William James
Une idée est vraie si elle marche dans l’expérience, la conscience est un flux continu, et nous avons le droit de croire là où les preuves ne peuvent trancher.
Repères
Est vrai ce qui fait ses preuves dans la pratique : empirisme radical et « flux de conscience ».
Idées clés
- Flux de conscience
- Volonté de croire
- Théorie pragmatique de la vérité
Élèves: W. E. B. Du Bois
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Influence
Influences reçues de 7
Blaise Pascal
influencé par ✓
James discussed Pascal’s wager in ‘The Will to Believe’ (1896) and defended the right to believe where evidence cannot settle a live, forced and momentous option. W. James, “The Will to Believe” (1896); SEP “William James”; SEP “Pascal’s Wager”
Attestation: aussi dans Wikidata · Wikidata
Blaise Pascal › 1623–1662
Ralph Waldo Emerson
influencé par ✓
James, whose father was Emerson’s friend, spoke at the Emerson centenary in Concord (1903), praising his faith in the worth of each individual’s experience. W. James, “Address at the Emerson Centenary in Concord” (1903), in Memories and Studies (1911); SEP “William James”
Attestation: aussi dans Wikidata · Wikidata
Ralph Waldo Emerson › 1803–1882
John Stuart Mill
influencé par
James dedicated Pragmatism (1907) to the memory of Mill, from whom he had ‘first learned the pragmatic openness of mind’. W. James, Pragmatism (1907), dedication; SEP “William James”
Attestation: aussi dans InPhO · InPhO
John Stuart Mill › 1806–1873
Charles Darwin
influencé par
James’s Principles of Psychology (1890) treated mind as a function serving the organism’s adaptation, and ‘Great Men and Their Environment’ (1880) applied Darwin’s spontaneous variation to history. W. James, “Great Men and Their Environment” (1880); The Principles of Psychology (1890); SEP “William James”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Charles Darwin › 1809–1882
Charles Sanders Peirce
influencé par
In ‘Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results’ (1898) James credited Peirce’s ‘How to Make Our Ideas Clear’ (1878) with the principle of pragmatism and made it widely known. W. James, “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results” (1898); C. S. Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” (1878); SEP “Pragmatism”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Charles Sanders Peirce › 1839–1914
Harald Høffding
influencé par
James cited Høffding’s psychology in The Principles of Psychology (1890) and wrote the preface to the English translation of his The Problems of Philosophy (1905). W. James, The Principles of Psychology (1890); preface to H. Høffding, The Problems of Philosophy (1905)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Harald Høffding › 1843–1931
Henri Bergson
influencé par
In A Pluralistic Universe (1909) James devoted a lecture to Bergson and his critique of intellectualism, taking from him that concepts cut up the continuous flux of experience. W. James, A Pluralistic Universe (1909), “Bergson and His Critique of Intellectualism”; letter to Bergson, 13 June 1907; SEP “William James”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Henri Bergson › 1859–1941
A influencé 11
John Dewey
a influencé
Dewey credited James’s Principles of Psychology (1890), with its biological view of mind, with gradually turning him away from Hegel (‘From Absolutism to Experimentalism’, 1930). J. Dewey, “From Absolutism to Experimentalism” (1930); SEP “John Dewey”
Attestation: aussi dans InPhO · InPhO
John Dewey › 1859–1952
W. E. B. Du Bois a enseigné à
a enseigné à ✓
Du Bois studied at Harvard from 1888, took James’s courses and was a guest in his home; he later called James ‘my friend and guide to clear thinking’. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois (1968); Dusk of Dawn (1940)
Attestation: brouillon IA
W. E. B. Du Bois › 1868–1963
Kitarō Nishida
a influencé
Nishida’s An Inquiry into the Good (1911) took up William James’s ‘pure experience’ and made it the sole reality, prior to the distinction of subject and object. Nishida Kitarō, Zen no kenkyū (1911), tr. M. Abe & C. Ives, An Inquiry into the Good (1990); W. James, “A World of Pure Experience” (1904); SEP “Nishida Kitarō”
Attestation: aussi dans InPhO · InPhO
Kitarō Nishida › 1870–1945
Ludwig Wittgenstein
a influencé
Wittgenstein found James’s Varieties of Religious Experience helpful (letter to Russell, 1912) and used his Principles of Psychology as a foil in the Philosophical Investigations (publ. 1953). L. Wittgenstein, letter to B. Russell (June 1912); Philosophische Untersuchungen (publ. 1953); R. B. Goodman, Wittgenstein and William James (2002); SEP “William James”
Attestation: aussi dans InPhO · InPhO
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Hilary Putnam
a influencé ✓
Putnam took up James’s natural realism about perception and his pragmatism, which joins fallibilism with antiscepticism (‘James’s Theory of Perception’, 1990; Pragmatism: An Open Question, 1995). H. Putnam, “James’s Theory of Perception”, in Realism with a Human Face (1990); Pragmatism: An Open Question (1995); SEP “William James”
Hilary Putnam › 1926–2016
Richard Rorty
a influencé
In Consequences of Pragmatism (1982) Rorty made James’s ‘what is good in the way of belief’ the core of a pragmatism without a theory of truth. R. Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism (1982), Introduction; W. James, Pragmatism (1907); SEP “Richard Rorty”
Attestation: aussi dans InPhO · InPhO
Richard Rorty › 1931–2007
Tout afficher (11)Afficher moins
Alfred North Whitehead
a influencé
In Science and the Modern World (1925) Whitehead compared James’s essay ‘Does Consciousness Exist?’ (1904) with Descartes’s Discourse as marking the start of a new philosophical period. A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (1925); W. James, “Does Consciousness Exist?” (1904)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Alfred North Whitehead › 1861–1947
George Herbert Mead
a influencé
Mead met William James at Harvard in 1887–88 and tutored his son, but did not study with him; his distinction between the “I” and the “me” takes up James’s analysis of the self in The Principles of Psychology (1890). SEP “George Herbert Mead”; W. James, The Principles of Psychology (1890), ch. 10; G. H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (1934)
Attestation: brouillon IA
George Herbert Mead › 1863–1931
Alfred Schütz
a influencé
Schutz reworked James’s sub-universes of reality into ‘finite provinces of meaning’, with the everyday world of working as paramount reality (‘On Multiple Realities’, 1945). A. Schutz, “On Multiple Realities”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 5 (1945); W. James, The Principles of Psychology (1890); SEP “Alfred Schutz”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Alfred Schütz › 1899–1959
Erving Goffman
a influencé
Goffman opened Frame Analysis (1974) with James’s question under what circumstances we think things real and his account of the many ‘sub-universes’ of reality. E. Goffman, Frame Analysis (1974); W. James, The Principles of Psychology (1890), “The Perception of Reality”; SEP “William James”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Erving Goffman › 1922–1982
Bruno Latour
a influencé
Latour took from James’s radical empiricism the claim that relations are given in experience, a premise of his Enquête sur les modes d’existence (2012). B. Latour, Enquête sur les modes d’existence (2012); W. James, Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Bruno Latour › 1947–2022
Critique
Critiques reçues de 2
Bertrand Russell
critiqué par
Russell objected that James’s pragmatist theory confuses a criterion of truth with its meaning: ‘true’ cannot mean ‘useful to believe’ (‘William James’s Conception of Truth’, 1908). B. Russell, “William James’s Conception of Truth” (1908), in Philosophical Essays (1910); W. James, Pragmatism (1907), Lecture VI
Attestation: brouillon IA
Bertrand Russell › 1872–1970
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
critiqué par
In the same book Radhakrishnan criticised pragmatism and James’s “pluralistic universe” as products of religious prejudice interfering with philosophy, whose honest course ends in absolute idealism. S. Radhakrishnan, The Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy (1920), preface and chs. VIII–IX
Attestation: brouillon IA
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan › 1888–1975
Critiques adressées à 2
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
a critiqué
James rejected Hegel’s monistic absolute, which leaves no room for real plurality and novelty, though he valued Hegel’s vision of dialectical movement (A Pluralistic Universe, 1909). W. James, “On Some Hegelisms” (1882), in The Will to Believe (1897); A Pluralistic Universe (1909), Lecture III; SEP “William James”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Vivekananda
a critiqué
In Pragmatism (1907) James quoted Vivekananda, “the paragon of Vedantist missionaries”, as the voice of absolute monism – emotionally reassuring, but rejected for his pluralism; the Varieties (1902) cite his Raja Yoga on mystical states. W. James, Pragmatism (1907), Lecture IV “The One and the Many”; The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), Lectures XVI–XVII
Attestation: brouillon IA
Vivekananda › 1863–1902
Œuvres
Le flux de conscience.
La religion comprise à ses fruits.
- 1907Le Pragmatisme
Un nom nouveau pour d’anciennes manières de penser : la vérité comme ce qui fait ses preuves dans la pratique.
Position
James abordait la philosophie en psychologue et en humaniste. Il décrivait la conscience non comme une chaîne d’idées séparées, mais comme un « flux » continu. Son pragmatisme soutient que la vérité d’une idée se montre dans sa « valeur en espèces » – dans la différence qu’elle fait dans l’expérience ; les idées vraies sont celles que nous pouvons assimiler, valider et vérifier. Dans « La Volonté de croire », il défendit le droit de croire là où les preuves ne peuvent trancher mais où un choix est inévitable. L’Expérience religieuse jugeait la religion à ses fruits dans la vie humaine. Son empirisme radical et son pluralisme rejetaient les systèmes clos au profit d’un univers ouvert et inachevé.
Vie et contexte
William James, frère aîné du romancier Henry James, grandit entre New York et l’Europe et étudia la médecine à Harvard. Après une profonde crise personnelle, il enseigna la physiologie, la psychologie et la philosophie à Harvard. Son manuel de psychologie fit de lui l’un des fondateurs de la discipline en Amérique, et ses conférences rendirent le pragmatisme célèbre dans le monde entier.
Autres œuvres principales
- The Principles of Psychology (traduction propre : « Principes de psychologie », 1890)
- La Volonté de croire (1897)
- Essais d’empirisme radical (1912)
Apparaît dans
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