William James
Idea jest prawdziwa, jeśli działa w doświadczeniu, świadomość jest płynącym strumieniem, a mamy prawo wierzyć tam, gdzie dowody nie mogą rozstrzygnąć.
Umiejscowienie
Prawdziwe jest to, co sprawdza się w praktyce: radykalny empiryzm i „strumień świadomości”.
Kluczowe idee
- Strumień świadomości
- Wola wiary
- Pragmatyczna teoria prawdy
Uczniowie: W.E.B. Du Bois
Wpływ
Pod wpływem 7
Blaise Pascal
pod wpływem ✓
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”
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Blaise Pascal › 1623–1662
Ralph Waldo Emerson
pod wpływem ✓
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”
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Ralph Waldo Emerson › 1803–1882
John Stuart Mill
pod wpływem
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”
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John Stuart Mill › 1806–1873
Karol Darwin
pod wpływem
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”
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Karol Darwin › 1809–1882
Charles Sanders Peirce
pod wpływem
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”
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Charles Sanders Peirce › 1839–1914
Harald Høffding
pod wpływem
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)
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Harald Høffding › 1843–1931
Henri Bergson
pod wpływem
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”
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Henri Bergson › 1859–1941
Wpływ na 11
John Dewey
wpływ na
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”
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John Dewey › 1859–1952
W.E.B. Du Bois uczeń/uczennica
uczeń/uczennica ✓
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)
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W.E.B. Du Bois › 1868–1963
Kitarō Nishida
wpływ na
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”
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Kitarō Nishida › 1870–1945
Ludwig Wittgenstein
wpływ na
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”
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Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Hilary Putnam
wpływ na ✓
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
wpływ na
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”
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Richard Rorty › 1931–2007
Pokaż wszystko (11)Pokaż mniej
Alfred North Whitehead
wpływ na
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)
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Alfred North Whitehead › 1861–1947
George Herbert Mead
wpływ na
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)
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George Herbert Mead › 1863–1931
Alfred Schütz
wpływ na
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”
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Alfred Schütz › 1899–1959
Erving Goffman
wpływ na
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”
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Erving Goffman › 1922–1982
Bruno Latour
wpływ na
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)
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Bruno Latour › 1947–2022
Krytyka
Krytyka ze strony 2
Bertrand Russell
krytyka ze strony
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
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Bertrand Russell › 1872–1970
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
krytyka ze strony
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
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Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan › 1888–1975
Krytykuje 2
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
krytykuje
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”
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Swami Wiwekananda
krytykuje
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
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Swami Wiwekananda › 1863–1902
Dzieła
Strumień świadomości.
Religia pojmowana przez jej owoce.
- 1907Pragmatyzm
Nowa nazwa dla kilku starych sposobów myślenia: prawda jako to, co sprawdza się w praktyce.
Stanowisko
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.
Życie i kontekst
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.
Dalsze główne dzieła
- The Will to Believe (1897)
- Pragmatism (1907)
- Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912)
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