William James Brief Biography
American Philosopher and Psychologist Known for Pragmatic Philosophy
Life and work of William James, and his philosophies in pragmatism and radical empiricism.
William James (1842-1910), was an American philosopher and psychologist famous for his pragmatic philosophy. His thoughts are imparted among these books he wrote: The Principles of Psychology, (1890) The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, (1897) The Varieties of Religious Experience, (1902) and Pragmatism. (1907)
He played an important role in establishing American experimental psychology, but his strength as a thinker lay in his reflective description of thought, motivation and mental capacity.
Early Life
Born in New York, James was the oldest of the five children of Henry James, a Swedenborgian theologian, and brother of Henry James the novelist. The family lived in Europe for five years and returned to the USA, eventually settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which remained William James' hometown for life. He was happily married and had five children.
Education and Career as Medical Professor
William James began as an art student then entered Harvard Medical School in 1863. After six years, he graduated with a doctor of medicine (MD). His education had interruptions for aside from ill-health and depression, he went on an expedition up the Amazon with the naturalist Louis Agassiz. James joined the Harvard staff as an instructor in anatomy and physiology, subsequently becoming assistant professor of philosophy, and eventually full professor of philosophy and psychology.
Gifford lectures in Edinburgh
- "Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature"
He discussed various types of religious experiences and behaviour, such as saintliness, conversion and mysticism.
Psychologist and Philosopher
This established him as a major thinker. It discusses consciousness, mind and thought. He sums up the state of psychology then, and points forward in two directions, to an objective laboratory psychology, and to phenomenological study of the stream of consciousness. He also discusses free will, his concept of which has been influential in philosophy, psychology and literature.
James's Two-Fold Mature Philosophies
- Pragmatism- was influenced by Peirce but distinctly his, "often misrepresented as identifying truth with what one happens to like believing, teaches that it is not the role of thought to picture its objects but to promote a fruitful conceptual, behavioural and emotional adjustment to them."
- Radical Empiricism - teaches that "what ultimately exists are innumerable streams of experience which constitute minds in one kind of arrangement and physical things in another."
With enthusiastic affinities to Bergson's thought, it points forward to the process philosophy of Whitehead. He was the most effective critic of the absolute idealism of F.H. Bradley and Royce, but also allied with them in attacking the psychological atomism of traditional empiricism.
Legacy of James's Philosophy
James always retained that strong moral and personal dimension exhibited in the decision made in his youth to overcome depression: "to use his free will to believe in free will." He reiterates that religious belief is both "forced" and "momentous." That in the spirit of pragmatism and empiricism, the difference of opting to believe or not to believe should be considered. That since a life of religious belief has a positive effect on bringing discipline, motivating force and strength into people's character, then there is indeed a pragmatic effect: to make lives better if one believes.
Sources:
Philosophy, The Great Thinkers, by Philip Stokes, Arcturus Publishing (2007)
The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thinkers, edited by Alan Bullock and R.B. Woodings (London, 1983). Sub-resource: R.B. Perry, The Thought and Character of William James (Boston, Mass., 1935); B. Kiklick, The Rise of American Philosophy (Yale, 1977).
