William James
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William James
(ca. 1895, in The Letters of William James , ed. by Henry James, Boston, 1920) First published Thu Sep 7, 2000; substantive revision Fri Oct 23, 2009 William James was an original thinker in and between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy. His twelve-hundred page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology (1890), is a rich blend of physiology, psychology, philosophy, and personal reflection that has given us such ideas as “the stream of thought” and the baby's impression of the world “as one great blooming, buzzing confusion” (PP 462). It contains seeds of pragmatism and phenomenology, and influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America, including Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
William James
Be not afraid of life . Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact . William James ( 11 January 1842 – 26 August 1910 ) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology , the psychology of religious experience and mysticism , and the philosophy of pragmatism .
Biological Consciousness and the Experience of the Transcendent
2. Biological Consciousness and the Experience of the Transcendent: William James and American Functional Psychology Eugene Taylor Harvard University Medical School Reproduced by permission of the Author.
Classics in the History of Psychology An internet resource developed by Christopher D.
James (1890) Chapter 10
Taylor, E.: William James on Consciousness beyond the Margin.
At the turn of the twentieth century, William James was America's most widely read philosopher. In addition to being one of the founders of pragmatism, however, he was also a leading psychologist and author of the seminal work, The Principles of Psychology (1890). While scholars argue that James withdrew from the study of psychology after 1890, Eugene Taylor demonstrates convincingly that James remained preeminently a psychologist until his death in 1910. Taylor details James's contributions to experimental psychopathology, psychical research, and the psychology of religion.
Wilhelm Wundt and William James
Wilhelm Wundt and William James are usually thought of as the fathers of psychology, as well as the founders of psychology’s first two great “schools.” Although they were very different men, there are some parallels: Their lives overlap, for example, with Wilhelm Wundt born in 1832 and dying in 1920, while William James was born ten years later and died ten years earlier. Both have claims to having established the first psychology lab in 1875. And neither named his school. As you will see, there are other commonalities as well, personal and philosophical. I believe we haven't seen thinkers of their stature in psychology since.The Stream of Consciousness
The Stream of Consciousness (1892) William James The first and foremost concrete fact which every one will affirm to belong to his inner experience is the fact that consciousness of some sort goes on. 'States of mind' succeed each other in him. If we could say in English 'it thinks,' as we say 'it rains' or 'it blows,' we should be stating the fact most simply and with the minimum of assumption. As we cannot, we must simply say that thought goes on.