William James
An idea is true if it works in experience, consciousness is a flowing stream, and we have a right to believe where evidence cannot decide.
Placement
True is what proves itself in practice: radical empiricism and the “stream of consciousness.”
Key ideas
- Stream of consciousness
- Will to believe
- Pragmatic theory of truth
Students: W. E. B. Du Bois
Influence
Influenced by 7
Blaise Pascal
influenced by ✓
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”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Blaise Pascal › 1623–1662
Ralph Waldo Emerson
influenced by ✓
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”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Ralph Waldo Emerson › 1803–1882
John Stuart Mill
influenced by
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”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
John Stuart Mill › 1806–1873
Charles Darwin
influenced by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Charles Darwin › 1809–1882
Charles Sanders Peirce
influenced by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Charles Sanders Peirce › 1839–1914
Harald Høffding
influenced by
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)
Evidence: AI draft
Harald Høffding › 1843–1931
Henri Bergson
influenced by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Henri Bergson › 1859–1941
Influenced 11
John Dewey
influenced
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”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
John Dewey › 1859–1952
W. E. B. Du Bois taught
taught ✓
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)
Evidence: AI draft
W. E. B. Du Bois › 1868–1963
Nishida Kitarō
influenced
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”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Nishida Kitarō › 1870–1945
Ludwig Wittgenstein
influenced
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”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Hilary Putnam
influenced ✓
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
influenced
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”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Richard Rorty › 1931–2007
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Alfred North Whitehead
influenced
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)
Evidence: AI draft
Alfred North Whitehead › 1861–1947
George Herbert Mead
influenced
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)
Evidence: AI draft
George Herbert Mead › 1863–1931
Alfred Schutz
influenced
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Alfred Schutz › 1899–1959
Erving Goffman
influenced
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Erving Goffman › 1922–1982
Bruno Latour
influenced
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)
Evidence: AI draft
Bruno Latour › 1947–2022
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Bertrand Russell
criticised by
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
Evidence: AI draft
Bertrand Russell › 1872–1970
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
criticised by
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
Evidence: AI draft
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan › 1888–1975
Criticizes 2
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
criticised
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Swami Vivekananda
criticised
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
Evidence: AI draft
Swami Vivekananda › 1863–1902
Works
The stream of consciousness.
Religion understood by its fruits.
- 1907Pragmatism
A new name for some old ways of thinking: truth as what proves itself in practice.
Position
James approached philosophy as a psychologist and a humanist. He described consciousness not as a chain of separate ideas but as a continuous “stream”. His pragmatism holds that the truth of an idea shows itself in its “cash value” – in the difference it makes in experience; true ideas are those we can assimilate, validate and verify. In “The Will to Believe” he defended the right to believe where evidence cannot decide but a choice is unavoidable. The Varieties of Religious Experience judged religion by its fruits in human life. His radical empiricism and pluralism rejected closed systems in favour of an open, unfinished universe.
Life & context
William James, older brother of the novelist Henry James, grew up between New York and Europe and studied medicine at Harvard. After a deep personal crisis he taught physiology, psychology and philosophy at Harvard. His textbook on psychology made him a founder of the discipline in America, and his lectures made pragmatism famous worldwide.
Further main works
- The Will to Believe (1897)
- Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912)
Appears in
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