William James and the Role of Psychology in Philosophy (original) (raw)
Related papers
Rediscovering James' Principles of Psychology
New Ideas in Psychology, 2017
This paper is an introduction to a special issue celebrating the 125 th anniversary of William James' Principles of Psychology. The special issue demonstrates the continued relevance and insight offered by James. It reviews the articles in this issue and delineates three main themes: (1) he recognition of the inherent relationality of psychological phenomena, (2) a science of psychology ought to include biology and sociocultural phenomena (e.g. language); and (3) human consciousness is addressed as the flow of experience from the perspective one living it. It discusses each theme and briefly touches on how they continue to be developed in James' later work, which also provides innovative new directions for psychologists. Undergirding each of these contributions is James' admonition that psychological research is especially difficulty due to the complexity of psychological phenomena. As such, this paper also discusses challenges to doing psychological research that James raises and his ideas that can inform future endeavors.
William James: On the border between sciences and religion
Romanian Medical Journal, 2019
The American physician, William James (1842-1910), a published philosopher and psychologist, will perhaps be forever remembered as the first psychologist in United States. But his influence on universal culture was much deeper. Together with the mathematician and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) he laid the foundation for pragmatism. James considers the human mind as a dynamic concept. James also contributed to functional psychology by attempting to define the subconscious in relation to the perception of personal existence. His medical studies led him to perceive psychology as a branch of biology. In the book he published only a year before he passed away, The Meaning of Truth (1909), James postulated radical empiricism. According to the American psychologist, human consciousness is a complex process, not just a data flow, but also the creation of networks and connections between these fragments, and human experience is a cumulative, non-random connection process. Numerous philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, logicians, mathematicians, and even literary writers are indebted to William James for his innovative ideas. The multidisciplinary of this visionary man's theories is unquestionable. He managed to create a system of thinking which blended all the aspects encountered when studying human mind.
The Oxford Companion To William James, 2018
Beginning with Edmund Husserl, The Principles of Psychology was engaged by a series of philosophers in the phenomenological tradition. The phenomenological reading makes two central claims: (1) that William James in the Principles articulates a protophenomenological theory of intentionality, and (2) that because of this, James came to think that psychology is not an autonomous science independent of philosophy. This chapter argues that the phenomenological reading is right that James gives a protophenomenological theory of intentionality, one in which thought and thought's object are essentially correlated. It is also agued that many of the characteristics of thought enumerated by James, namely, that it is constantly changing, not comprised of parts, and sensibly continuous, can only be properly understood in light of this theory. But the chapter concludes that the phenomenological reading is wrong to think that this entails the collapse of James's project of developing a naturalistic psychology.
Does ‘ Consciousness ’ Exist ? ” and the Story of William James ’ s Philosophy of Mind
2004
Please submit papers for Volume 7 as soon as possible. All scholarly efforts are evaluated in a blind, peer review process. "The purpose of the William James Society shall be to encourage study of, and communication about, the life and work of William James (1842-1910) and his ongoing influence in the many fields to which he contributed."
William James and psychical research: towards a radical science of mind
History of Psychiatry 24: 62-78, 2013
Traditional textbooks on the history of psychiatry and psychology fail to recognize William James’s investigations on psychic phenomena as a legitimate effort to understand the human mind. The purpose of this paper is to offer evidence of his views regarding the exploration of those phenomena as well as the radical, yet alternative, solutions that James advanced to overcome theoretical and methodological hindrances. Through an analysis of his writings, it is argued that his psychological and philosophical works converge in psychical research revealing the outline of a science of mind capable of encompassing psychic phenomena as part of human experience and, therefore, subject to scientific scrutiny.
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 2019
David Leary's new book is part of the Routledge "Guides to the Great Books" series, a series devoted to providing in-depth introductions to significant and enduring books in the history of Western thought. Leary's contribution to this series takes on William James's The Principles of Psychology, a notoriously difficult-but endlessly stimulatingmilestone in the history of multiple disciplines. Leary's Guidebook does an admiral job of making James's work seem fresh, lively, and relevant, all while being engaging in its own right. Both first-time and returning readers of James's Principles will find plenty of worthwhile material in this book. Leary's Guidebook is divided into three parts. The first part is concerned with the intellectual and biographical background against which The Principles is set. Most of this material can be found elsewhere, but Leary's writing style and insights into the various facets of James's personality make it worth reading even if one already knows the broad contours of James's life. Of special note is the chapter "Substance and style," in which Leary considers the historical significance of the organization of The Principles. Leary notes that contemporary reviewers of The Principles often complained that the chapter order was confusing and counter-intuitive (p. 18-9); Leary makes the case that this seemingly minor complaint masks a sharp distinction in the order of analysis of mental events between previous psychological systems and James's; namely, that James starts by with fully-formed mental states and analyses them top-down, while previous systems started with the supposed basic units of consciousness and rebuilt mental states from the bottom-up (p. 17-8). This striking insight is typical of what Leary offers in this book. The second part of the book is where most of the substantive explicative work is to be found. Each of the eight chapters provides a close reading of a major topic of The Principles. Highlights include the relationship between mind and body (chapter 5); emotion and cognition (chapter 9); and attention and will (chapter 11). All chapters adhere closely to the guidebook concept in that their fundamental task is to consider James on his own terms as closely as possible while remaining accessible to a modern audience. That is, Leary does not provide an interpretation of The Principles so much as he provide a modern restatement of James's position, taking into account James's own idiosyncrasies, James's intellectual context, and with reference to other parts of James's corpus. Sometimes this requires supplying helpful figures (the figure diagraming the relationship between feeling and thought in cognition was especially welcome), and sometimes this means relating James's work to recent cognitive science on the same topic to modernize some of James's outdated language. The four chapters in the third and final part of Leary's book consider how The Principles fits within James's wider corpus and applies his work to problems of continued importance to both philosophy and psychology. Of special note in this part is the final chapter, in which Leary provides a plausible and intriguing account of how James could have revised The Principles in light of his later radical empiricism, and how this revised approach would have fit within modern psychology and cognitive science. Leary's Guidebook is a triumph in many ways. James scholarship has made a cottage industry out of trying to reconcile James's earlier, more scientific work (The Principles, The Briefer Course) with his later, more explicitly philosophical work (A Pluralistic Universe, Essays in Radical Empiricism). In such a fragmented corpus, scholars have struggled to find coherence even within a single work. Leary, in contrast, deftly shows how The Principles presents a unified, coherent account of human behavior. He shows how every aspect of The Principles (including its structure,
The Impact William James had on American Psychology
This paper will discuss the contribution William James has on psychology in the United Stated. It will explore the early life of William James, particularly his family dynamic, to illustrate how James is effected by this in his later life. It will go in depth on his life during his adolescent year and his education as it relates to the field of psychology. It will mention, the influence James has had on psychology in America, and the hand he had in shaping it in introducing it into the curriculum of Harvard University. Secondly, it will analyze his most influential literature work “the Principles of Psychology.” In the book, he explain to the relationship between physiology and psychology, in book eventually inspires functionalism. Lastly, it will discuss James’s Theory of Memory, and the impact it has had on how this subject area has been studied.