philosopher in action, an educator, and a conversationalist is well presented.
It is a directed reading of James' thought. Robert Richardson provides a general overview of James' life and work, and presents each essay with a brief introduction intended to situate his thought vis-a-vis contemporary discourse. Thus we are given the prescient James whose work on the physiology and neurology of habit and emotion foreshadows current developments within neurobiology. The pedagogical James who brings love and the freedom of the will into the realm of education. We are given insight into the James' who was in many ways the father of the self-help movement, but who remained always aware of the dark and subtle aspects of the self.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, there is the James who appreciates the existence of other views and the need for critical distance. "Neither the whole of truth, nor the whole of good, is revealed to any single observer, although each observer gains a partial superiority of insight from the position in which he stands."163 Yet the novelty and freshness, not only in blunt experience but in the "marriage of some unhabitual ideal...with some fidelity,courage, and endurance; with some man's or woman's pains" is granted to all. Every life is and can be made significant.
Perhaps James errs on the side of experience. Do we need a stricter guidance? On the other hand, entering into an active philosophical education, one which demands a generosity of spirit, is surely a good beginning.
It is a directed reading of James' thought. Robert Richardson provides a general overview of James' life and work, and presents each essay with a brief introduction intended to situate his thought vis-a-vis contemporary discourse. Thus we are given the prescient James whose work on the physiology and neurology of habit and emotion foreshadows current developments within neurobiology. The pedagogical James who brings love and the freedom of the will into the realm of education. We are given insight into the James' who was in many ways the father of the self-help movement, but who remained always aware of the dark and subtle aspects of the self.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, there is the James who appreciates the existence of other views and the need for critical distance. "Neither the whole of truth, nor the whole of good, is revealed to any single observer, although each observer gains a partial superiority of insight from the position in which he stands."163 Yet the novelty and freshness, not only in blunt experience but in the "marriage of some unhabitual ideal...with some fidelity,courage, and endurance; with some man's or woman's pains" is granted to all. Every life is and can be made significant.
Perhaps James errs on the side of experience. Do we need a stricter guidance? On the other hand, entering into an active philosophical education, one which demands a generosity of spirit, is surely a good beginning.
July 3, 2011
William James had a lot of good ideas and wrote in a way that you could understand them. James was way ahead of his time, and ours also, in many ways. Whatever happened to pragmatism?
July 31, 2011
William James is one of my favorite people of all time, and yet he is not well known. I want more people to know about this man. What a brain! His ideas are inspiring and so thought-provoking.
August 24, 2015
I skipped over some essays where I didn't relate to the context, but the essays on judgment, especially spiritual judgment, were great.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews