Consisting of some 572 letters with annotations, with another 460 summarized by date, this tenth volume in a projected set of 12 offers all of James's known correspondence during a pivotal period in his development as a philosopher. The introduction notes that among the torrent of philosophical works that James (1842-1910) wrote during a time of poor health were The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and articles on what he called "radical empiricism." Skrupskelis (emeritus, philosophy, U. of South Carolina) and Berkeley (editorial coordinator, The Works of William James) include a chronology of the letters, many to novelist brother, Henry James, and fellow philosophers including Dewey, Schiller, and Bergson; a biographical register; textual record of major revisions; and James family tree. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This collection of 216 letters offers an accessible, single-volume distillation of the exchange between celebrated brothers William and Henry James. Spanning more than fifty years, their correspondence presents a lively account of the persons, places, and events that affected the Euro-American world from 1861 until the death of William James in August 1910. An engaging introduction by John J. McDermott suggests the significance of the Selected Letters for the study of the entire family.
From 1865-1866, James accompanied the director of the recently established Museum of Comparative Zoology on a research expedition to Brazil. This critical, bilingual (English-Portuguese) edition of his diaries and letters includes reproductions of his drawings. This original material belongs to the Houghton Archives at Harvard University.
Readers generally know only one of the two famous James brothers. Literary types know Henry James; psychologists, philosophers, and religion scholars know William James. In reality, the brothers’ minds were inseparable, as the more than eight hundred letters they wrote to each other reveal. In this book, J. C. Hallman mines the letters for mutual affection and influence, painting a moving portrait of a relationship between two extraordinary men. Deeply intimate, sometimes antagonistic, rife with wit, and on the cutting edge of art and science, the letters portray the brothers’ relationship and measure the manner in which their dialogue helped shape, through the influence of their literary and intellectual output, the philosophy, science, and literature of the century that followed. William and Henry James served as each other’s muse and critic. For instance, the event of the death of Mrs. Sands illustrates what H’ry never stated: even if the “matter” of his fiction was light, the minds behind it lived and died as though it was very heavy indeed. He seemed to best understand this himself only after Wm fully fleshed out his system. “I can’t now explain save by the very fact of the spell itself . . . that [Pragmatism] cast upon me,” H’ry wrote in 1907. “All my life I have . . . unconsciously pragmatised.” Wm was never able to be quite so gracious in return. In 1868, he lashed out at the “every day” elements of two of H’ry’s early stories, and then explained: “I have uttered this long rigmarole in a dogmatic manner, as one speaks, to himself, but of course you will use it merely as a mass to react against in your own way, so that it may serve you some good purpose.” He believed he was doing H’ry a service as he criticized a growing tendency toward “over-refinement” or “curliness” of style. “I think it ought to be of use to you,” he wrote in 1872, “to have any detailed criticism fm even a wrong judge, and you don’t get much fm. any one else.” For the most part, H’ry agreed. “I hope you will continue to give me, when you can, your free impression of my performance. It is a great thing to have some one write to one of one’s things as if one were a 3d person & you are the only individual who will do this.”
Der vorliegende Band der "Gesammelten Aufsatze" tragt den Titel "Studien zur Phanomenologischen Philosophie." In ihm sind Alfred Schutz' Interpretationen phanomenologischer Haupt them en enthalten. An dieser Stelle soIl nun nicht die Interpreta tion noch einmal ausgelegt werden. Vielmehr wollen wir fragen, we1che Stellung der Autor in der sogenannten "Phanomenolo gischen Bewegung" einnimmt. Schutz selbst bestimmt in einer personlichen Tonbandaufzeich nung! seinen Standort in der Phanomenologie und seine Herkunft aus den philosophischen Schulen der Studienzeit. "Ich traf den groBen Denker zum erstenmal 1932, als er schon lange keine Vorlesungen mehr hielt, zwolf Jahre nach dem Ende meines Studiums an der Universitat Wien. Mein Weg zur Philo sophie Husserls war, wie er selbst einmal sagte, hochst ungewohn lich. Seit meinen fruhesten Studientagen galt mein Interesse am meisten der philosophischen Grundlegung der Sozialwissenschaf ten, besonders der Soziologie. Zu jener Zeit stand ich noch ganz im Banne Max Webers, insbesondere war ich von seinen methodo logischen Schriften fasziniert. Ich erkannte jedoch bald, daB Max Weber die Werkzeuge, we1che er fur seine konkrete Forschung benotigte, zwar geschmiedet hatte, daB aber sein Hauptproblem - das Verstehen des subjektiven Sinnes einer sozialen Handlung fur den Handelnden selbst - noch der philosophischen Begriin dung bedurfe. Mein Lehrer der Rechtsphilosophie, Hans Kelsen, hatte den Versuch unternommen, eine so1che philosophische 1 Tonbandaufzeichnung.
Damn Great Empires offers a new perspective on the works of William James by placing his encounter with American imperialism at the center of his philosophical vision. This book reconstructs James's overlooked political thought by treating his anti-imperialist Nachlass -- his speeches, essays, notes, and correspondence on the United States' annexation of the Philippines -- as the key to unlocking the political significance of his celebrated writings on psychology, religion, and philosophy. It shows how James located a craving for authority at the heart of empire as a way of life, a craving he diagnosed and unsettled through his insistence on a modern world without ultimate foundations. Livingston explores the persistence of political questions in James's major works, from his writings on the self in The Principles of Psychology to the method of Pragmatism, the study of faith and conversion in The Varieties of Religious Experience, and the metaphysical inquiries in A Pluralistic Universe. Against the conventional view of James as a thinker who remained silent on questions of politics, this book places him in dialogue with a transatlantic critique of modernity, as well as with champions and critics of American imperialism, from Theodore Roosevelt to W. E. B. Du Bois, in order to excavate James's anarchistic political vision. Bringing the history of political thought into conversation with contemporary debates in political theory, Damn Great Empires offers a fresh and original reexamination of the political consequences of pragmatism as a public philosophy.
William James has long been recognized as a central figure in the American philosophic tradition. Yet while his ideas play a vital, ongoing role in contemporary thinking, there has never been a comprehensive exploration of the thought of this seminal philosopher and psychologist. In Experiencing William James, renowned scholar James Campbell provides the fuller and more complete analysis that James scholarship has long needed. Focusing on James's own ideas rather than his critiques of others, and drawing from a wealth of scholarship that includes the completed editions of his writings and correspondence, Experiencing William James offers an invaluable, comprehensive view of James as he participates in and advances the pragmatic spirit at the core of American philosophy. -- from back cover.
The definitive biography of the fascinating William James, whose life and writing put an indelible stamp on psychology, philosophy, teaching, and religion—on modernism itself. Often cited as the “father of American psychology,” William James was an intellectual luminary who made significant contributions to at least five fields: psychology, philosophy, religious studies, teaching, and literature. A member of one of the most unusual and notable of American families, James struggled to achieve greatness amid the brilliance of his theologian father; his brother, the novelist Henry James; and his sister, Alice James. After studying medicine, he ultimately realized that his true interests lay in philosophy and psychology, a choice that guided his storied career at Harvard, where he taught some of America’s greatest minds. But it is James’s contributions to intellectual study that reveal the true complexity of man. In this biography that seeks to understand James’s life through his work—including Principles of Psychology, The Varieties of Religious Experience, and Pragmatism—Robert D. Richardson has crafted an exceptionally insightful work that explores the mind of a genius, resulting in “a gripping and often inspiring story of intellectual and spiritual adventure” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). “A magnificent biography.” —The Washington Post
