When James died in 1910 he left a large body of manuscript material that has never appeared in print. The most important of these manuscripts are those of the years 1903 and 1904 called "The Many and the One." The manuscripts in the rest of the volume contain James's reflections over 40 years in the form of drafts, memoranda, and notebook entries.
This generous omnium-gatherum brings together all the writings William James published that have not appeared in previous volumes of this definitive edition of his works. The volume includes 25 essays, 44 letters to the editor commenting on sundry topics, and 113 reviews of a wide range of works in English, French, German, and Italian.
William James was a groundbreaking thinker who made significant contributions to the fields of philosophy and psychology, as well as to the genre of personal essays. This volume brings together a collection of James' essays and scholarly articles that shine light on his doctrine of "radical empiricism," which attempts to outline the way the human mind comes to know and recognize not only material objects, but also the relationships and links between various objects.
In these new essays leading European and North American scholars of medieval medicine focus on manuscripts and their transmission and demonstrate how medievalists in all disciplines can profit by studying the primary medical sources rather than relying on the secondary literature. It is only through the study of actual medical manuscripts that context and audience can be discussed adequately. The lead essay by Bernard Schnell, Prolegomena to a History of Medieval German Medical Literature: The Twelfth Century, clarifies methodological principles for this literary sociology and examines the current state of research in the study of manuscript transmission. The remaining essays discuss either manuscripts by a single author or paradigmatic manuscripts within a single national tradition. Until all the basic sources in medieval texts are uncovered and a survey is made, this volume will stand as an overview of the field.
This final volume of The Works of William James provides a full record of James's teaching career at Harvard from 1872-1907. It includes working notes for lectures in more than 20 courses. Because his teaching was closely involved with the development of his thought, this material adds a new dimension to our understanding of his philosophy.
Essays in Religion and Morality brings together a dozen papers of varying length to these two themes so crucial to the life and thought of William James. Reflections on the two subjects permeate, first, James's presentation of his father's Literary Remains; second, his writings on human immortality and the relation between reason and faith; third, his two memorial pieces, one on Robert Gould Shaw and the other on Emerson; fourth, his consideration of the energies and powers of human life; and last, his writings on the possibilities of peace, especially as found in his famous essay "The Moral Equivalent of War." These speeches and essays were written over a period of twenty-four years. The fact that James did not collect and publish them himself in a single volume does not reflect on their intrinsic worth or on their importance in James's philosophical work, since they include some of the best known and most influential of his writings. All the essays, throughout their varied subject matter, are consistently and characteristically Jamesian in the freshness of their attack on the problems and failings of humankind and in their steady faith in human powers.
This book takes an integrated approach, using the principles of story structure to discuss every aspect of successful science writing, from the overall structure of a paper or proposal to individual sections, paragraphs, sentences, and words. It begins by building core arguments, analyzing why some stories are engaging and memorable while others are quickly forgotten, and proceeds to the elements of story structure, showing how the structures scientists and researchers use in papers and proposals fit into classical models. The book targets the internal structure of a paper, explaining how to write clear and professional sections, paragraphs, and sentences in a way that is clear and compelling.
Former poet laureate of the United States Donald Hall’s final collection of essays, from the vantage point of very old age, once again “alternately lyrical and laugh-out-loud funny.”* *(New York Times) “Why should a nonagenarian hold anything back?” Donald Hall answers his own question in these self-knowing, fierce, and funny essays on aging, the pleasures of solitude, and the sometimes astonishing freedoms arising from both. Nearing ninety at the time of writing, he intersperses memories of exuberant days in his youth, with uncensored tales of literary friendships spanning decades—with James Wright, Richard Wilbur, Seamus Heaney, and other luminaries. Cementing his place alongside Roger Angell and Joan Didion as a generous and profound chronicler of loss, this final work is as original and searing as anything Hall wrote during his extraordinary literary lifetime.
