THOUGHT AND ACTION IN WILLIAM JAMES

Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
EINER S. NISULA
1970

      

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Thought and Action in William James

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THOUGHT AND ACTION IN wILLm: JARES
By

Einer S. Nisula

The purpose of this study is largely confined to an
analysis of William James's concept of experience. In expli-
cating the meaning of "experience," most aspects of Janes's
philosophy are discussed: the philosophy of mind, the theory
of knowledge, the nature of reality, and value theory, to
speak in the broadest terms. In analyzing the nature of
thought, the structure of belief, and human action, for ex-
ample, the major focal point of this study is James's first,
and greatest, work--The Principles of Psychology (1890). It
is argued that James's later, more popular works can be better
understood in light of James's Principles. Furthermore, it is

he writer's view that James's philosophy is far more structured
than is generally supposed and that many of the attacks upon
James's characteristic doctrines are not fatal to his philo-
sophical position.

James was, to use his own terms, both "tough-minded" and
”tender~minded." His tough-mindedness, however, has been vir-
tually neglected. This study endeavors to place James more
securely in the tradition of empirical science, while at the
same time fully acknowledging his tender-mindedness. His

psycho-religious interests have been widely written about

Einer S. Nisula

elsewhere. No attempt is made here to add to that aspect of
James's thought and character.

In Chapter One, James's psychology is discussed from the
point of view of the impact of the theory of evolution upon
his conception of intelligence and the role of thought in
human experience.

In Chapter Two, James's concept of mind as a "stream of
consciousness" is considered from the point of view of the
five characteristics of thought which he describes. James's
analysis of consciousness as a stream has had enormous influ-
ence in psychology, philosophy, literature, and educational
theory. The full import of his seminal ideas is Just begin-
ning to be recognized.

In Chapter Three, the concept of experience is examined
in terms of the structure of belief. The primary source is,
again, the Principles. The nature of belief is also consid-
ered in light of James's theory of meaning and truth. His
doctrine of the "will" or "right" to believe is considered
only incidentally.

In Chapter Pour, the nature of experience is defined in
aesthetic terms. Unless "experience" is interpreted in con-
nection with particular, concrete, experience, it is vague
to the point of being virtually meaningless. In the fewest
words, an "aesthetic experience" possesses £23m. Such exper-
iences are the ground of all learning and purposive action--

or, to use James's term, "reactive behavior."

Einer EL ICisula

In Chapter Five, the last, James's educational theories
are considered: he "principles" of learning as well as the
nature and value of what is learned. However else his
theories have been construed, an attempt is made here to show
that in basic outlook, James's aims were not essentially dif—
ferent from the classical view of education for humanitas.

In his brief addresses and lectures on educational subjects,
James anticipated many of the problems that continue to face
us today. His "Ph. D. Octopus," for example, is very timely.

In his own time, James was acknowledged to be one of the
greatest intellectuals in Europe and America. But as impor-
tant as James was in his own time, the full import of his
teachings is just beginning to be recognized in ours. Without
doubt, the figure of James shall once again dominate the in-
tellectual scene. For those who are interested in following
the course of Jamesian scholarship, an extensive bibliography

is included.

THOUGHT AND ACTION IN WILLIQH JAKES

BY.
Einer Sf Nisula

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Administration and Higher Education

1970

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Copyright by
EINER S. NISULi
1970

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MA I J A Iii? D DAV I D

ii

A CKN OWLEDG i-ZEN‘I‘ S

The author extends deep appreciation to Dr. Edward B.
Blackman for his assistance and guidance throughout the
writing of this work. A special debt of gratitude is extended
to Dr. John F. A. Taylor, whose kindness and generosity over
the years cannot be measured. Thanks are also extended to
Dr. Max Raines and Dr. William Sweetland for encouragement and

hope.

iii

INTRODUCT ION

Cha pt er

I. JAI-‘IES ' °

II. THE
III.

IV. EX ER

STR-

.L—

T?”

BELIEF AN

PSYCHOLOGY

’1
“11."

IEN CE AN D ART

ACT ION .

EXPER IENCE

V. EDUCATION .AI‘ID BEHItVIOR

NOTES. . . .

3 IBLIOGRA PHY

iv

0

TABLE OF CONTEI‘fl‘S

CONSCIOUSNESS .

INTRCDUCTION

To understand William James requires something more than.
open-mindedness and intellectual acumen. is L. P. Jacms so
brilliantly put it, "it requires a degree of imagination
sufficient to carry us into a world where language conveys
a set of Values certainly other, and perhaps richer, than
are implied by the ordinary use of philosophical terms."1
If one is to understand James, one must approach him aes-
thetically, not analytically. James was impatient of logic-
chopping and dry, formal reasoning. Because of this, some
commentators have concluded that he was "at best little more
than a brilliant and slightly irresponsible amateur"2 in
philosophical matters. By temperament James was an artist;
however, it was the problems of men which preoccupied him as
a psychologist and philosopher. In bringing us to understand
those problems, he makes us see then in the same way that a
great poet, like Sophocles, makes us see life in dramatic
terms. And surely, Janes's vision of life is noble and
heroic and tragic in the classical sense. Perhaps for such
reasons as these, William Barrett has pointed out that it
is more appropriate to speak of James as an existentialist
rather than a pragmatist.3 The question of how we are to

classify James is not, however, very important. What really

2
matters is whether or not we understand him. And, as Jacks
wrote, "We cannot refute him by hawking and peeking at the
meaning of his words. We must penetrate to the moving spirit
of the whole, or give it up."1L In the briefest terms, then,
the purpose of this work is to study the heart of James's
philosophy: to ggg and to Egg; what gives it perennial life
and lasting value.

James attempted to deal with the fundamental questions
of philosophy in terms of relatively few concepts. Perhaps
his most important single contribution was his concept of
experience. His whole output as a psychologist and philos-
opher can be viewed as a set of variations on a single theme:
Experience. The purpose of this study is largely confined
to the analysis of James's concept of experience as it is
described to us with reference to the nature of thought, the
formation of beliefs, and the conduct of life. In attempting
to unpack the meaning of "experience," we are inevitably led
into a discussion of most aspects of James's philosophy:
the philosophy of mind, the theory of knowledge, the nature
of reality, and value theory, to speak in the broadest terms.
But the main purpose of this study is not to offer another
exposition of these several aspects of James's thought--i.e.,
to state his characteristic views on pragmatism, radical
empiricism, the will to believe, religious experience, and
so on. Rather, the main purpose here is to analyze and
describe those ideas which found expression in James's first,

and greatest work,--The Principles of Psychology. To a great

3
extent, the Principles is the foundation upon which James

built his philosophy. And without an awareness of the rela-
tionship between the Principles and his other works, one may
easily believe that James's philosophy is built like a house
of cards: a random thing, without much structure or design,
which may fall with the first breath of criticism.

In Chapter One, James's psychology is discussed from the
point of view of the impact of the theory of evolution upon
his conception of intelligence and the role of thought in
human experience. For James, mind or intelligence is fig
fighter for ends." All thought is for the sake of action.
It is goal-oriented and value-centered.

In Chapter Two, the concept of experience is examined
with reference to James's analysis of the five characteristics
of the stream of consciousness. In exploring the nature of
consciousness, James anticipated many of his later, more
characteristic, doctrines--e.g., his pragmatic theory of
meaning, and his radical empiricism. Either directly or in-
directly, James's account of the "mental life" has permeated
and given shape to the views of countless others. For
example, in literature, his views have influenced the stream
of consciousness "movement" associated with James Joyce and
others. In educational theory, his views have had an
enormous impact on the thinking of men like Dewey, Kil-
patrick, Rugg, and such movements as "the child-centered
school" and "progressive education." In psychology, Thorn-

dike and MacDougall, to mention but two writers, are deeply

u
indebted to James. His influence upon gestalt psychologists
is just beginning to be appreciated. In philosophy, his
influence upon phenomenology and existentialism has received
considerable attention recently. Most of the insights and
problems which have given rise to this flurry of new interest
can be traced to James's analysis of the stream of con-
sciousness.

In Chapter Three, the concept of experience is examined
with reference to the nature or structure of belief. The
primary source is, again, James's Princgples of Psychology.
Many of the difficulties which have occupied scholars for
decades concerning James's "will to believe," perhaps could
have been avoided had his doctrine of belief been examined
from the point of view of his earlier statement in the
Principles. A belief, for James, is a plan for action, a
"set," or disposition to behave in a given way appropriate
to the exigencies of the situation. Many beliefs may be
construed in terms of habits. Other beliefs are the product
of intelligent design and consciOus volition. However,
unless one is prepared to act in some appropriate way with
reference to a given situation, he may be said not to be-
lieve anything in particular. The meaning of any statement,
is construed in terms of the way that one is prepared to act.
The "truth" of a statement depends upon whether or not our
expectations in a given case are satisfied. Because James's
theory of meaning and truth has been the source of much

misunderstanding, a careful attempt is made to examine his

5
views in light of his empiricism. This side of James--his
"tough-mindedness"--has been virtually neglected. he
endeavor of this study is to place James's theory of belief
--and so his theory of meaning and truth as well--more
securely in the tradition of empirical science. His psycho-
religious interests have been widely written about elsewhere.
To attempt is made here to add to that aspect of James's
thought and character.

In Chapter Pour, the nature of experience is defined
in aesthetic terms. Unless "experience" is interpreted in
connection with particular experiences, it is vague to the
point of being virtually meaningless. When James writes
about experience, he often writes of "pure experience."

This is his term for that elusive, ineffable, "neutral stuff"
out of which an experience is realized. "Pure experience"

is a metaphysical concept which names nothing in particular.
What makes learning possible, is having particular, concrete
experiences. And such experiences art characteristically
"aesthetic experiences,"--that is,1ixnrpossess £23m. only
when raw experience takes shape in some mind as an experience,
is it possible to learn anything.

In the last.chapter, we consider James's educational
theories: the "principles" of learning as well as the nature
and value of what is learned. James attempted to reach a
wide audience of teachers and laymen. Consequently, his
popular lectures and addresses are written in easy, familiar

language with everyday examples. While no one could fail to

6
be inspired by James's presentation, we cannot be at all
sure that he was universally understood. James's philosophy
of education is in the tradition of individualism and roman-
ticism. He extols the virtues of human effort and great
achievement. In basic outlook, his aims were not different
from the classical view of education for humanitas. For
James, the highest aim of education is human excellence in
all things. In more concrete terms, the aim of education
is to be able to recognize a good man when you see him: and
to be able to help yourself out of a new situation when con-
fronted by a problem.

When one reads James, one is struck with the impression
that his works are timeless. Even in those passages in his
Principles where he has been shown to be wrong, he had some-
thing important to say. He gave us a new way of looking at
things. As John J. McDermott has written, "With James, the
philosophical enterprise begins anew, for if one is imbued
with his viewpoint, nothing is seen in quite the same way
again."5 If this present study succeeds in its aims, one
should see James in a different light.

In his own time, James was regarded as the representative
American philosopher. He was acknowledged to be one of the
greatest intellectuals that America has produced. The period
in which he lived has even been characterized as the "Era of

6

William James." But as important as James was in his own

time, the full import of his teachings is Just beginning to

7

be realized in ours. Without doubt, the figure of James
shall once again dominate the intellectual scene. Our only

regret is that James the man will no longer walk among us.

CHAPTER I
JAMES'S PSYCHOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE

In 1890, at the age of forty-eight, William James
published his epoch-making work, The Principles of Psych-
glggy.1 Bursting upon the world like a volcanic explosion,
it was immediately hailed as a work of great magnitude.2
0n the occasion of the centenary of James's birth, John
Dewey compared it to Locke's §§§§y Concerning Human Under-
standing and Hume's Treatise Concerning Human Nature.3
After more than half a century the Principles is still
recognized as a classic. It has even been suggested that
it be required study every five years for every teacher in
America.“ But, sadly, like many classics, the Principles
is frequently mentioned, but seldom read in its entirety.
Soon after its publication, James wrote a briefer, one-
volume version, which became a standard text for students
in psychology.5 (And who will read lhOO pages of small
print when he can "get by" with #00 instead!) Later, he
expressed some of his ideas in a series of popular lectures,
which were subsequently published in his Talks to Teachers.6

James's thought was nurtured in the dynamic milieu of

evolutionary theory.7 To Americans busy taming a wilder-

ness and forging a new nation, the idea of the survival of

8

9

the fittest had a true and clear ring. The belief in the
ability of the individual to care for himself and shape
his own destiny was an unquestioned assumption of the
typical American of the mid-nineteenth century. A deep-
rooted faith in individualism and an unshakable belief in
progress were supreme values which marked the careers of
men and fashioned the course of American life from its be-
ginning.8

Evolutionary theory did not, however, spring full-
blown from the mind of Charles Darwin. Prior to the 19th
century, biological concepts of evolution were advanced by
Buffon, Lamarck, and Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of
Charles. Some form of evolutionism can even be found as
far back as the Greeks. Anaximander (c. 610-5u5), for
example, held the view that living things came into being
through vapors raised by the sun, and that man evolved from
more elementary animal forms.9 Implicit in Christian belief
is a doctrine of spiritual growth or perfectionism. During
the 17th and 18th centuries, philosophers wrote of the con-
tinual progress of mankind through social and cultural
change.10 In Darwin's time, before the actual publication
of his Origin of Species, Herbert Spencer was applying evo-
lutionary principles to all aspects of life in the universe,
thus earning for himself the title "philosopher of evolu-
tion." What was for Darwin only a biological theory, became
in Spencer's philosophy a metaphysical theory of progress
with applications in biology, psychology, sociology, and

10

other areas. Its usefulness as a principle of explanation
was limited only by what Spencer called the unknowable.

Like others of his time, Darwin accepted a basic
belief in social progress and shared in the general opti-
mism of the period. But Darwin's scientific contribution
was of a different order. His theory was limited to an ex-
planation of the origin of species.11 James read Darwin's
work and admired him as a model scientist.12 But it was
primarily the work of Spencer which directly influenced
James most.13 Briefly, then, James's Principles of Psygh:
piggy was a powerful attempt to apply the concepts of evolu-
tionary theory as he understood them to the study of the mind.
And central to his evolutionary account is his view that the
essence or nature of consciousness lies in its purposiveness:
it is pre-eminently value-centered and goal-oriented. kind,
in short, has interests.14

James's evolutionary theory of mind, however, stands in
marked contrast to the views of Spencer, according to which
mind is one of the most important faculties of adjustment
in an organism's struggle for survival. Spencer defined the
very essence of life as "the adjustment of inner to outer
relations."15 And by this definition, he also meant to
cover the entire process of mental evolution. But Spencer's
theory was attacked by James as too passive and mechanical.16
According to James, mental activity as "£232 correspondence

with the outer world is a notion on which it is wholly

impossible to base a definition of mental action."17 He

ll
argued that Spencer's definition, to mean anything at all,
must be re-written as follows: "Right or intelligent mental
action consists in the establishment, corresponding to out-
ward relations, of such inward relations and reactions as
will favor the survival of the thinker, or, at least, his
physical well-being."18 Such a definition, according to
James, is not only more precise, but it is also "frankly
teleological" (emphasis added).19
I, for my part, cannot escape the consid-

eration, forced upon me at every turn, that the

knower is not simply a mirror floating with no

foot-hold anywhere, and passively reflecting an

order that he comes upon and finds simply existing.

The knower is an actor, and co-efficient of truth

on one side, whilst on the other he registers

the truth which he helps to create. Mental inter-

ests, hypotheses, postulates, so far as they are

bases for human action--action which to a great

extent transforms the world-~help to make the

truth which they declare. In other words, there

belongs to mind, grom its birth upward, a spon-

taneity, a vote.2

According to James, the pursuit of ends and the choice
of means for their attainment are "the mark and criterion of
mentality in a phenomenon."21 Presumably, agy phenomenon
showing evidence of deliberate behavior toward some goal
would, at least in some minimal sense, manifest intelligence
or mind. The problems suggested by James's criteria for the
presence of mentality in a phenomenon are largely defini-
tional in character. But one thing, at least, is clear:
innerever there is (a) an end or purpose toward which an

object moves, and (b) signs of deliberative choice of means

productive of that end, then the phenomenon in question has

12

intelligence or exhibits mentality. However, while the
presence of some end is a necessary condition for deciding
whether a given object exhibits mentality, the teleological
criterion alone is not sufficient, or even, perhaps, funda-
mental. For depending upon how one is to define "end,"

it is possible to show some end without necessarily imply-
ing any choice of means to that end.22 To the extent that
we behave purposively, the ends which mark us as intelli-
gent creatures must be our ends, which we freely choose, and
which choices could have been different. For having a choice
implies having alternatives from which to choose. And
having alternatives in turn implies having ends in mind.
Raking choices, then, seems to be the more fundamental cri-
terion. For having a choice implies an end, but having an
end does not necessarily imply having a choice.

The import of James's teleological requirement for
mentality in a phenomenon is not then merely that there
should be ends toward which our conscious activity leads.

It has to do, rather, with the question of freedom to choose
ends in terms of our own interests. For in acting delib-
erately toward ends of my own choosing, I not only exhibit
intelligence, but I exercise freedom as well. Where I am
not free, then I am reduced to something like a machine--
aJ1 automaton whose purpose it may be to carry out the will
Cfi‘ some other intelligent being, perhaps the Cosmos itself.23
Historically, James's theory of mind is known as func-

ti'Onalism. Not only does mind have a vote, but consciousness

13
seems to be "a fighter for ends."24 The function of con-
sciousness is to select purposes toward which an organism
can direct its energies.25 In a purely mechanical world
there are no real ends. It is only with the introduction
of consciousness at some point in evolutionary time that
ends appear in the world; for consciousness is not merely
a passive faculty which enables the organism to adjust to
its environment. It is an instrument for effecting changes
in the environment which make the world more conducive to
the realization of its ends.

Most classic studies in the philosophy of mind begin
with an analysis of Idgg§_or "thoughts" in terms of their
atomic constituents.26 They usually begin with simple, un-
analyzable sensations, much like a house is built by "the
agglutination of bricks."27 Whereas such methods have the
advantage of moving clearly from simple sensations to com-
plex mental phenomena, James holds, nevertheless, that they
commit us from the start to a theory that is questionable,
namely, that "higher" states of consciousness are compounds
of units.28 James argues to the contrary that no one has
ever had a simple sensation by itself. What we usually
take to be a simple sensation is the result of subsequent
analyses based upon selective attention. From the moment
we are born, we confront "a teeming multiplicity of objects
and relations."29 Our dawning awareness already finds
itself in medias res. Assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin,

and entrails at once, the new—born babe feels it all as

14

"one great blooming, buzzing, confusion."30 His body is the
nucleus or center around which the neutral stuff of exper—
ience flows.31 And from that moment on, he attends to
aspects of that stuff and identifies them as things in his
world.

In the first sentence of his great work, James defines
the scope of psychology in the following way: "Psychology
is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and of
their conditions."32 Mental phenomena include such things
as "feelings, desires, cognitions, reasonings, decisions,
and the like."33 James is anxious to admit into his theory
of mind only those phenomena that can be directly experienced
and observed. Hence, unlike Scholastic or Common—sense
theories, which begin by postulating some simple entity--
e.g., a Soul or Mind--34that has so many "facultative mani-
festations" which order experience and account for things,
James begins with a description of the immediate data of
consciousness as they appear in experience. Moreover, since
mental phenomena refer to things beyond themselves,35 any
description of the mental life must include some account of
the world of objects which appear in conscious experience.
The conditions of mental life, the second part of James's
definition of Psychology, refer to physical or bodily condi-
tions. In particular, to the physiology and functions of
the brain. According to James, physical experiences, long
neglected by "spiritualistic" or "intellectualistic"

psychologies, must be recognized as among those conditions

15

which support, alter, or "lead to" mental activity.36 James
here adopts an interactionist account of mind which inter-
prets body- and mental-states as co-determinants or "part-
ners" in experience.37

According to James, the study of mind must begin from
within. Anyone interested in the fullness of the mental
life will proceed with those facts with which he is most
intimately acquainted, namely, his own thoughts and feelings.
Hence one must rely "first and foremost and always" on the
method of introspective observation.38 When one looks into
his own mind what he finds are states of consciousness.
The existence of such states, in a world where most other
facts have "tottered in the breath of philosophical doubt,"
has never been questioned by any critic, however sceptical
he may have been in other respects.39 Everyone believes
that he can feel himself thinking, and that he can distin-
guish his mental states an inward activity from those objects
external to him which he thinks about. This belief is "Eh;
most fundamental of all the postulates of Psychojlpgyfll"O
Briefly, then, the first fact for psychology is that thinking
of some sort goes on.41 The experiencing Self is placed in
the midst of the flux of things in which the fullness of
conscious life is taken as the immediate datum for psychol-
ogical inquiry.

While the concept of experience has long been recog-
nized as fundamental to James's position, the nature of

experience, and so of reality as well, has not been adequately

J..._..-—-_.|

16
understood. In the hands of well-meaning enthusiasts and
followers, James's ideas were often distorted or reduced

”2 In recent years, however, James has been

to mere slogans.
enjoying a fresh examination, largely encouraged by con-
temporary developments in European philosophy. His place

in the history of philosophy and psychology is being re-
evaluated. It is already clear that most of the views which
he later developed in his popular philosophical lectures

were already anticipated in his great work in psychology,

and in some earlier papers which were later incorporated

into it. The "stream of consciousness“3 is perhaps the

most fundamental concept in his psychology, as well as the
most famous metaphor. While, for example, the chapter on
"Habit"uu has enjoyed a far greater audience, James's dis-
cussion of the mental life as a stream of thought has more
profound implications for contemporary philosophy, psychology,
and educational theory. In Chapter 2, we shall analyze
James's concept of mind as a stream.and endeavor to show how
in his new account of experience the knower and the known
come together in a world that is neither objective nor sub-
jective but "conceptive"--a radical new world which is,

quite literally, meaningful.

CH".PI‘ER II

THE STREKY C? CCVSCIOUSNESS

In his description of the mental life, James distin-

guishes five characteristics of the stream of consciousness:1

1) Every thought tends to be part of a personal con-
sciousness.

2) Within each personal consciousness thought is always
changing.

3) Within each personal consciousness thou.ght is sen-
sibly continuous.

A) It always appears to deal with objects independent
of itself.

5) It is interested in some parts of these object to
the exclusion of others, and welcomes or rejec.s-
chooses from among them, in a word—-all the w‘iile

LT?!)

MR)

Let us consider each of these characteristics in turn.

First, thoughts are essentially private. Whereas we are
directly acquainted with our own thoughts and feelings, only
by inference can we know aoout men al states in others.
Thoughts belong to some personal consciousness which owns
them.3 "In this room-~this lecture-room, say--there are a
multitude of thoughts, yours and mine. . . . Whether anywhere
in the room there be a mere thought, which is nobody's thought,
we have no means of ascertaining, for we have no experience of

its like. The only states of consciousness that we naturally

17

__.¢
_,..~.l-r-‘

18

deal with are found in personal consciousness, minds, selves,
concrete particular 1's and you's."u

James's emphasis on thoughts "belonging" to some personal
consciousness or Self has to do with the notion of privacy,
not property. Each "mind" has its own thoughts; but it keeps
them, necessarily, to itself. I know my mind directly, and
you know yours. But neither of us can know the other's mind
in the way that we know our own. I cannot inspect your mind,
nor you mine. The "gap" between minds is the most absolute
gap in nature: "Absolute insulation, irreducible pluralism,
is the law."5 On these terms, then, it is the Self-as-thinker
that is the ultimate datum. Not thought or feeling abstractly
conceived. The ultimate fact for psychology is the almost-
Cartesian."l think" and "I feel."6

We might well ask at this point how communication between
"thought-systems" (personal consciousnesses) is possible if
it is true, and James certainly thinks so, that such systems
«are absolutely insulated. Are we not bound to the immediacy
and privacy of our own thoughts and sensations? May it not
be the case that all we gag know are our own thoughts? Am I
not, in fact, absolutely alone in an ever-changing world
which happens to be my thought-of—the-moment, my present
experience?7 Such questions are not merely rhetorical. They
are quite central to a number of important problems. However,
before we can attempt to consider them, we must first turn to
the second aspect of thought, namely, that thought is in con-

stant flux or change. Thought flows.

19

When James says that thought is always changing, he
wants it understood that he does not mean that a given state
of consciousness is without duration or "shape" or its own.
Rather, he means that no state of consciousness can make a
second appearance before the mind, so to speak, in identi-
cally the same shape it possessed initially. Time and
change--experience, in short--make a difference. Thoughts
mellow, change their character, blend with one another,
take on greater interest, or become less interesting. The
change which James has in view is that which takes place in
sensible intervals of time. And the result on which he lays
stress is that no state once gone can recur and be identical
with what_;ppwas before.8 What is, or may be experienced
more than once, is the same object: "We hear the same ggpg
over and over again; we see the same quality of green or
smell the same objective perfume, or experience the same
species of pain. The realities, concrete and abstract,
physical and ideal, whose permanent existence we believe in,
seem to be constantly coming up again before our thought,
and lead us, in our carelessness, to suppose that our
'ideas' of them are the same ideas."9

If we were to attend to the matter carefully, we would
see that our experiences are never the same, although objects
of consciousness may remain identical over an indefinite
period of time. That this is the case may be seen in the
fact that we never have pure, absolute sensations. That is,

we can never experience a sensation by itself. Sensations

--i_ic~. ' '

20

are always experienced in clusters, in relation to other
sensations. For example, when everything is dark a grayish
object appears white, and when everything is light a grayish
object appears dark. We feel things differently depending
on whether we are sleepy or wide awake, hungry or full,
tired or rested, hot or cold, and above all, according to
James, we feel things differently in childhood, manhood,
and old age.10 Briefly, then, object-experience vary as the
contexts in which experiences of objects change. And to the
extent that object-experiences change, our ideas of what the
world is like also change. In James's inimitable language,
"A permanently existing 'idea' or 'Vorstellung' which makes
its appeapgpce before the fogplights of consciousness at
periodical intervals, is as mythological an entitypas the
Jack of Spades (James's emphasis)._"ll

James's argument for the view that object-experiences
are never the same rests on another assumption, based upon
physiology: "EVery thought we have of a given fact is,
strictly speaking, unique, and only bears a resemblance of
kind with our other thoughts of the same fact. When the
identical fact recurs, we ppgp think of it in a fresh manner,
see it under a somewhat different angle, apprehend in in
different relations from those in which it last appeared.
And the thought by which we cognize it is the thought of it-
in-those-relations, a thought suffused with the consciousness
of all that dim context."12 In short, according to James,

every object-experience corresponds to some modification in

21

the brain. For an identical object-experience to recur, it
would have to occur the second time in an unmodified brain.13
But, says James, this is a physiological impossibility.
Therefore, an unmodified object-experience is also an im-
possibility},+

Given such a state-of-affairs, what of the notion of
personal identity? How is it that a personal consciousness
can know itself if, by hypothesis, no two states of con-
sciousness are ever the same? On James's interpretation,
what sense does it make to even suppose that the "real"
§§l£ is anything but my present state of mind? The answer
would probably be "No sense": However, this would be so
only where we reduce thought to immediate sensation and then
sensation to some simple, elementary, atomistic feeling-
state.15 As we have seen, sensations do not come to us pure
and simple. They come in bundles combined into "things."
And while a given experience as a whole is always different
from any other experience, it does not follow that all of
the ingredients of a given experience are necessarily differ-
ent from all of the ingredients of another (perhaps similar)
experience. Many of them may be the same. If it were the
case that every experience was absolutely unique--i.e., that
between two experiences there were no common characteris-
tics--then it would make no sense to even talk about two
experiences being similar. But not only do we talk sensibly
about similar experiences, we live through them. For example,

while, strictly speaking, I am a different person today than

22

I was yesterday,16 I am not a totally different person. I

wake up and prepare to do what I had planned the day before.
My past has not changed, it is only being added to. It is

I who go to court to face criminal charges for a crime I
committed weeks before, and it is the same I, 115., pyself,
who expects punishment if found guilty and convicted. And
so on. In short, I connect my past states with my present
states and experience them as continuous with one another.

It has already been said that James held the view that
the gap between personal consciousnesses was the most abso-
lute gap in nature. For whereas I know my own mind directly,
I can only know about your mind indirectly. I can never feel
your thoughts or states of consciousness as I can feel my
own. In a celebrated passage, James said:

When Paul and Peter wake up in the same bed,
and recognize that they have been asleep, each one
of them mentally reaches back and makes connection
with but ppg of the two streams of thought which
were broken by the sleeping hours. As the current
of an electrode buried in the ground unerringly
finds its way to its own similarly buried mate,
across no matter how much intervening earth: so
Peter's present instantly finds out Peter's past,
and never by mistake knits itself on to that of
Paul. Paul's thought in turn is as little liable
to go astray. The past thought of Peter is appro-
priated by the present Peter alone. He may have
a knowledge, and a correct one too, of what Paul's
last drowsy states of mind were as he sank into
sleep, but it is an entirely different sort of
knowledge from that which he has of his own last
states. He remembers his own states, whilst he
only conceives Paul‘s. Remembrance is like direct
feeling: its object is suffused with a warmth and
intimacy to which no object of mere conception
ever attains. . . . This community of self is
what the time-gap cannot break in twain, and is
why a present thought, although not ignorant of

23

the time-gap, can still regard itself as contin-

uous with certain chosen portions of the past.
Consciousness, then, does not appear to

itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain’

or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it pre-

sents itself in the first instance. It is

nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or 'stream'

are the metaphors by which it is most naturally

described. In talking of it hereafter, let us

call it the stream_of thought, of consciousness,

or of subjective life.i(

In the strictest sense, then, two minds can never identify
with each other.18 They can never enjoy an intimate rela-
tionship in the sense of being directly acquainted. For no
mind can be looked-into from without. Each lives in the
private world of its own experience.

In consciousness, thoughts flow and appear to be con—
tinuous. James defines "continuous" as that which is without
breach, crack, or division.19 Given this definition, how
does it bear upon the proposition that thought is sensibly
continuous?20 Descartes, for example, also held that thought
is continuous. Further, he even believed that if thought
were to cease for a moment, the soul would also cease to
exist: ergo, for Descartes, thought never takes a holiday.21
But does James mean to imply, like Descartes, that we are
always conscious, or that there is never a time when thought
stops, to take up again at some later time? No, on the con-
trary. James holds that breaches in consciousness do occur.
In some cases we may not be aware of such gaps, but in others
we may. In those cases where we do not feel gapsg-for

example, in states of unconsciousness brought about by blows

on the head--, consciousness simply picks up where it left

24
off without any inkling of what transpired during its
absence. But there are other experiences which create real
interruptions and which we feel as such; for example, a loud
explosion breaking the evening calm, or a sudden shock.
EXperiences in which there seems to be a separateness of
"parts" or "links" and which words like "chain" or "train"
seem to describe naturally. How then are such experiences
accounted for by the concept of consciousness as an unbroken
stream?

In order to answer the question, one must keep in mind
the distinction between thoughts and the things which are
thought about. Things are discrete and discontinuous:
first there is the calm, and then there is the loud explo-
sion. But the contrast is not experienced as a break in the
stream of thought any more than the calm/explosion is a break
in the time-flow in which they occur. James says:

A silence may be broken by a thunder-clap,

and we may be so stunned and confused for a

moment by the shock as to give no instant account

to ourselves of what has happened. But that

very confusion is a mental state, and a state

that passes us straight over from the silence to

the sound. The transition between the thought

of one object and the thought of another is no

more a break in the thou ht than a joint in a

bamboo is a break in the wood. It is a part of

the consciousness a5 much as the joint is a

part of the bamboo. 2
Only after superficial introspection would we report that we
heard a thunder-clap. A deeper examination would reveal not

only an aWareness of the thunder, but also an awareness of

the calm which came before. What we hear when the thunder

25
breaks is not thunder-all-by-itself, but "thunder-breaking-
upon-silence-and-contrasting-with-it."23 And this experience
would be quite different from an awareness of another exper-
ience in which the same objective thunder was but a continu-
ation of previous thunder. Briefly, then, our awareness of
a given phenomenon is conditioned by our awareness of its
antecedents. But temporal antecedents are not the only
factors which enter into our awareness. For, according to
James, we have some awareness, however slight, of our own
body--its position, attitude, condition-~which also accom-
panies and contributes to our knowledge of a givengimnomenon.24
One reason why we are seldom fully aware of all these various
factors has to do with the way language works against our
perception of the total reality. For example, "thunder"
simply names thunder, and "gray" names gray, irrespective of
the contexts in which thunder and gray are experienced. But
from the point of view of the individual who hears thunder,
it Eggpg something different as it occurs in different con-
texts and at different times. Mere dictionary-type defini-
tions are impoverished as compared to felt meanings which
are lived through in experience.

The felt impact of thunder-breaking-calm is possible
only because thought is sensibly continuous. At a given
instant, our awareness of things carries with it an echo of
the previous moment, as well as an awareness of some antici-
pated state. Our present thought included the whence and

the whither of both past and future states. Thoughts are

26

never had singly, nor do they appear suddenly and then
leave without a trace. As new states come, the inertia of
old states modifies them accord ingly.25

The stream of consciousness, to use James's illustra-
tion, is like the alternation of flights and perchings in
the life of a bird. Eyen the flow of language seems to
express this: for thoughts are expressed in sentences, and
sentences are closed by periods. The times of closure
(perchings) are usually filled with images of some sort that
can be contemplated for a time before they change or fade
away. The movements (flights) toward closure are filled with
thoughts of relations that, for the most part, pertain to
those matters contemplated in periods of closure or rest.
James calls the places of closure the "substantive parts,"
and the movements toward closure the "transitive parts" of
the stream of consciousness. Transitive parts lead us from
one substantive state to another. Accordingly, all thought
tends toward the attainment of some substantive state other
than the one from which we took flight.26

The problem of trying to catch our thoughts in flight
is a little like taking hold of a spinning top to catch its
motion, or turning on the light quickly to see how the dark-
ness looks. If the transitive parts are flights toward
substantive parts, then to stop them in mid-flight is to
annihilate them, or to turn them into substantive parts.
Although it is difficult, introspectively, to analyze the

transitive parts, such parts, nevertheless, do exist.

Lfiml

27

However, too frequently according to James, such difficulties
have led philosophers to deny the existence of transitive
parts and, consequently, emphasize all the more the substan-
tive ones. Unable to catch hold of the feelings of relation
and forms of connection between the facts of the world, which
characterize the transitive parts, philosophers, like Hume,
have denied that feelings of relation exist-~not only rela-
tions ip_the mind, but most relations 223 of the mind as well.
Rather than viewing the mental life as a continuous flow,
Hume sees it as only a bundle or collection of different
perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable
rapidity, like bullets shot out of a gun.27

No philosophy should contain within it more than is real.
But, conversely, no philosophy should deny reality to things
even where such things are elusive and baffling. According
to James, the traditional sensationalist and intellectualist
philosophies of mind have either failed to recognize the
existence, or take into account the importance of, the
cognitive aspects of unnamed feeling-states in the life of
the mind. There are countless states of feeling all differ-
ent from each other but alike in that they have no names.
The feeling of a word may be there-~its rhythm and place--
but not the word itself. Our vain effort to recall it is
frustrating. The taste of wine remembered is different from
the taste of wine sipped. Again, there are differences

between experiences enjoyed for the first time and the same

28

experiences recognized as having been enjoyed before. We
feel differences but we cannot always say what they are.

Let us consider what these inarticulate feeling-states
are like. Take, for example, the following: "Wait!"
"Look!" and "Listen!" In each case, although no definite
object is in mind, our state of consciousness is different.
We assume a different attitude of expectancy as we success-
ively hear the three commands. Similarly with the inter-
rogatives, "Who?" "When?" and "Where?" Their felt meaning
is surely more than their difference of sound. We feel a
sense of direction, or anticipate some positive object, yet
no object is before us. These different states of expectency
are subjectively real but remain nameless. Try to recall a
forgotten name. Our state of consciousness is not one of
emptiness because we have no definite object in mind. We are
intensely active, searching. Perhaps someone proposes the
names Tom, Dick, and Harry. After each proposal we reply,
"No, I have some other name in mind. I'll recognize it when
you say it." In short, we say that we know what names do not
fit, but we cannot recall the one that does. We have a
feelipg for the object, but cannot bring it into conscious
awareness. It seems as though two different states are
simultaneously present: one, a state of knowing what is not
the case: the other, a state of feelipg what is the case.
The states expressed by "His name is on the tip of my tongue
. . . I know it" and "I know his name is not Harry" are dif-

ferent, but both are real. That we do not have names to

29
indicate these differences only points to the fact that our
language is inadequate to name the differences that do exist.

But such namelessness, according to James, is not incompatible

with existence.28

The point of much of James's discussion here is that
traditional psychologies recognize only definite images, the
substantive parts of experience, which form but the smallest
part of experience as it is actually lived.

The traditional psychology talks like one
who should say a river consists of nothing but
pailsful, spoonsful, quartpotsful, barrelsful, and
other moulded forms of water. Eyen were the pails
and the pots all actually standing in the stream,
still between them the free water would continue
to flow. It is just this free water of conscious-
ness that psychologists resolutely overlook.

Every definite image in the mind is steeped and
dyed in the free water that flows round it. With
it goes the sense of its relations, near and re-
mote, the dying echo of whence it came to us,

the value, of the image is all in this halo or
penumbra that surrounds and escorts it, --or
rather that is fused into one with it and has
become bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh;
leaving it, it is true, an image of the same thipg
it was before, but making it an image of Egat
thing newly taken and freshly understood.

As was the case with feelings of relations (transitive states),
feelings of tendency also play an important part in concep-
tual thought. But feelings are not chaotic and without direc-
tion. They center upon a nucleus, topic, image, or thing,
and give it meaning. A thing is what it means, but its
meaning cannot be separated from its feeling-states or pglg
of fripges.

Feeling-states are always associated with consciousness

of things (substantive states) as a kind of halo, psychic

30

overtone, suffusion, or fringe around them. It is like a
given musical note which soundsdifferent as it is played by
a clarinet or oboe. The almost-imperceptible overtones color
the same note differently because each instrument gives more
than just that note, zip,, the upper harmonics being differ—
ent, they enable us to distinguish the instruments. But the
harmonics are not usually heard separately: they blend with
the note, change its quality, and so it is heard differently.
In each case we hear the same note, say A-hbo, but what is
different, and so of interest, is that we hear and recognize
that it is played by an oboe or a clarinet. Even so our
mental life: "the waxing and waning brain-processes at every
moment blend with and suffuse and alter the psychic effect of
the processes which are at their culminating point."30

The important thing about a stream of thought is the
substantive state toward which it is moving--its conclusion:
ppgp state is its "topic," as James calls it.31 In all our
purposive thinking there is some topic or subject that is the
point toward which thought is directed or the nucleus around
which our conscious states center or focus. Many topics are
concerned with problems, the solutions of which are frus-
trated by "gaps" we cannot yet fill. Definite images, words,
or phrases, elude us: but, nevertheless, the vague, shadowy
phantoms of feeling of the right word or image encourage us
into active, intense, searching which leads to a determinate
state or solution. The determinate thought, or topic, is

the thing. The gap is the thing-before-cognition-felt-in-a-

31

fringe-of-relations. But the gap is not empty or ineffectual,
it is the thing itself uncognized. IE is ppgp something, or
someone, or somewhere, which gives our thought direction and
focus. But it is also the great "X" which passes judgment
upon images or phrases as they flash into awareness: it is
329 X Which rejects those candidates who do not answer to it
and recognizes those that do. The app of recognition is
insight or intuition. What is seen or intuited is a meaning.
Meaning, then, is feeling objectified in thought.

The topic of thought is like a resting-place: a feeling
of satisfaction or a ppppp of conclusion.32 Usually it is a
word or phrase or image, which resolves a problem or fills a
troublesome gap. Sometimes, it is the image of the "form"
of an opera, play, book, or even a philosophical system,
which lingers in our minds and on which we pass judgment when
the actual work is over.33 The meaning of every note in a
symphony (as well as the rests) is related to every other
note. On the basis of what went before, we anticipate what
follows. Every moment of the work is meaningful as it is
actually listened to. But the greatest meaning is the sense
of grasping its totality, its thingness, all at once.34

For James, the meaning of a given stream lies not in
the means to a conclusion, but in the conclusion itself.
Means exist for the sake of meanings, or ends. What differ-
ence does it make, he asks, if the means to some end are
different: "the means may be as mutable as we like, for the

'meaning' of the stream of thought will be the same."35

32
James argues the relative unimportance of the means from the
fact that when we reach a conclusion, we have usually for-
gotten most of the steps which led up to it. Most succinctly
stated, his argument runs as follows: "The practical upshot
of a book we read remains with us, though we may not recall
one of its sentences."36 But such simplistic treatment of an
important point is misleading and dangerous. James would
never sanction.§py means for the sake of a given end, nor
would he claim that gz§py_end is worthy of consummation.
But these questions raise moral issues which do not directly
concern us here.

A clear but rather trivial example from arithmetic, may
better reveal what James's point is. Let us assume that the
thing in mind, the conclusion of our train of thought (how-
ever short), is "4."37 We may arrive at the same "state" or
conclusion via different operations: some laborious and
mechanical: others more perspicuous or intuitive. For
example, "1 + l + l + l = h" and "5 - l = 4" and "2 x 2 = 4"
and "4 = h" are identical in meaning, even where the opera-
tions are different. In each case, the particular expres-
_s_i_gn_ is different, but the meaning is the same, lip... "Li."
James's own example is more interesting, but involves greater
complications. A diagram may help illustrate James's point
that where the end is the same, the mental means are unim-

portant or indifferent.

33

[Au—v" / ”\J/k

 

(Figure after James, Principles, I, 269.)

Let A be the substantive state from which five thinkers take
flight toward Z, another substantive state. Each thinker
takes a different path. "One gets to the conclusion by one
line, another by another; one follows a course of English,
another of German, verbal imagery. With one, visual images
predominate; with another, tactile. Some trains are tinged
with emotion, others not; some are very abridged, synthetic
and rapid, others, hesitating and broken into many steps.
But when the penultimate terms of all the trains, however
differing inter se, finally shoot into the same conclusion,
we say and rightly say, that all the thinkers have had sub—
stantially the same thought."38

If Tom takes the shortest and Harry the longest path,
where both paths lead to Z, there is no difference between one
path and the other regarding ends, only the means, Given,

for example, that Tom and Harry are both logicians, Tom is

©

Einer Salo Nisula 1970

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

34
judged to be better than Harry for the reason, simply, that
his path is shorter, i.e., indicates an economy of means,
or mental effort, which is the mark of a "good" logician.
James's point is that where such economy may be prized among
logicians, it is only one kind of value. The economy of
means, although otherwise valued, is irrelevant to the quality
of the conclusion. The fact is that both Tom and Harry reach
the same point.

The language of means and ends is unfortunate, for it
suggests a duality in which means are subordinated to ends.
But means and ends are not different in kind, they are ways
of talking about the same continuous process of thought.
When we talk about processes, we tend to emphasize the sub-
stantive states and neglect the transitive ones. We tend
to become more interested in the thought cognized than in
the process of cognition. When, for example, we talk about
the "products" of logical thought, i.e., formal proofs and
demonstrations, we overlook the actual processes which lead
up to them. And those processes seldom, if ever, resemble
the formal product. In our interest in ends we usually
fail to take account of all those fringe-relationships of
the transitive states which are the truly important elements
in the study of thought processes. When we review, for
example, the notes of some memorable lecture, all that re-
mains of the fullness of that occasion are naked thoughts,
unadorned meanings. With the passage of time, the halo of

35
fringes disappears and feelings desiccate. All that remains
of the pppal_experience are dry meanings encapsulated in
symbols.

The means/end relationship bears upon James's prag-
matism. His position here is an early statement of his
pragmatic theory of meaning. Essentially, the meaning of
any idea, concept, or, more generally, proposition, lies in
its practical consequences. By "practical consequences,"
James means concrete facts of experience, real effects. The
pragmatic method is a way of settling questions by reference
to consequent not antecedent conditions or phenomena. For
example, given that two propositions, p and q, lead to the
same consequences, they mean the same thing. Regardless of
how they may be stated, they are the same proposition. If,
however, neither p nor q lead to any observable consequences
they are practically meaningless. They mean nothing 22
pgpticular as far as our future conduct or action is con-
cerned.

Educational methods which concentrate mainly upon the
presentation of mere facts, or which deal primarily in
abstractions, may teach something. But facts alone are poor
fare compared to the feast which experience affords. In
experience thought is suffused with all the fringe relation-
ships of the transitive states which give the moment of
learning a value and meaning far more rich and interesting
than the meaning of the substantive states alone. We may

know about things perfectly well in thought. But if we are

 

36
not also acquainted with them in experience, a world of
feeling (reality) is lost.

Because of a deep-rooted belief stemming from ancient
times, man has been differentiated from other creatures by
his reason. Indeed, the standard definition of man is
"rational animal." As a consequence of this belief, tradi-
tional educational methods have been primarily concerned
with the education of man for the life of reason or spiritual
activity. The life of the body was for the most part over-
looked or systematically denied. From the Neo-platonic-
Christian tradition we even received the view that the body
was the prison of the soul. The very poverty of our language
regarding feeling-states or emotions can be partly attributed
to this neglect and sometimes contempt of our "earthly"
selves. James's emphasis in his psychology on the importance
of the life of the body--its feeling-states--is a healthy
corrective to the austerity and one-sidedness of the past.39

Up to this point, we have been primarily concerned with
the stream of consciousness from the point of view of the
subject who thinks. We must now consider more carefully the
nature of the object of consciousness. According to James,

"Human thought appears to deal with objects independent of

itself; that isI it is cognitivel or possesses the function
#1

 

of knowing.”0 Thoughts, in other words, are about things.
James is concerned here with the problem of the intention-
ality of consciousness, thought, or mind.u2 In the broadest

terms; this is the view that mind cannot be conceived

37
independently of the world which appears to it. Conscious-
ness is always consciousness of. . .. . Consequently, any
analysis of mind necessarily entails an analysis of extra-
mental facts, i.e., the world, or some aspect of it, as
thought's object.”3

According to James, the reason why we believe that
objects exist independently of particular subjects, is that
there are or may be many thoughts about the same object. For
example, an indefinite number of individuals may each have in
mind the same object, say, the flight of Apollo 11. In this
case, there were, undoubtedly, millions of thoughts, but only
pp; flight. It would be absurd to suppose that there were as
many flights of Apollo 11 as there were individuals who had
in mind ppép flight to the moon. The judgment that my thought
and your thought are both 2; the same object, is a claim
apppp some aspect of reality that is independent of either
of us. Therefore, we can agree that we have the same object
in mind when we can enumerate and compare its characteristics
and find that they agree in all essential points.

When I think of a given object on more than one occasion,
what is it that entitles me to believe that it is the ggpg
object that I have in mind? James's answer is curious. By
a sort of triangulation I project the given object into an
independent position from which it appears to both my past
and present thoughts. In some way or other, I compare my
thoughts of the given object with the object so projected

and directly see that they are the same. This sense of

38
sameness or identity is "the very keel and backbone of our

thinking."uu

By this, James means that sameness is a primi-
tive datum of experience. As in the case of the logical
Principle of Identity, sameness can neither be demonstrated
nor reduced to simpler terms. It is the basic given upon
which all our knowledge about things is subsequently con-
structed.

Our ideas of realities outside of thought grow out of
repeated experiences with objects that appear to us to be
the same. To the extent that individuals can reach agree-
ment regarding appearances, we have reason to believe in the
existence of external objects. Where a report is given by
one individual, but cannot be verified publicly, we tend to
disregard it as a report of some extra-mental fact and con-
sider it to be only a.private hallucination. Where our
reports do concur, we take them to be indicative of some
external reality which is the same for all of us and which
exists independently as a discrete object.

Without repeated experiences of the same object, it is
doubtful that the question of reality being extra-mental
would even arise. James asks us to consider the case of an
altogether unprecedented experience, for example, a new
taste in the throat. At this point, the question whether
it is a subjective quality of feeling, or an objective
quality felt, does not even arise. It is, James says,
simply that taste. But in describing my sensation to a

doctor, he may say that I have heartburn. At this point,

39
my particular sensation is identified with a quality already
existent extra mentem tuam, which I in turn have come to
know in experiencing it.45 In speaking of how children come
to know about things, James says: '

The first spaces, times, things, qualities, ex-

perienced by the child probably appear, like the

first heartburn, in this absolute way, as simple

beipgs, neither in nor out of thought. But later,

by having other thoughts than this present one,

and making repeated judgments of sameness among

their objects, he corroborates in himself the

notion of realities, past and distant as well as

present, which realities no one single thought

either possesses or efigenders, but which all may

contemplate and know.

Here, James seems to anticipate his later doctrine of pure
experience. According to this view, reality is neither
mental nor physical. It is neutral. The subsequent classi-
fication of things into mental or physical categories is
something we learn. For James, "mind" and "matter," so to
speak, are not the irreducible metaphysical substances of a
Descartes. 0n the contrary, they are, if you will, but two
ways of talking about the same reality, or neutral stuff of
experience. Hence "mind-talk" and "body-talk" have, for
James, a functional or practical value, not a metaphysical
one.

The ultimate nature of reality may be forever beyond
us. If for no other reason, it would be gross egotism to
suppose that mortal men should know with certainty the final,
absolute truth about the nature of things. We do well even

to judge truly some fact about ourselves. From James's

point of view, the judgment, "X is real," says very little

40

about X, but is indicative of a great deal about what men
take to be real. That you and I happen to agree that X is

reveals something about the workings of our minds.
Something, called X, appears to both of us and we take it
to be the same. X presents itself before our minds, but pg
give it a name and appoint it some value. Whatever X may
happen to be in itself is a question the answer to which
will forever elude us. Such questions, from a positivistio
point of view are no questions at all. They only lead to
pseudo-problems and metaphysical dead-ends. Not only can
we not know the real thing in itself, we can never be sure
whether there is any real sameness in things which appear
to us. James's principle of constancy only lays it down
that the mind makes continual use of the notion of sameness,
and if deprived of it, would have a different structure from
what it has.“7 What is taken to be the same is the meanipg
of things, not necessarily the things themselves. This is
what James says:

The mind must conceive as possible that the Same

should be before it, for our experience to be the

sort of thing it is. Without the psychological

sense of identity, sameness might rain down upon

us from the outer world for ever and we be none

the wiser. With the psychological sense, on the

other hand, the outer world might be an unbroken

flux, and yet we would perceive a repeated exper-

ience. Even now, the world may be a place in

which the same thing never did and never will

come twice. The thing we mean to point at may

change from top to bottom and we be ignorant of

the fact. But in our meaning itself we are not

deceived; our intention is to think of the same.

The name which I have given to the principle,

in calling it the law of constancy in our
meanings, accentuates its subjective character,

Al

and justifies us in laying it down as the most

important of all the features of our mental

structure.

Not all psychic life need be assumed to

have the sense of sameness developed in this

way. In the consciousness of worms and polyps,

though the same realities may frequently im-

press it, the feeling of sameness may seldom

emerge. We, however, running back and forth,

like spiders on the web they weave, feel our-

selves to be working over identical materials

and thinking them in different ways. And the

man who identifies the materials most isugeld

to have the most philosophic human mind.

In our encounter with the real world, we may never know
anything with absolute assurance. But we no doubt believe
that we can mean the same thing when we so intend. This is
the point of James's principle of constancy. And in meaning
the Same, thipgs come into being and are what we experience
them to be.“9 Beyond this, it is fruitless to go into the
question whether or not what we experience is really real.

We ordinarily tend to think of the object of thought as
a discrete thing without reference to our knowledge of it.
When we say, for example, "Columbus discovered America in
1492," most people would agree that the object in mind is
Columbus, or America, or, possibly, the discovery of America.
That is, we identify the object of thought with some kernal
or portion of the total stream of thought. Usually, we
identify it with the grammatical subject of a sentence. In
James's terms, we tend to identify the object of thought
with the "topic" or nucleus toward which the stream of
thought is directed--i.e., some substantive state. But,

according to James, "the Object of your thought is really

#2

its entire content or deliverance, neither more nor less."50
Strictly speaking, the object of thought is the fusion of

the topic of any given stream with its fringes. In the case
of our example, it is the entire sentence, "Columbus-
discovered-America-in—lfi92." If we wish to treat the object
here substantively, we must make a substantive out of it by
writing hyphens between all of the words in the sentence.

In this way, at least, we may capture something of the actual
meaning of the object which otherwise would be lost were we
only to attend to some portion of it.

Since the object of thought is a meaning, we can never
take hold of it again unless the whole context in which it
originally occurred is reproduced. And the probability of
an identical situation or state of affairs taking place a
second time is remote. Where such states of affairs can be
reproduced, they are probably uninteresting. Even in memory
we seldom accurately reproduce the total, original situation.
We usually add something to it or take something away. Given,
then, that the object of thought "is neither more nor less
than all that the thought thinks, exactly as the thought
thinks it, however complicated the matter, and however sym-
bolic the manner of the thinking may be,"51 it follows that
the greatest part of the life of mind is lost forever as
soon as objects pass beyond the moment of our present con-
sciousness. As psychologists, it is our duty to stick as

closely as possible to the thoughts we are studying. But

43
all that any psychologist can glean for study are the left-
overs of some recent harvest of an abundant mental life.

In working out his view of the relationship between
thought and its object, James rejects the atomism of earlier
psychologies and anticipates (but does not develop fully)
the views of recent phenomenologists. According to the
earlier associationist-psychology, whenever the object of
thought is complex, the thought of it must also be complex,
i.e., contain as many ideas as there are elements in the
object of thought. But James's point is that, "however
complex the object may be, the thought of it is one undivided

state of consciousness."52 For example, take some object,

 

like a pack of cards on a table. The thought "the pack of
cards is on the table" cannot be reduced to so many ideas
each corresponding to some card in the deck, or to the idea
of the table, or the legs of the table, and so on. It is
one thought with one object or meaning. Whenever we try to
describe one of our thoughts, we usually concentrate on a
particular aspect or portion of it and not the whole thought
as it is fringed in experience. In effect, we pull out of
the whole context some particular thing--e.g., the pack of
cards--and describe it. But in describing, say, the pack of
cards, we are now talking about something different from the
original thought in which the pack was only one element.
Yet, for the most part, when we describe the pack of cards,
we believe that we are describing the whole thought. We do

this for the reason that we become habituated to the practice

44

of attending to, and talking about, topics and not total
objects. In our example, the thought is not "a pack of
cards." It is an altogether different thing, namely, "the-
pack-of-cards-is-on-the—table." Here we are presented with
one undivided state of consciousness the object of which
(its meaning) implies not only the pack of cards, but every
one of the cards in it, the table--its color, size, parts,
and so on--, as well as the relation "being on." The state
of consciousness implied by the hyphenated sentence bears
very little resemblance to the thought "the pack of cards"
alone. Consequently, as James has said, "What a thought pp,
and what it may be developed into, or explained to stand for,
and be equivalent to, are two things, not one."53

In effect, we can never capture the fullness of the
fringed thought and talk apppp_it. For, like some will-o'-
the-wisp, it immediately eludes us. In talking about some
object, we focus upon its substantive parts and conceptualize
about them as though they were the total object. Hence, for
the conceiving state of mind, the world of meanings stands
above the things meant in a kind of changeless, platonic
Realm of Ideas. 0n the other hand, feelingly speaking, the
things meant continue to exist in the experiential world of
real time and space.

The function by which we identify a numerically distinct
and permanent subject of discourse is called conception.
The word conception properly denotes neither the conceiving

state of mind nor the object of conception, but the relation

L3, 5
between them, namely, "the function of the mental state in
signifying just that particular thing."54 Whenever we can
sufficiently identify any thing, event, or quality as a
pplp or ppgp, we have, at least in some minimal sense, a
conception of it. Accordingly, "A polyp would be a concep-
tual thinker if a feeling of 'Hollo! thingumbob again!’ ever
flitted through its mind."55 Briefly, then, conception
begins with the initial insight that we are experiencing
the same thing again.

When the conceptualizing state of mind brings into
focus some segment of the flowing mass of neutral stuff and
attends to lg steadfastly, without confusion, conception
results. Hence, in conception, objects have being. That
is, objects come into being whenever mindingand matteripg?6
are so related that discrete things emerge from the flux and
stand in their own right before the consciousness, independ-
ently, as things to be reckoned with.

A problem is bound to arise due to James's use of the
word "object." We can distinguish at least three different
meanings: (1) First, and this is the Common-sense view,
"object" refers to some discrete, concrete particular in
physical reality--e.g., that tree or ppgp.man--which exists,
or is held to exist objectively or independently of its
being known. (2) "Object" refers to the "topic" of a stream
of thought plpg its fringed relations. Hence, in this sense,
it corresponds to some total state of consciousness, in which

case then it is subjective. (3) "Object" refers to the

#6
meaning which emerges from (2). In this sense--the most
important one from the point of view of James's radical
empiricism--objects (meanings) emerge in conception, which
is a relation between (a) the conceiving state of mind, and
(b) the neutral stuff or "pure experience." Hence, under
this interpretation, the distinction between the world-out-
there and the world-in-experience vanishes. For the objective
and subjective worlds merge into a new, third world, which
is, if I may, a "conceptive" one. Here we must be careful
not to reduce the subject to (l), or some modification of it,
nor should we reduce (l) to the experiencing self or subject.
Both come together in the World of Meaning. Reality is, con-
sequently, a plenum of meanings.

The fifth characteristic of the stream of consciousness
to which James draws attention has to do with the choosing
activity of thought, or "selective attention." In James's
terms, consciousness "is always interested more in onegpart
p§_;ts object than in anotherI and welcomes and rejects, or
choosesl all the while it thinks."57 We are seldom aware
how incessantly our consciousness works in ways not ordin-
arily called choosing or selecting. For example, the
monotonous, steady tick of a clock, or the beat of a drum,
is broken up into rhythmic patterns by accenting the beat
differently. A dot-filled surface is organized in rows or
groups. Line segments are formed into discrete figures.

And so on. However, we do more than just organize elements

into meaningful shapes or patterns by uniting some and

47
keeping others apart. According to James, "We actually
ignore most of the things before us."58 From the swarming
continuum, devoid of shape and meaning, we emphasize aspects
of it by attending to but a minute fraction of the elements
that at any given moment impress themselves upon us. Such
selective attention is already apparent at the level of the
senses themselves.

According to James, the senses are but organs of selec-
tion which pick out those movements, sounds, colors, shapes,
and so on, which fall within the limits of possible experi-
ence. The eye cannot pick up all the wave lengths of light
nor can the ear pick up all the sound waves. While physics
teaches up that the outer world consists of more than meets
the eye or ear, the senses respond to those "signals" only
to which they are capable of responding and ignore the rest
as though they do not exist at all. In short, the world of
all possible sensations is already circumscribed for us by
the physical limitations of our sensory organs. And given
different "equipment,” sentient organisms perceive different
worlds.

As physical sensations are limited by the nature of the
sense organs, what we experience in conscious awareness is
determined by our habits of attention.59 James, following
Helmholtz, says that we notice only those sensations which
are signs to us of things. But things are only special

groups of sensible qualities to which, for practical or

[v.0

I (‘

aesthetic or other reasons, we happen to give substantive
names and elevate to a position of independence and integ-
rity.

On a somewhat higher level, what happens among the
sensations we get from each separate thing? According to
James, the mind selects again.

It chooses certain of the sensations to represent
the thing most truly, and considers the rest as
its appearances, modified by the conditions of
the moment. Thus my table-top is named square,
after but one of an infinite number of retinal
sensations which it yields, the rest of them
being sensations of two acute and two obtuse
angles; but I call the latter perspective views,
and the four right angles the true form of the
table, and erect the attribute squareness into
the table's essence, for aesthetic reasons of

my own. In like manner, the real form of the
circle is deemed to be the sensation it gives
when the line of vision is perpendicular to its
center--all its other sensations are signs of
this sensation. The real sound of the cannon

is the sensation it makes when the ear is close
by. The real color of the brick is the sensa-
tion it gives when the eye looks squarely at it
from a near point, out of the sunshine and yet
not in the gloom; under other circumstances it
gives us other color-sensations which are but
signs of this-~we then see it looks pinker or
blacker than it really is. The reader knows no
object which he does not represent to himself

by preference as in some characteristic distance,
of some standard tint, etc., etc. But all these
essential characteristics, which together form
for us the genuine objectivity of the thing and
are contrasted with what we call the subjective
sensations it may yield us at a given moment,
are mere sensations like the latter. The mind
chooses to suit itself, and decided what partic-
ular sensation she I be held more real and valid
than all the rest.

Even on the level of reasoning, the phenomenon of
selective attention is found to be omnipotent.61 For, as

James says, "all Reasoning depends on the ability of the

A9
mind to break up the totality of the phenomenon reasoned
about, into parts, and to pick out from among these the
particular one which, in our given emergency, may lead to
the proper conclusion. Another predicament will need
another conclusion, and require another element to be picked
out."62 By this criterion, the man of genius is the one who
always manages to pick out the right element at the right
time. If the "emergency" be theoretical, it is the ability
to pick out the right reason. If it involves a practical
situation, it is the ability to pick out the right pggpp,

At every stage the mind is presented with a multi-
plicity of sensations and experiences which indicate differ-
ent possible futures and meanings. In consciousness we
compare these with each other, selecting some and suppressing
the rest.” At every state of awareness or cognition, the
higher and more elaborate "mental products" are chosen from
the data selected by the next lowerstage or, as James says,
faculty. And the products of that stage, by the one below
it, which were sifted from an even larger amount of simpler
elements. Whereas we see insects by the thousands but fail
to take notice of anything important or distinctive about
them, the entomologist on the other hand may be wild with
excitment in seeing for the first time a particular kind of
beetle which hitherto he had only been aware of by descrip-
tion. Or again, let several men take a trip to Europe.

Each will bring back different impressions according to his

interests. One will talk about architecture, another

50
restaurants. A third, Europe's natural beauty. A fourth,
little or nothing at all since, perhaps, he was caught up
in his own private world of brooding and misery. In the
practice of painting we have an even better example. The
artist continually selects his objects, shapes, colors,
tones, and rejects everything which does not harmonize with
his purpose or conception. According to James, that unity
and harmony which gives a work of art its superiority over
nature, is wholly due to selective attention or elimination.63

The mind, in short, works on the data it receives
very much as a sculptor works on his block of
stone. In a sense the statue stood there from
eternity. But there were a thousand different
ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to
thank for having extricated this one from the
rest. Just so the world of each of us, howso-
ever different our several views of it may be,
all lay embedded in the primordial chaos of
sensations, which gave the mere matter to the
thought of all of us indifferently. We may,

if we like, by our reasonings unwind things

back to that black and jointless continuity of
space and moving clouds of swarming storms which
science calls the only real world. But all the
while the world pg_feel and live in will be that
which our ancestors and we, by slowly cumulative
strokes of choice, have extricated out of this,
like sculptors, by simply rejecting certain por-
tions of the given stuff. Other sculptors,
other statues from the same stone! Other minds,
other worlds from the same monotonous and in-
expressive chaos! My world is but one in a
million alike embedded, alike real to those who
may abstract them. How different must be the
worlds in the ggnsciousness of ant, cuttle-
fish, or crab!

The upshot of James's argument is that a thing may be present
to us a thousand times, but if we persistently fail to notice
it, it cannot be said to enter into any level of our exper-

ience. Similarly, because of individual differences, we may

51

take notice of things which to others have little or no
importanxaor reality. The world of my own choosing is but
one of an infinite number of possible worlds. But the world
I fashion for myself is neither more nor less real than the
world that someone else may fashion after his own design.

From the beginning, James thought of himself as an
empiricist. As early as 1879,65 he endeavored to defend
his empiricism, not merely as a method, but as an epis-
temological and metaphysical theory as well. Subsequently,
late in life, in order to distinguish his position from that
of the British empiricists, who held to an associationistic
and atomistic theory of mind, James christened his doctrine
"Radical Empiricism."

To be radical, an empiricism must neither

admit into its constructions any element that

is not directly experienced, nor exclude from

them any element that is directly experienced.

For such a philosophy, the relations that con-

nect experiences must themselves be experienced

relations, and any kipgkof relation experienced

must be accgunted as "real" as anything else in

the system.60

James proposed a return to "pure experience" as it is
lived through in the immediate flux of life. Instead of
assuming with Hume that discrete perceptions correspond to
discrete things, and that any perception of connection be-
tween things was only fictional,67 James maintained that
experience is continuous and that the separationcfexpeflence
intc> discrete parts was only secondary. He further main-
tained that we feel or perceive temporal and spatial rela-

tions just as we come to distinguish the separate "things"

they relate.

52

If there be such things as feelings at all,
then so surely as relatipns between objects exist
in rerum natura, so surely, and more surely, do
fgelings exist to which these relations are known.
There is not a conjunction or a preposition, and
hardly an adverbial phrase, syntactic form, or
inflection of voice, in human speech, that does
not express some shading or other of relation
which we at some moment actually feel to exist
between the larger objects of our thought. If we
speak objectively, it is the real relations that
appear revealed; if we speak subjectively, it is
the stream of consciousness that matches each of
them by an inward coloring of its own. In either
case the relations are numberless, and no exist-
ing language is capable of doing justice to all
their shades.

We ought to say a feeling of and, a feeling
of if, a feeling of ELIE, and a ree‘i'ffig of py,
quite as readily as we say a feeling of blue or
a feeling of cold. Yet we do not: so inveterate
has our habit become of recognizing the existence
of the substantive parts alone, that language
almost refuses to lend itself to any other use.68

The question, How do relations relate? finds a solution
in James's new account of experience. Until James, philoso-
phers were puzzled by this question because they confused
perception with conception. Percepts are given in immediate
experience, fringed in all their relations. But concepts are
mental constructions which dissect experience into discrete
parts. In perception we pgg pack-of-cards-is-on-the-table:
conceptually, however, we pay distinguish between "pack,"
"on," and "table" and talk about them as though they were the
objects in mind. For James, perceptual experience is con-
tinuous. But for purposes of discourse or analysis, exper-
ience is atomized--i.e., made discrete--by an act of thought
or conception. In conception, then, meanings emerge from
the flux of experience and stand before the mind. As repre-

sentatives of experience, or surrogates of reality, meanings

53
are endowed with the respectability of Thinghood. Meanings,
if you will, are entertained by the mind §§_;£_they were
Things-in-themselves, each being an Object69 with sovereignty
of its own. But, we continue to suspect, they only bear a
mandate from some superior authority whose inscrutable

nature shall forever remain a mystery.

Summary: Unlike traditional theories of mind, which
begin with "simple sensations" and then proceed to construct
higher mental states out of their association and integration,
James places the experiencing Self in the midst of the flux
of things in which the fullness of conscious life is taken
as the immediate datum for psychological inquiry. But since
the knower is intimately connected with what is known, any
description of the mental life, or stream of consciousness,
necessarily entails an analysis of the world which appears
to it.

In his analysis, James distinguishes five characteristics
of the stream of thought. First, thoughts are essentially
private. Whereas we are directly acqpainted with our own
thoughts and feelings, we can only know gpppp mental states
in others. Second, the stream of thought is in constant
change. This is so for the reason that every state of con-
sciousness corresponds to some physical change in the brain.
Consequently, a given state of consciousness can never recur
and be identical with what it was before. For even at the

simplest level, where we meet, so to speak, the same object

54
a second time, we recognize it as the same object we met
before. However, our second meeting is conditioned by the
experience of the first. And given a favorable or unfavor-
able acquaintance initially, we greet it with joy or regret
or indifference a second time. But not only is the exper-
ience modified by virtue of some physical change in our
neurological make-up, the situation in which we greet an
object a second time, while perhaps similar, is never the
same.

Third, whereas the stream of consciousness is sensibly
continuous, we nevertheless discriminate between its "transi-
tive" and "substantive" states. Transitive states correspond
to feelipgs and so are subjective. Substantive states
correspond to thoughts and so are objective. In effect, we
have knowledge 9; things in feeling, but we know gpppp them
in thought. But thoughts and feelings are only different
states of the same stream or ways of describing the manifold
of experience. In thought we endeavor to take hold of the
stream of felt relations and contemplate them for a time
before they change or fade away. However, we can never
capture the fullness of the experience in thought as it is
actually lived-through in feeling. Because of the elusive
nature of feelings and the poverty of language in terms
whereby we may express them, feelings of relation and other
unnamed states have been largely ignored by traditional
philosophies of mind. Rather, they have tended to concen-

trate mainly upon the substantive states of consciousness.

55

Hence, the very nature of reality as we tend to conceive
it conventionally has been defined in terms which largely
ignore the realities of subjective experience: realities
which are felt in a halo of fringes but which when con—
ceptualized stand before the mind in bare outline and
utmost simplicity. Whereas the "topic" is the focal point
or meaning of the stream from the conceptual point of view,
the pppgl "Object" of thought includes all the fringed
relations that are directly given in experience and which
are felt to be part of the stream.

There are numerous problems that are associated with
. James's treatment of the relationship between thought and
its object, which may in part account for the omission of
the fourth characteristic from the list of characteristics
in the ppiefer Course and the Talks to Teachers. According
to James, human thought appears to deal with objects inde-
pendent of itself: that is, consciousness possesses the
function of knowing. The substance of his discussion is
this: We ordinarily tend to think of the object of thought
as a discrete thing without reference to our knowledge of
it. From a common-sense point of view, we tend to believe
that objects exist out there, so to speak, just the way we
perceive them. {While James postulates the existence of
external objects, we can only know them in terms of our
own experience. To ask what an object is in itself apart
from any knowledge of it is to pose a meaningless question.

Since objects-out-there are what we experience them to be,

56
they are, then, what they pggp to us. In conceptual exper-
ience meanings emerge and stand before the mind as objects
of thought. In short, meanings represent the external world
to the mind. Consequently, the distinction between objec-
tive and subjective realities vanishes in light of a new
account of reality which is conceptive.

Finally, the fifth aspect of consciousness is that it
exhibits purposiveness and choice. Whereas the mark of
intelligence in any creature is that it behaves purposively,
the main import of James's discussion of the criteria of
mentality in a phenomenon lies in the ability to make
choices. In brief, James's concept of consciousness also

entails a commitment to freedom and purposive action.

CHAPTER III

BELIEF AND ACTION

The function of the conceiving state of mind is to
focus upon an object and grasp its meaning. According to
James, belief is "the mental state or function of cognizing

/Eonceiving7 reality."1 It is one's assent to the truth of

 

a statement about a given state-of-affairs which is taken

to be real.2 Belief, or the sense of reality, is a kind of
yea-feeling or emotion in which we willingly consent to the
truth of a proposition or are inclined to act in a certain
way toward the state-of-affairs so cognized. The activity of
thought, then, comes to an end when conception seizes upon a
belief which is inwardly stable, clear, and distinct. In
such a state, when the mind is free from doubt and conflict,
the body is prepared or p33 to act toward the object of belief
in a manner appropriate to the state-of-affairs in question.
Hence, cognitively speaking, the state cf belief is char-
acterized by repose or inactivity: however, "practically"3
speaking, it is characterized by a disposition to act toward
the object of belief. One need not act in every case: it is
sufficient only that we be prepared to act should it happen
to be the case that a given belief were put to a test or

came into question.

57

58

For James, the true opposite of belief is not the state
of disbelief: it is dppppe-or, what amounts to the same
thing, ingui’ry."L Whenever a state-of-affairs is inadequately
cognized, we continue to inquire into its conditions and
reality until such time as we no longer feel any doubt about
its meaning. The extent to which we may pursue any question
is governed by our interest in it. But no question can be
settled absolutely, unless we close our mind to it. The
point at which each of us closes his mind to a given question
is probably different. If for no other reason, we are inter—
ested in different things.5 Consequently, our interests not
only govern what we take to be true, they govern what we
take to be real. As our interests change, so will our
beliefs regarding truth and reality change. As children, we
may believe that Santa Claus is real. And, to the extent that
our belief is not frustrated. Santa Claus is real. However,
with the passing years, the consequences of believing in
Santa no longer seem to support our belief. And, sooner or
later, while we can still imagine him to exist, we no longer
believe that he is real.6

We all know the difference between imagining a thing to
exist and believing it to be real. In the case of belief,
the mind not only grasps some definite object, but it holds
that object to have real existence independent of our idea
of it. Beliefs always involve objects that we take to be
real. They never involve objects we take to be only imaginary.

However, the question boils down to this: By what criteria

59

do we decide between what is real and what is only imaginary
by way of belief?
James asks us to consider the following case:

Suppose a new-born mind, entirely blank and
waiting for experience to begin. Suppose that it
begins in the form of a visual impression . . .
of a lighted candle against a dark background,
and nothing else, so that whilst this image lasts
it constitutes the entire universe known to the
mind in question. Suppose, moreover . . . that
the candle is only imaginary.,and that no 'orig-
inal' of it is recognized by us psychologists
outside. Will this hallucinatory candle be be-
lieved in, will it have a real existence for the
mind?

What possible sense (for that mind) would
a suspicion have that the candle was not real?
What would doubt or disbelief of it imply? When
we, the onlooking psychologists, say the candle
is unreal, we mean something quite definite,
viz., that there is a world known to us which is
real, and to which we perceive that the candle’
does not belong: it belongs exclusively to that
individual mind, has no status anywhere else,
etc. It ex ists, to be sure, in a fashion, for
it forms the content of that mind's halluci-
nation: but the hallucination itself, though
unquestionably it is a sort of existing fact,
has no knowledge of other facts; and since these
other facts are the realities par excellence for
us, and the only things we believe in, the
candle is simply outside of our reality 9rd
belief altogether.

By the hypothesis, however, the mind which
sees the candle can spin no such considerations
as these about it, for of other facts, actual
or possible, it has no inkling whatever. That
candle is its all, its absolute. Its entire
faculty of attention is absorbed by it. It is,
it is that; it is there; no other possible candle,
or quality of this candle, no other possible
place, or possible object in the place, no al-
ternative, in short, suggests itself as even
conceivable: so how can the mind help believing
the candle real? The supposition that it might
possibly not do so is, u der the supposed con-
ditions, unintelligible.

60
In short, unless we have other ideas which contradict our
belief in the reality of some object, we will ipso facto
believe it to be real. In the case of the illustration
above, we would posit the candle as the sole, absolute
reality.8 This point was also recognized by Spinoza long
ago. According to him, "opinion" or "imagination" is alone
the cause of falsity.9 But falsity consists only in inade-
quate knowledge which confused ideas involve.10 In so far
as I perceive Pegasus (a winged horse), without relation to
anything else, Pegasus exists.11 For what else can it be
"to perceive a winged horse than to affirm of the horse that
is has wings?"12 But, on the other hand, if the idea of
Pegasus is joined with another idea which negates its exis-
tence, or is an inadequate idea of a winged horse, then,
according to Spinoza, the mind must necessarily deny its
existence. Briefly, then, so long as we can see no impossi-
bility or contradiction, we may continue to hypostasize the
existence of things. However, if our hypostatizations are
based upon false opinion, which inadequate ideas involve,
we are inevitably led into contradictions.

The whole distinction between what is real and what is
only imaginary has to do with two basic facts: (1) on
several occasions I may think of a given thing differently:
and (2) when I compare my ideas about it, I may choose which
one I will believe.13 If I imagine only a horse with wings,
that image is not contradicted by anything else. In that
situation, my winged horse and the place in which it appears

Al
are equally real. However, if I were to carry my idea of a
winged horse into the context of a world in which I know that
horses do not have wings, then py Pegasus would be revealed
to me for what it is, namely, a figment of my imagination--
albeit, perhaps, still a cherished companion in imaginative
flights into dreamland, or mythology.

For most of us--perhaps all of us at one time or another--,
some "dream-object"1n may take hold with such tenacity that it
is virtually impossible for us to believe that it is not real.
Even where we are otherwise convinced, we continue to half-
suspect that it is after all quite real, even though nobody
else seems to think so. To conjecture what these dream-
objects are in each case would probably challenge the powers
of the most inventive minds. But one thing at least is clear.
In the light of new experiences, we can see that the dreams
of Icarus cannot begin to compare to the realities of Apollo
ll. I

The border-line between imagination and reality cannot
be drawn sharply. Our conceptions of reality vary too
greatly and change too rapidly. In choosing which way to
think about objects, we tend to adhere to those beliefs which
further our interests or enable us to predict the outcome of
future states-of-affairs or which form more coherent patterns
in thought. Those things which are most consistent with the
above ends, we tend to accept as being real. Those things
which do not further such ends, we take to be only imaginary.

In so far as there are no ideas which contradict, say, our

62
belief in an almighty and benevolent God, then the goodness
and power of God cannot be questioned. But to the extent
that we perceive imperfection and evil in our world, then
we may not only doubt God's benevolence and power, we may
come to deny his existence as well.

According to James, "The total world of which the philos-
ophers must take account is thus composed of realities plpg
the fancies and illusions."15 Although imaginary objects do
not have the same existence as real things, they still have
some existence. If they did not, we could not even entertain
them in the imagination. "fig objects of fancy, fig errors, fig
occupants of dreamland, etc., they are in their way as inde-
feasible parts of life, as undeniable features of the Universe,

as the realities are in their way."16

Vy winged horse occup
pies every bit as much the same mental space as real horses
do. The fact that we find no winged horses in concrete ex-
perience only points to the fact that there aren't any: not
to the fact that there can't be winged horses. The idea of a
winged horse involves no logical impossibility. If it did,
I could not have such an idea since, by definition, it would
be impossible.17 But objects of imagination are not imposs-
ible objects for experience. It may be the case that some
such objects will forever remain only in the world of imagi-
nation. But it is not necessarily the case that they all
will. For in some cases, what we only first conceive in

imagination, we can later bring into real existence.‘ If

this was not so, then it would seem that we would have to deny

63
all those products of thought which have given rise to
civilization and modern life, which include monstrous engines
of war as well as works of art and our own children, at least
where they were first conceived in thought. To deny such
things is obviously absurd.

The two-fold division of ideas into those which stand
for realities and those which do not, seems to be the sim-
plest way of classifying our conceptions. However, James
says, "there are more than two sub-universes of which we take
account . . . For there are various categories both of illu-
sion and of reality. . . ."19 According to James, most of
us recognize and discriminate from each other at least seven
sub-universes, or "worlds," which include the following:

(1) The world of sense or physical reality.

(2) The world of (natural) science.

(3) The world of ideal relations and abstract concepts.

(U) The world of "idols of the tribe," or group
prejudices.

(5) The world of supernaturalism: religion, mythology,
or fable.

(6) The world of individual opinion.

(7) The world of sheer madness and vagary.19
Our tendency is to think of these various worlds disconnect-
edly: and When we are dealing with one of them, we more or
less lose sight of the others. However, if we were to be
objective we would endeavor to assign to each object of our
thought its proper place in one of the worlds as well as see

-the relation of each world to the others.20

64

Every object of thought, according to James, can at last
be placed in one of the worlds listed above. But where a
given object is to be placed is a matter of no little dispute
in some cases. Since we are all disposed toward things dif-
ferently, there is no one natural order to things upon which
we can all agree. If we were disinterested in things, we
would probably have much less difficulty in agreeing on
where we should place them. About the most that we can pre-
sently conclude is that each world is real after its fashion
and exists so long as we are cognizant of it. But with the
lapse of interest or attention, a world may collapse and sink
into nothingness.21

Each of us has certain predominant habits of attention.
Such habits are ways of looking at things, or sets, which
dispose us toward one world or another. The world toward
which we are so disposed then becomes for us pre-eminently
real. In terms of this world, we then pronounce judgment
upon all conceptions and find them to be real or not real.
Real conceptions are the beliefs we hold and are prepared to
act upon. Those which we find not real, we entertain with
varying degrees of sympathy and tolerance, from benignity,
amusement, dislike, to outright hostility and condemnation.
From the point of view of (2), the world of science, so long
as my winged horse does not pretend to be a real horse, it
may fly in (5). the world of mythology, to its heart's con-
tent. But if from (6), individual opinion. I claim that

65

Pegasus is real, then those in the world of natural science
may wish to place me in (7), the world of sheer madness.22

is we shall soon see, most men hold thatiflfings of sense
are the rock-bottom reglg. Hence the world of physical
reality becomes the "absolutely real world's nucleus,"23
from which we ultimately judge all things. And given similar
physiological equipment, we are bound to judge things of
sense, 1's. similarly. At this level, at least, there is
considerable agreement. But other things are real to the
extent that we are interested and attend to them. For some,
things of science, 2's, are more real than 5'3, supernatural
entities. For others, like extreme Platonists, the world of
3's, ideal forms, constitute the whole of reality, everything
else being illusion. But even for the Phatonist, he must
admit that he cannot escape the reals of sense experience
irrespective of what he chooses to call them. We feel a pain
just as surely whether we call it real or only imaginary. To
say we are in pain but cannot feel it would be meaningless.
From a larger view, it is but sheer dogmdflsm to say that only
so-and-so's are real. For in the strict and ultimate sense
of "existence," everything which can be thought, can be
thought to exist as an object in we World.2u’ And from the
existence of an object, we can infer the existence of some
interested intelligence whose object it 18.25

The mere fact that an object appears before my mind is
not, however, a sufficient reason for me to take it to be

:real. It may be a reality for someone else: or it may be

66

a reality for no one. It may be only imaginary. What it
takes for an object to be real requires something more.
Beyond its mere appearance before some mind, the object

must also be interesting and important to the individual

who apprehends it.26 Objects which are neither interesting
nor important we tend to disregard. To the extent that
objects fade from consciousness, they gigappear.into oblivion
and unreality.

In the relative sense, then, the sense in
which we contrast reality with simple unreality,
and in which one thing is said to have— more re-
ality than another, and to be more believed,
reality means simply relation to our emotional
and active life. This is the only sense which
the word ever has in the mouths of practical
men. In this sense, whatever excites and stim-
ulates our interest is real; whenever an object
so appeals to us that we turn to it, accept it,
fill our mind with it, or practically take
account of it, so far it is real for us, and
we believe it. Whenever, on the contrary, we
ignore it, fail to consider it or act upon it,
despise it, reject it, forget gt, so far it is
unreal for us and disbelieved.

 

When Hume said that belief was nothing but "a more vivid,
lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object than
the imagination alone is ever able to attain,"28 he seems to
have been expressing a similar idea.

The consciousness of Self, then, is the hook upon which
the chain of living realities dangles. Those objects which
luave an immediate sting, or which "grab" us,29 form the first
links in the chain. Next, those objects most continuously
related to the first. And so on. Only when an object fails
t0 sting us does it cease to be part of our chain of beliefs.

67
For ”Whatever things have intimate and continuous connection
with my life are things of whose reality I cannot doubt."30
Where things do not sting the Self and stick to it, it is
hard to believe that they are quite real. In states of
extreme depression, we may lose our sense of reality alto-
gether.

Clearly, James defines reality in terms that are rele-
vant to the individual. For if something does not mean
anything to mgr-i.e., isn't "gutsy"--, I cannot seriously
believe it or take it to be quite real. A great problem in
education today has to do with the question of relevance.
With greater and greater empahsis upon scientific and theo-
retical matters, less and less personal contact between
students and teachers, new learning techniques which "program“
students or stanchion them, like cattle, before "teaching
machines," increased social and family pressures to get
ahead or keep out of the draft, and so on, the current student
rebellion against the "Establishment" is not too surprising.
To the extent that we pursue knowledge in a purely "objec-
tive," scientific way, we may find ourselves losing sight of
the several other worlds which must be taken into account if
we are to recognize and fully appreciate what James called
the ”absolutely real reality,“ or‘ggggl'world.

The forms of reaction today are numerous. But perhaps
the most significant form of reaction is the emphasis now
being placed upon the subjective life, its inner states or

feelings. The liberal use of drugs may be an over-reaction

69
to the previous limitations placed upon mind-explorations.
Perhaps it is a desperate measure. In any case, this inward
turning upon the subjective life as it is lived through in
experience may indicate a genuine need to get back to the
real thing-~the individual person and what he finds impor-
tant and interesting.31

For the infant, the world is one primal chaos. In the
earliest stages of life, he cannot even differentiate it
from himself. The first sign of Selfhood, so to speak,
appears when the child can make some rough, yet fairly
determinate "judgment“ between himself and his world:
between his immediate feeling of thisness or "Self," and his
feeling of thatness or "not-Self." In the beginning, then,
Two Things: Ehig and phage-two "sciousness"--mutually re-
lated in ggnsciousness.

From the moment of first awareness, we continue to
differentiate aspects of the primal stuff, beginning with
the immediate data of sense experience. Initially, we may
only differentiate between the pleasure- or pain-giving
qualities of things. Then sensations of warmth and cold,
light and dark, hard and soft, sweet and sour, and so on.
Throughout life we continue to make finer and sharper dis-
‘tinctions between things of sense, such that, for example,
an expert can distinguish between a given Burgundy from
neighboring vineyards, or between vintages of the same grape.
But all these things are of immediate sense experiences only.

They are in no way abstract or "ideal." The bulk of later

69
learning in formal institutions deals with abstract problems
and the development of conceptual tools for their solution.
And as we move up the ladder of abstraction, we may even
ascend to heights from which the reality of things in con-
ppppp may no longer be perceived. Where this is the case,
objects of abstract thonght nay erjoy yerhaps only a most
precarious existence, like renegades from the world of
imagination which may belie their author's sense of reality.

The above account is admittedly over-simplified. Never-
theless, the main point is that ;p sensation experience
begins, and pp sensation experience shall return. For sen-
sible objects are either (a) our realities, or (b) the test
of our realities.32 And unless conceptual objects have
sensible effects, we cannot believe that they stand for any-
thing practically real. If, for example, we wish to decide
whether §.represents some reality, then we should connect
glp claim to legitimacy with its "parent" facts of sensation.
Where such facts can be discovered and we can connect 5 with
them, then we may acknowledge y to be a legitimate concept.
However, where such facts cannot be discovered, then 3 is
forced to remain a bastardly notion, at least until such
time as it can make practical connections.

While sensations are the test of practical realities,
there is a priority among them which seems to correspond to
the traditional classification between primary and secondary
qualities. Secondary qualities vary from individual to

individual as well as from moment to moment. The particular

7O
sensation of color that I am enjoying varies as the day
grows brighter. In the dark, I cannot see it at all. The
size of an object which I see in the distance looks small
as compared to its size when I am at close range. The
fragrance of a rose disappears when I am too far removed
from the rose itself or when its particular fragrance blends
with the fragrances of other flowers in the garden. The
whistle seems to vary in pitch as the train approaches and
then passes me by. The stick looks bent when half-submerged
in the water, and so on and on. However, while secondary
qualities are immedtately perceived, I cannot always count
on being able to perceive them in the same way, nor can I
be certain that the stick which I see is not bent. Visually
I see a bent stick. But if I am in doubt about it, I need
only go to where I see the stick, take it up, and run my hand
over it. If my hand "tells" me that it is straight, then
the stick is straight. If I still remain in doubt about the
matter, then, unfortunately, I must remain in doubt, for I
am without recourse. Perhaps I say, "Oh, but I'll ask Tom."
But all that Tom can do is to look to see whether it is bent.
If he is in doubt, he can run his hand over the stick too,
thereby confirming or disconfirming my belief. Where we both
believe that the stick is straight, then there are at least
two reasons for believing that it is straight. Should we
disagree, we may call on Harry. But all that Harry can do
is. . . . And so on. Beyond the sense of touch, there is no

higher court of appeals for practical claims. To insist upon

71
some further test, is to go beyond the limits of human sen-
sibility. And to persist in such a query is simply unrea-
sonable.

As James pointed out, "It is an tangibles, then, that
things concern us most; and the other senses, so far as their
practical use goes, do but warn us of what tangible things
to expect."33 In a similar way Berkeley also argued that
the other senses are but organs which anticipate tactile or

a Consequently, for both Berkeley and

muscular sensations.3
James,35 the statement "Tom, I see water on the road about
t-ha1f-mile ahead" can be interpreted to mean that, at 60
m.p.h., both Tom and I should expect to be able to get out
of the car in approximately 30 seconds, wet our hands, quench
our thirst, soak our feet, or otherwise do what we do when we
believe that water is before us and that we have a disposition
to use it. But if we can do none of these things, then we
must be content to believe that there is no water immediately
present and that I was mistaken when I said that there was.
To be sure, I saw something--i.e., I had certain visual
sensations--, but what I saw was not in fact water. Perhaps
it was only a mirage: a stream of hot air across which dis-
tant objects were reflected, much like objects are reflected
in a pool. which I took to be real water.
If we drove no further, my claim that there is water
ahead could not be challenged by Tom. However, should we

continue to drive, we could expect to be able to test my

claim and show it to be true or false. Ordinarily, in such

72
a situation, I would not be shaken to find out that I was
wrong. That kind of mistake frequently happens. It is a
commonplace error. But, other things considered, if the car
were heating up, or I were in desperate need of water to
drink, the truth or falsehood of the statement would then
be of grave concern. For in believing that there is water
ahead, I would act on that belief in a most interested, ser-
ious, and determined way. And, in a given situation, depend-
ing on what I believe and how I was prepared to act, I may
even wager my life on a certain outcome or set of consequen-
tial facts.

My belief that there is water.ahead is made true when
subsequent experiences are reallppd and which experiences
correspond to the belief in question. Where I am practically
concerned, the truth of a belief is of great interest. It is
also important, for the consequences of believing it to be
true, when it may be really false, could be disastrous. On
the other hand, where neither Tom nor I have any immediate
felt needs and the car is operating satisfactorily, the
question of there being water ahead may not even arise, or,
if it did, we probably would not give it a second thought.

In the next 30 seconds we would drive on, unaware and uncon-
cerned whether my passing remark was true or not.

In brief, the same state-of-affairs excites us differ—
ently at different times and under different conditions.

When I am thirsty and tired, I want to know if I can soon

expect some relief. Consequently, I become interested when

73

someone remarks that he sees a place ahead. As a young child,
I may have recited the Lord's Prayer ten-thousand times
without ever believing that God exists. But now, alone,
afraid, in urgent need of help, I cry out, "My God, hear
me!"--as though someone were ready at hand to assist me 3;
gply he could hear my call. At that moment, I act upon a
belief that something or someone is out there, so to speak,
who can help. And so I wait; then call again. And again.
When nothing happens, I give up hope. I fall into despair.
I do nothing. I cannot act, for I believe nothing. And so I
linger and suffer to live until reality escapes me altogether.

As James has said, "The quality of arousing emotion, of
shaking, moving us or inciting us to action, has as much to
do with our belief in an object's reality as the quality of
giving pleaSure or pain. . . . Speaking generally, the more a
conceived object excites us, the more reality it has. . ."36
Take, for example, the fear of snakes. Our fear may be so
great that we may actually believe we see snakes there, there,
and everywhere. We may be so set in our belief that we are
not only prepared to jump away from real snakes, but we
actually take all sorts of other things to be snakes and find
ourselves jumping away from them. Or. for example, take the
thought of falling from the edge of a precipice. Now if I
were absolutely convinced that I would not be killed or
injured, I should not have to hesitate one instant before I
jumped from the precipice. The idea of jumping or falling

could concern me less. For what could be of concern if I

7Q

were absolutely certain that I would not die or be hurt in
any way. What makes the idea of falling or jumping emotion-
ally exciting, is my firm belief that I am very much a man
and that such an act could very quickly put an end to all of
my concerns. I am fully persuaded that only a fool or a
madman could jump without hesitation or a moment's pause.
But where we are neither stupid nor mad, but nevertheless
decide to jump, that decision is of absolutely utmost concern.
For then we fully believe that we will die, and in full aware-
ness of that fact and its consequences, deliberately go ahead
and commit self-slaughter.

When James wrote "I take it that no man is educated who
has never dallied with the thought of suicide,"37 he seems
to be saying that no man is educated who has never pondered
the question whether life is worth living. Unlike the fool
who knows no better, or the madman who thinks he is God, the
normal, intelligent human being has a solid grasp on the
meaning of human mortality. Even so, there are moments when
he is likely to ponder the question of the value of life and
come to a decision that it is not worth living. This is
especially so when he believes that he has failed either to
achieve his "ideal" goals, or when he believes he has failed
to succeed in his pursuits relative to others with whom he
sees himself in competition. Needless to say, when one does
not compete or has no ends in mind, one cannot 232;; but
neither can he succeed. This is so for the reason, simply,

that he hasn't attempted anything. The fool or madman

75

cannot succeed in suicide. They can only have fatal acci-
dents. Only a thoughtful human being can take his own life
deliberately. The reason why most men who contemplate
suicide never manage to kill themselves probably has little
to do with the notion that it is sinful. It has to do,
rather, with the structure of belief-systems. The belief in
life is stronger than the belief in death. That seems to be
in the very nature of things. And so long as we can believe
something and have hope for a better future, we can endure
almost anything, even ourselves. The decision ppp to jump,
then, is a form of action just as much as the decision to
jump. It is even a "higher" form of decision. For to sus-
pend action in the presence of an emotionally tense situation
is the greatest power we possess as intelligent beings. And
such power "is the highest result of education."38

In moments of great passion, the "natural man" acts
without restraint.39 Deep-down feelings bring him to act in
ways he could not perhaps have forseen, but once there cannot
help acting upon again. In those moments, feelings move him
to act without benefit of thought or due process of delibera-
tion. His feelings are characterized by an emotion of
strongest conviction. As Walter Bagehot wrote:

The Caliph Omar burnt the Alexandrian

Library, saying: 'All books which contain what

is not in the Koran are dangerous. All which

contain what is in it are useless!’ Probably

no one ever had an intenser belief in anything

than Omar had in this. Yet it is impossible to

imagine it preceded by an argument. His belief
in Mahomet, in the Koran, and in the sufficiency

76

of the Koran, probably came to him in spon-
taneous rushes of emotion; there may have been
little vestiges of argument floating here and
there, but they did not justify the strength
of the emotion, still less did they create it,
and they hardly even excused it. . . . Pro-
bably, when the subject is thoroughly examined,
conviction will be found to be one of the in-
tensest of human emotions, and one most closely
connected with the bodily state. . . . Men in
these intense states of mind have altered all

. history, changed for better or worse the creed _
of myriads, and desolated or redeemed provinces -
or ages. Nor is this intensity a sign of
truth, for it is precisely strongest in those
points in which men differ most from each other.
John Knox felt it in his anti-Catholicism;
Ignatius Loyola in his anti-Protestantism; and _
both, I suppose, felt it as much as it is poss- :
ible to feel it.L"O J

 

And according to James, all our deepest religious beliefs
are of this kind: "The surest warrant for immortality is
the yearning of our bowels for our dear ones; for God, the
sinking sense it gives us to imagine no such Providence or
help."ul Such feelings, however, are not limited to the
class of religious experiences. For example, we may express
profound conviction toward political and social matters, or
emotions of hatred or love toward others. The man-on-the-
street is always ready to give you a piece of his mind. He
may even express beliefs before he has thopght about them.
That is, in asking him what he thinks about a particular
matter, we may actually afford him the occasion to discover
for himself what he already believes but which, until the
moment of our asking, he only felt in some deep, movipg way.42
To believe a thing for no other reason than that we feel

it passionately is to characterize the mystics revelatory

77
experience of God, the madman's jump from a precipice, or
the mobs frenzied impulse to lynch someone, no matter who it
is, provided only that there is a hanging. In moments of
overwhelming conviction, with singleness of mind and pur—
pose, we enter into battle or flee from a foe, hail a con-
quering hero or stone a prophet, cry for mercy or bait a Jew.
In acts of deepest faith we commit others to flames or sing la
hallelujahs on the way to our own martyrdom. In short, the r
emotion of conviction may frequently be so great that motor

impulses sweep assent along with it without the least resis—

 

tance.

Let us now turn from the clearly psychological aspects
of belief, to the more nearly logical ones which are found
in James's account of meaning and truth.

In 1898, William James delivered a lecture before the
Philosophical Union of the University of California entitled
"Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results.”3 The
occasion of this address marks the beginning of the pragmatist
"movement."4u Pragmatism is often regarded as the only
genuine philosophical movement native to America. In this
lecture, James introduced the principle of pragmatism and
made a special application of it to religion. Nine years
later, in another lecture on pragmatism, he explicitly
credited C. S. Peirce with first introducing the principle
into philosophy.“5 The question of the "official" beginning
of the pragmatrfizmovement and who should be credited with

its inception--James or Peirce-~18, however, highly

79
y /
problematic.40 In any case, with the publication of James's

Egggmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinkipg (1907),
and The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel to Pragmatism (1909),

the general public came to recognize him as the champion of

 

the new movement if not also its founder.

According to James, pragmatism is first a method, and
then a genetic theory of what is meant by truth.“7 As a
method, pragmatism is at its best when we are asked to cor-
sider the meaning of statements which are of a metaphysical
kind. In order to understand the basic ideas behind prag-
matism, it is instructive to quote a long passage from
James's 1898 address in which he puts forth Peirce's "prin-
ciple of practicalism--or pragmatism."48 ‘

Peirce's principle, as we may call it, may
be expressed in a variety of ways, all of them
very simple. In the Popular Science Monthl for
January, 1878, he introduces it as follows: The
soul and meaning of thought, he says, can never
be made to direct itself towards anything but the
production of belief, belief being the demi-
cadence which closes a musical phrase in the
symphony of our intellectual life. Thought in
movement has thus for its only possible motive
the attainment of thought at rest. But when our
thought about an object has found its rest in
belief, then our action on the subject can firmly
and safely begin. Beliefs, in short, are really
rules for action; and the whole function of
thinking is but one step in the production of
habits of action. If there were any part of a
thought that made no difference in the thought's
practical consequences, then that part would be
no proper element of the thought's significance.
Thus the same thought may be clad in different
words; but if the different words suggest no
different conduct, they are mere outer accre-
tions, and have no part in the thought's mean-
ing. If, however, they determine conduct differ-
ently, they are essential elements of the sig-
nificance. . . . Thus to develop a thought's

 

 

79

meaning we need only determine what conduct it
is fitted to produce; that conduct is for us its
sole significance. And the tangible fact at the
root of all our thought-distinctions, however
subtle, is that there is no one of them so fine
as to consist in anything but a possible differ-
ence of practice. To attain perfect clearness
in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only
consider what effects of a conceivably practical
kind the object may involve--what sensations we
are to expect from it, and what reactions we
must prepare. Our conception of these effects,
then, is for us the whole of our conception of
the object, so far as that conception has posi-
tive significance at all.

This is the principle of Peirce, the
principle of pragmatism. I think myself that
it should be expressed more broadly than Mr.
Peirce expresses it. The ultimate test for us
of what a truth means is indeed the conduct it
dictates or inspires. But it inspires that con-
duct because it first foretells some particular
turn to our experience which shall call for just
that conduct from us. And I should prefer for
our purposes this evening to express Peirce's
principle by saying that the effective meaning
of any philosophic proposition can always be
brought down to some particular consequence, in
our future practical experience, whether active
or passive; the point lying rather in the fact
that the experience must be particular, than in
the fact that it must be active.

To take in the importance of this princi-
ple, one must get accustomed to applying it to
concrete cases. Such use as I am able to make
of it convinces me that to be mindful of it in
philosophical disputations tends wonderfully
to smooth out misunderstandings and to bring
in peace. If it did nothing else, then, it
would yield a sovereignly valuable rule of
method for discussion. . . .

One of its first consequences is this.
Suppose there are two different philosophical
definitions, or propositions, or maxims, or
what not, which seem to contradict each other,
and about which men dispute. If, by supposing
the truth of the one, you can foresee no con-
ceivable practical consequence 'to anybody at
any time or place, which is different from what
you would foresee if you supposed the truth of
the other, why then the difference between the
two propositions is no difference,--it is only

 

80

a specious and verbal difference, unworthy of
further contention. Both formulas mean radi-
cally the same thing, although they may say it
in such different words. It is astonishing to
see how many philosophical disputes collapse
into insignificance the moment you subject them
to this simple test. There can be no differ-
ence which doesn't make a difference-~no differ-
ence in abstract truth which does not express
itself in a difference of concrete fact, and of
conduct consequent upon the fact, imposed on
somebody, somehow, somewhere, and somewhen.

It is true that a certain shrinkage of values
often seems to occur in our general formulas
when we measure their meaning in this prosaic
and practical way. They diminish. But the
vastness that is merely based on vagueness is
a false appearance of importance, and not a
vastness worth retaining. The x' s, ifs, and

z' s always do shrivel, as I have Heard a
learned friend say, whenever at the end of

your algebraic computations they change into

so many plain a's, b's, and c' s; but the whole
function of algebra— is, after all, to get them
into that more definite shape; and the whole
function of philosophy ought to be to find out
what definite difference it will make to you
and me, at definite instants of our life, if
this world-formula or hat world-formula be

the one which is true.

As a method, then, pragmatism is a way of deciding
philosophical questions by appealing to future experience
with reference to particular cases of a practical nature.50
The pragmatnflzmethod tries to interpret every idea or notion
by tracing its practical consequences. Given two different
ideas, it simply asks what difference would it practically
make to anyone if one, rather than the other, were true.
Where no practical differences can be found, then they mean
practically the same thing. Beyond this, it is idle to
dispute further.51 In looking toward consequences which

are particular and concrete, the pragmatist places himself

 

Pl
solidly in the tradition of empiricism. As a new name for
old ways of thinking, James claims there is nothing new in
the pragmatkm method. Socrates was an expert at it, and
Aristotle used it methodically. Locum Berkeley, and Hume
were forerunners of pragmatism who made momentous contri-
butions to truth by means of it.52 With Peirce and James,
pragmatism generalizes itself, becomes conscious of a uni—
versal applicability, and pretends to "a conquering des-
t iny. "53

Let us now turn to the second aspect of pragmatism
mentioned earlier--the theory of truth.

The pivotal theme of James's Pragmatism is his account
of truth, which is a relation between an idea and its
object.54 Where a given statement corresponds to a given
state-of—affairs, it is true; where it does not, it is false.
Here, James's notion of correspondence as agreement with
reality is not, however, merely the old Lockian notion of
correspondence in which there is, in effect, a one-to-one
relation between an idea in the mind and some external object
of which it is more or less an exact copy. As James says,
"To copy a reality is, indeed, one very important way of
agreeing with it, but it is far from being essential."55
It soon becomes evident that James is speaking about a theory
of behavior with reference to objects of belief. For corres-
pondence or agreement with reality is a kind of working agree-

ment with respect to ways of behaving in a given situation

 

92
where we believe that something is the case.56 This is what

James said:

Where our ideas /do7 not copy definitely their
object, what does agreement with that object mean?
. . . Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant
an idea or belief to )e true," it says, "What con-
crete difference will its being true make in any
one's actual life? What experiences z§ez7 be
different from those which would obtain if the
belief were false? How will the truth be rea-
lized? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value
in experiential terms?" The moment pragmatism
asks this question, it sees the answer: True
ideas are those we can assimilate validate cor-
roborate and verif . False ideas are those that
we cannOL. That is 1e pract ca di '
makes to us to have true ideas; that therefore is
the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is
I'InOI'm as o

The truth of an idea is not a stagnant pro-
perty inherent in it. Truth} uppens to an idea.
It becomes true, is made true by events. Its
verity is in fact an event, a process, the pro-
cess namely of its verifying itself, its verifi:.
cation. Its validity is the process of its
validation.

To agree in the widest sense with a reality
can only mean to be guided either straight up to
it or into its surroundings, or to be put into
such working touch with it as to handle either it
or something connected with it better than if we
disagreed. Better either intellectually or prac-
tically. . . . Any idea that helps us to deal,
whether practically or intellectually, with either
the reality or its belongings, that doesn't en-
tangle our progress in frustration, that fits, in
fact, and adapts our life to the reality's whole
setting, will agree sufficiently to meet the re-
quirements. It will be true of that reality.

The true, to put it very briefly, is onl
the ex edient in the wa of our thinkingI Just
as the ri ht is onI the ex edient in the way of
our Behaving. Expedient in almost any iashion,
and expedient in the long run and on the whole,
of course; for what meets expediently all the
experiences in sight won't necessarily meet all
farther experiences equally satisfactorily.
EXperience, as we know, has ways of boiling
over, Sand making us correct our present form-

u 8.5

 

        
 

 

 

 

93
James's metaphorical language in the above quotation has
given rise to puzzlement and grave misunderstanding.58 Let
us endeavor to clarify this important passage and show how
James is not nearly so subjectivistic as his critics are
wont to believe. _

For purposes of illustration, take the sentence "There
is a desk in my study," which we may hereafter simply refer
to as "S." First, we shall consider what S means from the
pragmatkm point of view, and then we shall endeavor to
describe the conditions which must obtain in order to assert
that S is true. According to James, the meaning of S has to
do with the way I am disposed to act when I believe that
there is an object in my study which corresponds to what we
conventionally call a desk. The meaning of S, then, entails
at least some of the following activities: I ought to be
able to go up to a certain object in my study and sit at it,
open its drawer and take out pen and paper, write upon it,
paint it, have others look at it, or otherwise do what I have
in mind doing when I believe that there is a desk in my
study. The meaning of 3 leads me to expect to be able to do
some or all of these things. And in believing that there is
a desk in my study, I am consequently disposed to act in a
certain way which is consistent with the way others would
act were they to believe the same thing. However, neither
I nor anyone else need do anything on a given occasion: it
is sufficient only that we be prepared to act in a particular

way should it happen to be the case that we were to do

I ‘ -1" leaj

 

92:

something with reference to S or if the truth of 8 came

into question.59 In short, then, the meaning of S describes
a set of behavioral responses which is quite different from
the set I have adopted in another situation where, for
example, I may believe that there is a fire in my study.

The truth of S follows upon my doing successfully the
things I expect to do when I believe that there is a desk Fl
in my study. In short, S is made true when I put my belief
to a "test," so to speak, and have it confirmed by subsequent

experience. If I can do none of the things that I ordinarily .j
in

 

expect to be able to do when I believe that there is a desk
in my study, then I have every right to suspect that S is
not true. For what else can the meaning of "true" be except
that upon doing Just those things I ordinarily do, I am led
to discover what I expected to find in the first place.

If I were the only person to verify S, then the truth of
S would indeed be a purely subjective matter. However, since
the meaning of S prescribes a set of behaviors common to all
who understand the meaning of S, we are in effect saying that
what I do in a given case by way of testing the truth of S
is the same rind of thing that someone else would do were he
also to believe 8 and were he also concerned to test its
truth. James's notion of truth as agreement with reality,
like Peirce's, does not mean mere correspondence of a state-
ment with some given state-of-affairs. Rather, it means
corroboration with respect to certain ways of behaving among

persons responding to the statement in that given situation,

85
or as James says, "in that reality."60 In short, then, a
true belief, would become a "rule of action" for everyone
in a given situation who was prepared to act upon it.
From an empirical point of view, James is a thorough-
going scientific philosopher. In order for any statement to
be admitted into the body of scientific thought as a "fact,"

he argues that it must first be capable of being tested in hl
experience. He contends that you cannot tell what the word gr

"true" means, as applied to statements, without invoking the

concept of the statement's working.61 And such workings are

 

tests whereby we confirm or disconfirm statements. The more t3
tests which confirm a given statement, the "truer" it be-
comes. Where we are dealing with scientific generalizations
such as, for example, "Sugar is soluble," all that we can
claim by way of its truth is its "cash value" in terms of
future experience or conduct. The "worth" of any statement
is, therefore, determined by our confidence in its yielding
the next time what it has yielded in the past. Where we are
dealing with a novel situation, we cannot be very confident

as to what we should expect since we have no experience in
that particular matter. Consequently, we would weigh seri-
ously the "odds" in that situation before action upon any
belief concerning it.62 Where we are dealing with a perfectly
familiar situation--e.g., putting sugar in our coffee--the
outcome of which has never failed to meet our expectations,

"we have every reason to believe that a statement expressive

of that situation is true for at least that much, and almost

86
certainly true for much more in the future. While James's
language is highly metaphorical, he is nevertheless expounlirg
a view which is perfectly consistent with the language of
inductive probability.

Every empirical statement can be construed hypotheti-
cally, i.e., as an "If . . . , then . . . " statement. For
example, the statement "Sugar is solublefl can be construed ?!
in the following way: "If this is sugar, then it will
dissolve when put in water." Or again, take the statement

"X is harder than Y," which can be understood to mean that

 

"If X is harder than Y, then I ought to be able to scratch y

Y with X but not vice versa." And so on. Every empirical

statement can be turned into a hypothesis which indicates

the kind of test to be performed and which, when performed

successfully, constitutes §_confirmation of it. In those

cases where the hypothesis has been repeatedly confirmed over

a period of a number of years by countless individuals with-

lout an instance of disconfirmation, we have no doubt about

its truth. We act upon it without the least hesitation.

Practically, then, where there is some believing tendency,

there is a willingness to act. And where we have no doubt

whatever, we are willing to act irrevocably.63
Unfortunately, we can never be absolutely certain about

the truth of any empirical hypothesis. There is always some

room for doubt. This follows for the reason that the world

is in constant change and process: It is, as James might

have put it, unfinished business. Consequently, there is

87
room for novelty and some chance that the unexpected will
occur. In some cases, however, we are so accustomed to
having our beliefs confirmed by frequent experiences that
we perform them habitually, without concern for their truth.
For example, I do not even think about the solubility of
sugar when I use it as a sweetner in my coffee. For over a
period of years, at least several times a day, I acted with-
out the slightest concern on the belief that sugar dissolves
and was never disappointed in my expectations. Today, as a
result of my past experience, I am mentally at rest, confi-
dent in my conviction that all's right with the world so far
as sugar is concerned and that it will dissolve when next I
put it in my coffee. Its a reasonable thing for me to be-
lieve, even though it is not certain. Even where I am
momentarily startled one day to find my mouth full of tiny,
hard, tasteless particles of matter, I do not immediately
Jump to the conclusion that "Sugar is solublefl'is §§l§g.

On the contrary, I believe it to be true so strongly that I
endeavor to search out an explanation for having my habit
in this case frustrated. On the basis of another belief--
y;g., that my young son has been up to mischief--, I go up
to him and, perhaps in a rage, spank him for putting play
sand in the sugar bowl.

For James, meaning is bound to the notion of belief.

Since beliefs are manifested in habits cf action, the meaning

of a particular belief is known by our action or our pre—

paredness to act in a given way. As such, meanings do not

 

88

attach themselves to sentences or propositions, but to our
habits of action. If the propositions p_and 3 lead to the
same habits of action, then they are not two different
beliefs: they are the same belief. But if neither 2 nor 9
leadsto any particular habits of action, then they are not
beliefs at all. The meaning of a proposition, 2, i§_the
particular habit one has adopted.64 The utterance of plis
merely the verbal formulation which expresses it. This, it
seems to me, is the heart of the pragmafist theory of meaning.
While it is the case that beliefs vary in strength, it is,
nevertheless, important to show that unless we are prepared
to act in a given way, according to a rule of action (the
action of which is g,"test" and, hence, has observable con-
sequences), we cannot be said to believe anything. That is,
the meaning of a belief must be realized in an experiential
situation in which its truth may be "experimentally" verified.
Through experience and experimentation, a "true" belief tends
towards greater and greater generality. Consequently, an
absolutely true belief, if there were one, would become a
rule of action for everyone in a given situation who believed
it and who was prepared to act upon it. Beliefs, in short,
are law-like in character. In the range of practical activity,
they tend to become like Kant's imperatives.65 In the range
of scientific activity, they tend to becore like natural
or physical laws.

The above analysis endeavored to place James's theory

of belief more securely in the tradition of empiricism and

 

.u‘
f‘ "'3'. .

Q

99
science, where "tough-mindedness" means sticking to the facts
of experience and living with whatever we happen to find.
James was both tender-minded and tough-minded. His tough-
mindedness has, however, been too long unrecognized or under-
estimated. He was an empiricist in the best scientific sense.
He demanded evidence by way of concrete fact. Although James
was the most tolerant of men and would entertain at least the
possibility of something being true in spite of inadequate

66 the strict lessons

evidence, he learned from Chauncey wright
of science and fully appreciated wright's teaching that we
are obligated to consider all the evidence as carefully as
we can. Beyond that, we may thenI and only thenI believe
what we HE}..-

lUnless we make an effort to get at the heart of James's
theory of meaning and truth--and not be misled by his attrac-
tive, easy style--, we can only add to the ever-growing body
of sentimental literature which interprets James's theories
as merely a Justification of his need for faith in God, free-
dom, and immortality; or, perhaps even worse, which inter-
prets his concept of truth in the most idiosyncratic, sub-
jective, and crass terms. While we cannot deny that religious
matters play an important part in James's thought, the extent
to which they have been written about exaggerates them to
the point where we lose sight of the other problems he deemed

important and upon which he expended such great effort and

attention.

90
James was a many-faceted thinker and cannot be reduced
to any one point of view or position. He lived a daring
intellectual life. He could live with contingency, incon-
sistency, and even contradiction, if that's the way it had
to be. About the only thing he was impatient of was system-
building, where it meant selling-out the facts of experience

for the sake of consistency. Whatever else James may have

hr,

been guilty of (if he was guilty of any wrongdoing), he never

let truth get away from the faCts of experience.67 In this

 

regard, James's devoted friend and most ardent critic, "
Charles S. Peirce, has remarked: "After studying William LJ
James on the intellectual side for half a century—-for I was

not acquainted with him as a boy-~I must testify that I be—

lieve him to be, and always to have been during my acquain-

tance with him, about as perfect a lover of truth as it is

possible for a man to be. . . . In speaking, then, of William

James as I do, I am saying the most that I could of any man's

intellectual morality; and with him this was but one of a

whole diadem of virtues."6C The authority of Peirce,69
today, ought to sober any critic who still interprets James's
concept of truth and meaning crassly, as expressions of a

market-place mentality or the sputtering of a near lunatic

who communed with ghosts in some spirit world.

czi-a I3: 17'

EXPERIFFCE LID iHP
The greatest legacy William Jares bequeathed to pos- Fl

terity is his concept of experience. hot only is it funda-

mental to his evoluiicnary psvcholjgy; but it is central to

his discussion of every facet of human conduct. While James

 

illustrated the meaning of experience in his many works, he by
never explicitly discussed it in formal terms. Essential

to the meaning of experience is the notion that experience
has £25m. The very nature of learning implies having pay;
ticular experiences. For without ever having an experience
which is discrete and distinct from other experiences, it is
doubtful that we could ever learn anything at all. What is
at the heart of all this ta x,then, is not experience as
such, since that is too vague a term, but aesthetic experi-
gggg. In speaking of aesthetic experience, we should not
construe the term too narrowly. The word "aesthetic" usually
pertains to that which is beautiful.1 But we shall use the
term more broadly, in which case other aspects of human
activity may be considered to be aesthetic. Indeed, as we
shall subsequently define it, aesthetic experience becomes

the most fundamental category in terms of which we are to

92
understand and evaluate the products of human thought, feel-
ing, and action.

While James never wrote a treatise on the philosophy of
art, his writings contain such a philosophy in germ at least.
Needless to say, his writings are a model of artistic style
and achievement. It was left, however, to John Dewey to
develop the concept of aesthetic experience and apply it to
the problems of philosophy and education. In his Art as
Experience,2 we have not only what is perhaps Dewey's most
important work, but, perhaps, the best single introduction
to his philosophy as a whole. But before we go on to con-
sider the nature of aesthetic experience, and "art" in
particular, let us consider some of the factors in our
society which have led men to believe that art is not inte-
grally related to formal education, nor that it seriously
concerns the affairs of daily life. In short, let us con-
sider why art has seldom been widely valued, nor been con-
sidered to be intimately and profoundly mixed with the
question of what constitutes the good life for man.

With the rise of Protestantism, and the so-called
"Protestant ethic," Calvinsim in the New World was to play
an important role in shaping the mind and character of the
American people. The Puritan Yankee found himself in a vast
new land, a wilderness. There was everything to do and he
had the will to do it. He was infected by the seriousness
of the idea of doing God's business and he was concerned

lest he waste any time. Our Puritan Yankee not only worked

93

hard for God, but he saved every penny he earned. Quaint
sayings concerning time and money became commonplace in the
tradition of American folk-lore. And a Benjamin Franklin
could become a national idol.

Traditionally, the typical American has taken pride in
the fact that he can get things done; that he has know-how;
that he is practical. This is no idle boast, for the world
is fully aware of his material success and affluence. But
his sense of value is narrowly restricted, since those things
he values are, for the most part, connected with economics,
and expressed in terms of labor, wages, and time spent in
getting a job done. In the language of his forefathers, he
can say without hesitation or a moment's blush that "God's
time is money." In other words, to inquire into the value
of something, he can simply ask, "What is it worth?" meaning
thereby, "How much does it cost?" James wrote of "the bitch-
goddess SUCCESS. That--with the squalid cash interpretation
put on the word success-is our national disease."3 'This
"Yankee" attitude, which has its source in the piety of our
Puritan fathers was admirable in so far as the task at hand
was to conquer the wilderness or accumulate great fortunes
in business and industry. But it is not fitted to answering
the question of how man should live when his work is done:
house, family, play, and recreation, for example. His answer,
the Puritan's, is, of course, that work is never done. But
time is proving him wrong. For one of the basic questions

that face our society today, or soon may, is precisely that

9“

question concerning the use of an abundant leisure life.
Such a question is important; for the soul of man soon
withers before the prospect of suffering life in the endless
emptiness and utter tedium of unnumbered days. I do not mean
to suggest, however, that art is Simply a matter of having
sufficient leisure. Quite the contrary, as we shall see.

is a result of what may be called the "Yankee mentality," q
the arts in America were not held in esteem nor regarded as .
essential to any program of instruction. They were simply

considered frivolous and idle pasttimes not befitting the seri-

'Id

 

ousness of sacred time and labor. Even, in some cases, they L;
were scorned as wicked, devilish temptation to do evil. Under
such an influence, not only did the arts in America suffer,

but anyone who seriously aspired to be an artist was held to
be of poor character. For almost two-hundred years, from the
founding of our nation, America produced no great painters or
musicians. And, except for the field of literature, no sig-
nificant number of artists appeared until our own century. And
yet, even today, the average American does not quite know what
to make of them. While he may respect craftsmanship (where
craft still counts), he otherwise frequently dismisses artists
as "odd-balls" or just plain "queer." Such an attitude is
characteristic of a large body of American students as well:
students for whom the arts mean little or nothing at all.

They take courses in the fine arts for the simple reason

that they must take them in order to "get" a degree. For

them, the enterprise of higher learning has value only to

95
the extent that it enables them to get a "good" job-~i.e.,
one that pays well.

Another influence detrimental to the development of art,
which is not only characteristic of America but the Western
nations in general, is the great emphasis placed upon mathe-
matics and science, logic and argumentation: in short, upon
analytical thinking as the only means for acquiring knowledge Fl
of truth and reality. While great emphasis was placed upon
the reasoning faculties of man, an almost superstitious fear

or disparagement of the senses was maintained. The habit of

 

divorcing thought from feeling has been so pronounced in ;y
western civilization that,to use a term borrowed from
Lancelot L. Whyte, it may even be called the "European dis-

sociation."u

Those who have been spiritually or idealistioally
inclined have looked upon matter as evil, corrupt, something
to be rid of, a prison of the soul, and something in constant
change and utter chaos. They have sought refuge in the
Eternal, the One, the Ideal, the Unchanging, or the right
hand of God the Father. Their one goal, to put it briefly,
was to vault beyond the actual, the material, and the real,
as otherwise understood.5

In all this, however, there was an implicit, if not
explicit, recognition of the power or effect of art. For
while it was argued that art possessed little or no positive
value, and the artist stood no higher in rank than a servant

or tramp, it was well-known that art can move men by appealing

to their imaginations and feelings. Edgar Wind writes:

96

"Although no philosopher has praised the divine madness of
inspiration more eloquently than Plato, he viewed it with
sharp suspicion. He rated the strength of man's imagination
so high that he thought a man could be transformed by the

things he imagined."6

But since such feelings are part of

the passionate and corruptible nature of man, such feelings
must_be controlled. Hence, precedents for the censorship 3%
of art go back as far as Plato.' In Plato, we find a theory ?

of education in which the role of art is taken very seri-

 

ously. He knew full well that art (e.g., myths, martial '6
music) may be used to edify man or corrupt him. And since i)
he was concerned with the development of a perfect state, and
the education of the guardians of such a state, only that art
which expressed the noblest ideals would be permitted to be
used for instructional purposes. It is not for nothing, then,
that Plato cast Homer from the reading list, for the heroes
of his epics were not always perfect men or gods.
The situation in art is by no means as bleak as I may
have suggested. Art has always been practiced and it has
always enjoyed some following. It is, however, with the
advent of the "human" sciences that the real importance and
function of art has come to be understood and appreciated.
Under the influence of comparative folklore, anthropology,
sociology, and psychology, the importance of the role of
imagination has come to be recognized, as well as the fact
that man has always been preoccupied with the use of symbols

and the construction of forms. Ancient man. as well as our

97

primitive contemporaries, did not differentiate between art
and religion. Nor were art and religion divorced from the
affairs of his daily life. Almost everything he did was,

in some way, connected with his art and religion, and, hence,
with his view of the world. What we in civilized societies
today have forgotten is, in the words if Irwin Edman, "that
the shape of our world is determined by the shape of our 3|
imagination and that our imagination is shaped by the arts."7
Primitive man expressed himself imaginatively and aestheti-

cally in everything he touched, from the garments he wore,

 

the implements he used for hunting, the vases he used to !#
store oil or grain, his ceremonial dances and religious in-

cantations, to the idols he carved to honor and worship his

gods. Indeed, the one striking impression that we have of

primitives is that they expended such great effort upon art

and formal Ornamentation. It can never be said that they

were simply concerned with physical survival.

Whereas we have seen that art was an integral part of
the life and culture of primitive peoples. it has seldom
been an integral part of the life of civilized western cul-
tures. Where it has enjoyed some stature, it has either
been associated with the Church, or with privileged classes.
In our time, with the "genteel tradition" of Old and New
England.

The Yankee mentality, the emphasis on analytical think-
ing, the censorship of art, and the fact that art has so long

been associated with wealthy classes who have a monopoly on

09

fine art,--all are factors which suggest why art has been
separated from life and daily activity in American culture.
They are probably not the only reasons, nor have they been
sufficiently explained. But they do suggest why art has not
enjoyed a greater role in our institutions of learning; or,
stated more strongly, why art has only been tolerated in the
curriculum but not wholeheartedly embraced. 2|
We commonly believe that art is composed of those objects E

exhibited in museums, or that it is confined to the printed

i :m' .

page, or the like; that is, that it is simply an object to

 

‘TLHT

be gazed upon or listened to, but not much else. We like it,
or we do not like it. In any case, we do not concern our-
selves with it for long. That this is so may be verified

by attending to the comments of visitors to museums or by
watching them pass works of art by the hundreds in a matter
of moments. It is rare, indeed, to find someone giving his
full attention to one painting for the whole of his visit.
But to simply look upon a painting without responding to it,
or to play a musical masterpiece as background to a dinner
conversation, is to wholly miss the point of art. This
attitude may, in part, be attributed not only to ignorance,
but gross insensitivity. The "sacred fear" of art, its
revelatory power and mystery, no longer hold us back in awe:
for it seems that nothing can please us for long or even
shock us for an instant. But in the dull recklessness of

our time great art loses none of its worth: "it only loses,"

00

to again quote Professor Wind, "its direct relevance to our
existence: it has become a splendid superfluity."8
There is a wonderful ambiguity in the phrase "the work
of art" which hides the very thing we are looking for. On
the one hand, it may refer to an object as the work of art,
and on the other, it may refer to the artist's labor as the
work of art. For the most part, when we refer to a work of
art, we are talking about it in the first sense, as an object.
But if we are to understand what is the full nature of art,
we must also understand it as the artist's labor, or crea-
tive activity. These arerwm:alternatives that we may elect
to consider separately, but two inseperable aspects of one
and the same thing.
In terms of what I have been saying, "expression" and
"language" are almost synonymous terms;9 for we may "speak"
in the language of music, painting, sculpture, dance, words,
facial and bodily motions, mathematics, science, prophecy,
and so on. In the broadest view, the buildings that we
erect, the laws that we write, the songs that we sing, and
the work that we do, are all expressions of our being. All
the expressions of individuals taken together constitute the
culture in which they live. We look back to the glory that
was Greece. But "classical Greece" is only a term we use
for historical convenience which points to the time and
works of Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Sophocles, and the
countless others who, expressing their own thoughts, con-

tributed to and created a culture now called "classic."

 

”:1

100
However, not all expressions are of equal value or of equal
importance. But in so far as each one is an ordered and
meaningful experience, it contributes to greater experiences
which we dignify by assigning such adjectives as "beautiful"
or "sublime." Those who have contributed to what we call
the beautiful or sublime are commonly called artists. But
they are not the only artists. We may all be artists to
the degree that we imaginatively transform and express our
feelings. Those whom we consider great artists are great
for the reason that their expressions are more unique, pro-
portional, intricate, well conceived, or profound. By means
of vast powers they gain insight into new orders, new forms,
new laws, new discoveries. This experience of discovery, of
insight, of inspiration or intuition. is what is called
artistic creativity or aesthetic experience. The philo-
sopher, the scientist, the theologian, or the common man
may all experience, at least at some level, this feeling of
creation and discovery. It is an activity that is, or can
be, shared by all who wish to express themselves.
I The environment in which we find ourselves is a stream
of continuous and interwoven events. In whatever situation
we happen to find ourselves we react to that situation. In
very ordinary circumstances we often react from sheer condi-
tioning or habit. In others we act as befits the customs
and traditions of the society in which we live. In some
situations we react in an unprecedented manner, such as in

an emotional response over which we have little or no

 

it

101

control. Yet, in other situations we act from studied delib-
eration, intentionally and intelligently. For that matter,
all organisms react to the environment in which they live;
and, depending upon their ability to meet a given situation
they either survive or are destroyed. But we are not just
organisms that only react to given situations from instinct
or habit. We are organisms that can do things from plan,
and act in particular situations in a novel or unique manner.
James said that "one who is educated is able practically to
extricate himself, by means of the examples with which his
memory is stored and of the abstract conceptions which he
has acquired, from circumstances in which he never was
placed before."10

Now, from the continuous stream of experience, how do
we delimit a single experience which is ordered and meaning-
ful (an aesthetic experience) from the vast flux of experi-
ence that goes into making what we call life in general?
To say of a situation that it was an experience, to use
John Dewey's terminology,11 is to appoint to thgt_experience
some meaning or value. We differentiate a particular exper-
ience from experience in general-~which is continuous-~by
abstracting it from the general flux and seeing in it some
form. And that form.which characterizes anything as an
experience is composed of three parts or phases: a beginning,
a middle, and an end, to use the simplest language; or,
again to follow Dewey, inception, development, and fulfillment.
.Let us take, for example, the following illustration. Suppose

 

‘1. ..

102
a man is engaged in an operation in which he handles tools
for the purpose of doing a certain job. If he enters upon
his task with tools that are in good repair, clean and in
order, uses them for the purposes for which they were in-
tended, and then when finished he sees to it that they are
all returned again to their proper place, clean and in good
repair, then it may be said that what he did was aesthetic.
What he did, as well as how he did, has form: he takes a

tool from its place, uses it, and when he is finished he i

1155' - a... .-

returns it again to its proper place. This simple act can

 

be differentiated from the rest of the activities or experi-
ences in which he might have been engaged. It was purposive
and had meaning. How different this is from the life of a
man who walks the streets aimlessly, or who loiters on a
street corner endlessly watching the traffic go by.

An example of a more complex situation can be seen in
the following: As complex organisms we possess certain needs
and drives, one of which is the need for food: and as a part
cf our ordinary experience we get hungry. Because of our
need.for food we act and react to our environment in certain
ways in order to satisfy this need. If part of our reaction
'bo this need is experienced as picking fruits, or killing
some animal, and then eating whatever we have secured, thus
satisfying our hunger, we would only be acting and reacting
to our nature and environment much as any other animal. Our
behavior would be non-aesthet ic. But as intelligent human

beings we do not generally live in this manner. Because

103

iexperience has taught us that with the passing of time we get
hungry, we prepare to satisfy this need more practically,
economically, and successfully. We build fires, ovens, pots,
and pans; we cultivate crops, raise animals, and design
weapons for the purpose of hunting. Already our ordinary
experience of hunger has caused us to react in a number of
ways related to satisfying this need-~but it does not end
here. We plan various recipes, we use spices and condiments,
we arrange the table so it is pleasing to the eye; we use
fine silver and china. and even linens and beautiful floral
arrangements. In other words, we do things and use objects
far beyond the purpose of just satisfying a basic need. Al-
though the initial goal is to satisfy a basic need, subse-
quent acts both deliberate and purposive effect a consummation
'of this goal in such a manner that whereas mggng before were
irrelevant_to that goal, they are now important both in that
they become incorporated in and modify what the final outcome
of that goal will be. The three-part logical division of
aesthetic form can now be viewed as one event, 135,, an
experience.

From the on-going flux of our experience we take an
aspect of that experience and point to a time, a place, or an
object because it had for us both meaning and value; and that
particular experience is fondly remembered because of some
pervasive characteristic which defines it. What I have tried
to illustrate by this long example is that we do not act or

react in some almost passive and determined way as do one-

 

10h
celled animals, but that much of human behavior is pervaded
by a sense of volition and purposiveness; and that what we
do, we do for reasons far beyond any immediate need.

An experience is valued for its immediate contribution
to our general well-being and happiness and also for what it
contributes to subsequent experiences. We look back upon
past experiences sometimes with joy and sometimes with sad- RI
ness. But past experiences are not just dusty memories put ‘
away in the closet of mind: they are our best teachers and

they are the standards by which we judge new experiences.

 

1f. .

The common expression, "We all learn from experience," is
true, for really there is no school that is not experience.
Now we all learn in this manner, but the degrees of our know-
ledge vary with the capacities of each individual. Our
ability to interpret our past experiences and to judge the
value of new ones determines to a large extent what we are
and what we do: for only by interpreting correctly our past
experiences can we hope to carry on successfully something
in the present, and even plan for something in the future.
As an experience is complete in itself, it is a whole.
It is something distinct from everything else by its very
definition. If it were not distinct or complete in itself
we would not recognize it, and hence could not learn from
it. Every experience ought to be valued because in some
way we can benefit from it. Each experience should be
valued in and for itself; but the greatest value of any

experience is that which it contributes to greater and

105
greater wholes, or experiences. In this sense, then, any
particular experience is never said to be complete, for its
meaning changes and is modified by the circumstances in
which it is employed. For example, we may listen to a con-
certo by Kozart. It may be unfanulunn yet it pleases us.
However, upon subsequent hearings we may become increasingly
aware of things that we did not recognize when we first a
heard it. As we continue to recognize new features in it, -
we can look back upon past hearings and see that they were

not complete. Whereas our first hearing was pleasurable,

 

it is not seen to be meager compared to our fuller under- g}
standing_at the present. The quality of our pleasure is now
enhanced by a greater knowledge of the concerto. Without
having first experienced the corcerto, however, our present
knowledge and pleasure would be that much poorer.

I have used the example of a concerto, but this prin-
ciple--learning from experience--applies to everything; for
it applies to what we call development, growth, or progress.
Those who eat only raw flesh may satisfy their hunger and
may even enjoy it. But he who eats only raw flesh, though
it nourishes his body and gives him some satisfaction, lacks
knowledge. On the other hand, he who enjoys the varieties
which nature has to offer may occasionally eat a bad apple,
but it is a bag,apple only in so far as he knows what 522g
apples are. He has knowledge.

Adam and Eve, before their Fall, lived in a state of

paradise, a state in which ignorance was bliss. Of the trees

106

in thg Garden they could eat all, save one. (The beguiling
words of the serpent are too familiar to bear repeating.)
When Adam and Eve had eaten the apple of the Tree of Know-
ledge of Good and Evil, they gained knowledge; but in so
doing they sacrificed something else. The point that I have
been laboring is simply this: that without numerous and
varied experiences we remain static and life becomes a ml
humdrum existence both monotonous and tedious;12 and that -
endless repetition creates in man a sense of purposelessness

so that whatever spark may have been in him is soon extin-

 

guished for lack of fuel and heat of flame; and that when r,
man does taste of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge-~that

is to say, experiences as fully as possible the world about

him--he gains knowledge; but in gaining knowledge he loses

his sense of contentment and satisfaction afforded in the

innocence of believing that God is in his heaven and all is

right with the world. When J. S. Hill wrote that "It is

better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied;

better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied,"13

I believe that he was voicing a similar sentiment.

Experience, then, is the fertile soil in which the
countless seeds of the human imagination are engendered. In
this soil some seeds are destined to grow normally and
naturally into pregnant buds which in time blossom forth
and bring into being beautiful and delicious fruit: but other
seeds of the imagination, by their very nature are sterile

and destined to remain dormant, or perhaps even die. Yet

107
another kind of seed is that sown in the blindness of fury
and passion; however, it too takes root, but the time of its
inception is hidden in the darkness of ignorance. The
progeny of such a union is hybrid: some of the offspring
may manifest normal and healthy characteristics: yet the
near relations may be grotesque and monstrous. We do not
know what they will be until they are suddenly upon us. The
seeds of the human imagination which are brought forth from
the soil of human experience are the ideas that men have.
And though they are at first without size or shape they do
in time manifest themselves in what men do. They possess
great force and momentum and concrete reality.

Since the time of Adam and Eve--since the "Age of Inno-
cence"--man has been fruitful and his experiences have
multiplied. And since man ventured to eat of all the fruit
of the garden he also came to know pain and suffering, sin
and evil. And since the parents of us all first sinned, God .
forever denied to man the fruit of the Tree of Life. Nan
must die. Some men, upon learning that they are born to die,
are at a loss to see in life a meaning and a purpose. With
the idea of death as an end, the idea of life loses its
meaning for them. Their error lies in believing that only
ends are important, and that the means are irrelevant. But
in terms of experience, as it has been outlined, means are
as important as ends, or of even greater importance, for in

this case, the means are daily life itself.

10?

Together with the knowledge of good and evil, man was
given the opportunity to choose between them. And para-
phrasing a popular Platonic myth, when once the lover of
beauty has caught sight of the eternal and perfect beauty,
he is likened to that earthly lover who having once glimpsed
a pure and charming maid forever seeks to find her again
and win her unto himself. What I have been saying boils
down to this: that when man learns from experience what
those things are that are good for him, he endeavors to
seek after them; for this means to seek after his own happi-
ness and well-being. Not to seek after his own happiness
is unnatural and perverse. (It is naive to believe, however,
that this does not occur, for, unfortunately, this is some-
times the case, as when, for example, a man takes his own
life.) And perhaps the greatest good that a man may possess
is knowledge of himself. I mention this not because it is
an original idea, but rather, I wish to reaffirm the wisdom
contained in an ancient oracle, "Know thy self." Together
with this, I would also like to reaffirm another saying that
is equally famous, "Nothing is excess." In short, we seek
after truth: truth about ourselves, and truth about the

1” And if we are to be honest, we cannot

world around us.
deny truth its liberty of appearing.

Since we all cannot express ourselves with great origi-
nality and profound feeling or sensitivity, we turn to those
who can. And in terms of our own experiences we recreate

their emotions through the medium of their expressions, i.e.,

109
through the medium of their art. This is possible since
we share similar emotions and feelings. This is what we do
when we listen to music, or read a poem, or are moved by a
drama. The range of human expressions is vast indeed; but
whatever can truly be said to be an expression--that is,
whatever possesses aesthetic form--is art.

To throw something in a fit of anger, or just "blow off
steam," is not really to express ourselves; it is simply an
outbreak of emotion over which we have little or no control.
Expression is a species of that wider term "act" and refers
to subsequent behavior which is deliberate and intelligent.

A similar point was made by Wordsworth when he wrote that
poetry "takes its origin from emotion recollected in tran-
quillity. . . ."15 When we are really said to have expressed
ourselves we can look back to the time when we threw some-
thing and describe the incident to someone. The manner in
which we "speak" of our anger i§_our expression. We may talk
about it; we may use the incident in a poem or novel; or we
may even try to capture its spirit and dynamic quality in a
painting or musical composition. Any one of these modes
might have been the language in which we sought to express
ourselves: and in whatever language we do express ourselves,
it is art. The expressign of emotion, then, is the subse-
quent, objective representation of some original, spontaneous
feeling. Again, to quote Wordsworth, "the emotion is contem-
plated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradu-

ally disappears, and an emotion, similar to that which was

110
before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced,
and does itself actually exist in the mind."16 In a sense,
then, art is the product both of the activity of expression
and the representation of that emotion in some objective form.

Whereas some definitions of art are so narrow as to
exclude much that is otherwise commonly held to be art, the
present definition may be open to criticism on the grounds
that it includes too much. I think that criticism would be
just if art here only meant painting or music or whatever
~happened to come under the vague term "fine art." In the
context in which we have been using the term, the meaning of
"art" is much broader. It is a reversion to the more ancient
usuage where art is a way of expressing feeling or emotion or
passion.

In its original meaning "art“ signified a skill or tech-
nique. It comes by way of the Latin.g£§, from the Greek word
techné. It implied a way of doing things. Even the term
"poetry" (poesis) literally means a kind of making. The term
“fine art" is only of recent origin and generally refers to
those objects which are exhibited in museums. But art is not
just paint on canvas nor so many words on a piece of paper:
art is also ourselves expressed in some objective form. It
is action.and reaction to the things about us. It is the way
that we interpret our experience. Art is the common stuff
of our ordinary experience transformed by our imaginations
into ordered and meaningful relationships. It is an activity
that is, or can be, shared by all who wish to express

lll
themselves. But let us get back to ancient terms to see
what we can make of them.

For the Greeks, "theory" (theBria) meant "a beholding"
or "spectacle." It is related to the English "theatre"
(theasthai) which, literally, means "to see.” The Greeks,
however, viewed theoria not as idle speculation, but as a
power of reason (nous), a peculiar kind of vision. It was a
power frequently attributed to poets. Essentially, theoria
is an insight, or comprehensive vision. For the poet, it is
a vision of life as a dramatic thing. Hence, the poet may
"see" something others cannot: but by means of his art, the
craft of poetry, he can enable others to become aware of his
vision. What does he see? Aristotle says in his Poetics:

It is, moreover, evident from what has been said,

that it is not the function of the poet to relate

what has happened, but what may happen,--what is

possible according to the law of probability or

necessity. The poet and the historian differ not

by writing in verse or in prose. The work of

Herodotus might be put into verse, and it would

still be a species of history, with metre no less

than without it. The true difference is that one

relates what has happened, the other what may

happen. Poetry, therefore, is more philosophical

and a higher thing than history: for poetry tend?

to express the universal, history the particular. 7
Poetic vision (theoria) for the Greeks was not, therefore, an
idle imagination or day-dream, nor was it a mere play with
words. As has already been said, in its literal meaning
"poetry" implies a making. And to be able to make something
implies, in turn, having skill. Thus, a poet was a skilled
craftsman in making "situations" which were credible or

possible, according to the laws of probability or necessity,

112
as Aristotle says. In Sophocles' drama, Oedipus Rex,
Teiresias, the blind seer or prophet, is possessed of a
vision of impending doom: not because he has miraculous
powers, but he can "see" the end toward which things are
moving.

Art, in Aristotelian terms, is imitation of the pro-
cesses of nature, not the imitation of natural objects as
such. Hence, in the art of tragedy, the tragedian imitates
that aspect of nature called the actions of men.18 Although
historical figures-~for example, Oedipus or Agamemnon, given
that they are historical figures--may be the protagonists
of some drama, that which the drama is about is not neces-
sarily concerned with their biographies: rather, it is con-
cerned with what may happen, given certain initial premises.
In one sense, the poet as prophet may foretell of impending
destruction; but in another, his vision may be of an as yet
unfulfilled possibility of goodness and perfection in man.

Although we have been concerned in the above example
with the poet as dramatist, it should be clear that the
term "poetry" is not confined to the arts of literature. A
poet, in the sense in which we are now using the term, may
be skilled in music, painting, sculpture, or any of the
other forms of making or invention. And what the poet makes
is not an object as such, but he expresses, presents, objec-
tifies, what he gggg. He presents us with a dramatic situa-
‘tigg. While the material object may be carved from cold,

hard marble, the dramatic situation (spectacle) it embodies

113
beckons us to participate in its action. If only we would
relive the spectacle expressed, by imaginatively recreating
the situation that is objectified, we may vicariously share
those joys, hopes, sorrows, and fears that have attended the
careers of men from time immemorial and, thereby, gain for
ourselves a vision of life perhaps otherwise closed to us
by the limitations and circumstances of our own life and
experience. Art as the vision of life and the world enables
us to see, to know, things in a way remote from the accidents
of time and place. It therefore enables us to see things
truly and universally, for under the aspect of eternity, as
Spinoza would say, we may see more clearly their necessity.
By seeing and knowing things in their necessary and universal
aspect, we can better understand ourselves when reflecting
upon what our life has been, is now, or may become in the
future.

In terms of the above analysis, no sharp line can be
drawn between art on the one hand and science on the other.
For art as doing and science (scientia) as knowing are but
two aspects of one and the same activity. The phrases
"knowing what to do" and "knowing how to do it" suggest
this relation. "Knowing what" implies judgment and evalua-
tion-~intelligence: "knowing how" implies craft and tech-
nique--creative ability. Furthermore, such activity is
guided by an imaginative awareness or vision--the5ria. It
is meaningful activity in that it expresses the real or the

possible according to the laws of necessity. Art can never

114

express what is impossible. (I do not deny that grotesque
and monstrous images created by a deranged mind are art,
since even they exist as imaginative visions of the world.)
And, lastly, art is sharable activity since it is universal.
I mean by this that the creative activity of art, while
always an individual, particular thing, may, nevertheless,
be similarly expressed or re-created by all who wish to do
so: that is, that the dramatic situation embodied in the
work of art as a formal, public, enduring object, may always
be re-enacted by those who wish to play the roles as artists.

In terms of experience in general and an experience in
particular, together with the notion of learning from experi-
ence, there is an implicit standard of judgment. Whereas
each experience is good and valued in and for itself as an
experience, in the total context of a life, or even a cul-
ture--that is to say, greater wholes or experiences--we can
evaluate particular past experiences. Whereas a particular
experience may have.been good in itself (was emotionally
satisfying to the experiencer, though perhaps perverted
psychologically or illegal), in its larger context it may
be bad for the person whose experience it was, or wrong in
terms of the laws of the society in which he lives. Although
the consequences of an expression may be unfortunate, it
nevertheless remains that an individual must remain free to
express himself.19 Of course, I do not mean that after
repeated wrongdoing an individual should remain free from

punishment: punishment is itself an experience and if the

115
individual is sane he should learn from it. But I do mean
that unless an individual is free to express himself he, and
for that matter we also, shall never know what the nature
of his unborn experience was. We would remain quite ignor-
ant, and even in the long run perhaps do greater harm.

The common good of individuals is freedom of expression,
and the freedom to gain the knowledge of what we are. If
collective experience is history, then we would do well to
read it and not repeat it, as Santayana suggests. And if
our own expressions fail to satisfy our expectations, we
may turn to those whose profound visions are the lasting
monuments and highest moments of what human experience is
and can be. Art at its lowest may be license to do evil.
But in those highest moments of interpretation and transfor-
mation of experience it may appear as a sonnet in which is
captured the eternal essence and beauty of love itself.

Art, or aesthetic experience, need not be limited to
such activities as poetry, painting, music, sculpture-~that
is, to those things commonly called art. Its scope may
range over such activities as physics and mathematics as
well as physical education and home economics. To include
home economics in a theory of art does not demean art. It
only suggests that the daily life of a human being need not
be viewed as a hum-drum existence in a wretched everyday
world. Indeed, the whole effort of a supreme artist, Frank
Lloyd Wright, was dedicated to elevating and intertwining
the home and the life in it to a level of great aesthetic

116
achievement. Since our earliest education takes place in
the home, it should be the place where we first encounter
those formative visions of goodness and beauty.

In the case of James himself, the most significant part
of his education took place at home. In the home of a some-
what eccentric and doting father, Henry James, Sr., the up-
bringing of the James children was an educational experience.
In a family of "gifted children," the main dish at supper
was typically some provacative thought which the father '
tossed out and which was seized upon and picked apart by
the entire family.20 The elder James not only believed in
the liberty of his children, but he sought as far as possible
to create an atmosphere of freedom in which everyone was
able to express his own mind or challenge and criticize the
opinions of others. Like his father, William James treated
each man as an individual thinker with intrinsic interests
and power to make new truths and values. He was not only a
radical pluralist philosophically, but he was a radical
individualist as well. Life for him was not something to be
served up on a golden platter: it was something each man
should hammer out and fashion for himself from experience,
like a work of art. As Maurice Baum has pointed out,21 a
survey of all of James's writings on education would reveal
that his primary concern was for the individual: the dis-
covery, preservation, and enrichment of his experience.

Although James never founded a school of philosophy
and few, if any, philosophers today would call themselves

117
Jamesians,22 the main ideas he put forth are by no means
dead in professional circles. James was not concerned with
system building, and his philosophy does not purport to find
a place for all the furniture of heaven and earth. But if
he was not systematic in the German sense of the term, he
surely was systematic in another sense. For taken in their
entirety, his works contain, at least implicitly if not
always explicitly, a theory of knowledge, meaning, and truth,
an ethic, a cosmology, a philosophy of religion, and a
philosophy of education. In a wider sense, as Paul Henle
has observed,23 his works are not only systematic, but they
reveal a consistent attempt to deal with the fundamental
questions of philosophy in terms of relatively few concepts.
And, as I have endeavored to indicate, underlying the whole
structure of James's thought is the fundamental notion of
experience. Not raw experience, which is void and without
form: but experience that is shaped by an active intelligence

into expressive objects of thought and feeling.

CHAPTER V
EDUCATION AND BEHAVIOR

In 1892, James was asked to deliver some lectures on
psychology to teachers in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In large
part, although simplified for his particular audience, these
talks were drawn from his two volume Principles of Psychology.
Together with three essays addressed especially to students,
these talks were subsequently published in book form in 1899

under the title Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to
Students on Some of Life's Ideals.1 This work, the only book

which James wrote on education, was not only widely read in

 

his own time, but it continues to enjoy considerable recog-
nition today. Jacques Barzun, for example, places it first
on his list of "particularly good reading."2 However, be-
cause it is non-technical and, as James said, "practical and
popular in the extreme," it has largely failed to receive the
wide respect that it deserves among academicians.

James's Talks to Teachers contains in substance what we
may consider to be his philosophy of primary and secondary
education. .His thoughts on higher education are expressed
in various addresses and tributes which he delivered at
commencements and reunions. The tributes (to two great

teachers), "Louis Agassiz" (1896), and "Thomas Davidson:

118

119
A Knight-Errant of the Intellectual Life" (1905), together
with such essays as "The Ph.D. Octopus" (1903), "The True
Harvard" (1903), "Stanford's Ideal Destiny" (1906), and "The
Social value of the College-Bred" (1908), are included in his
posthumous volume, Memories and Studies.3 These constitute
James's major efforts to deal with the questions of education
in a popular and practical way. While comprising but a small
body of work, these essays and addresses nevertheless add
greatly to the literature on educational psychology and '
philosophy.

Let us first turn to James's discussion of the aims of
education and the art of teaching.

For James, the process of education "consists in the
organizing of resources in the human being, of powers of con-
duct which shall fit him to his social and physical world."4
In short, education is best described by calling it "2E2

organization of acquired habits of conduct and tendencies
to behavior."5 Given that this is the aim of education, one

 

great maxim which no teacher ought to forget emerges immedi-
ately: "No reception without reaction, no impression without
correlative expression."6 An impression (what behaviorists
would call a "stimulus") which in no way modifies a pupil's
active life by leading to an appropriate expression ("re-
sponse"), is an impression gone to waste. The impression/
expression cycle is incomplete. Consequently, a new habit

of conduct or tendency to behavior cannot be acquired. Only

when an impression leads to motor consequences in the form

120
of an activity can the mind have a "sensation of having
§g£§d_and connect itself with the impression."7 Even the
older method of learning by rote, and then repeating what
we learned word for word, rested upon the important insight
that verbal recitation is an important kind of reactive
behavior. If a student simply sits back and soaks up infor-
mation, like a sponge, without learning to react to the
meaning and value of the things which confront him, we may
rest assured that no significant, purposive change in his
behavior will result.

Early in his "Talks" James cautions teachers not to
expect too much by way of immediate practical results. While
psychology is a science and can be useful to the classroom
teacher, one should not expect to be able to deduce definite
programs or methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom
use. Where "scientific psychology" was experiencing something
of a boom, and there was a great deal of talk about the "new
psychology," from James's point of view there was no new
psychology worthy of the name. "There is nothing but the
old psychology which began in Locke's time, plus a little
physiology of the brain and senses and theory of evolution,
and a few refinements of introspective detail, for the most
part without adaptation to the teacher's use. It is only
the fundamental conceptions of psychology which are of real
value to the teacher; and they, apart from the aforesaid

theory of evolution, are very far from being new."8

121
While there are, of course, some principles worth

talking about, and which can be adapted to the teacher's
use, it is not simply a matter of learning what they are:
it is, more importantly, a matter of knowing how to apply
them in practice. As James said, "Psychology is a science,
and teaching is an art: and sciences never generate arts
directly out of themselves. An intermediary inventive mind F“
must make the application by using its originality."9 In
his endeavor to reach his audience, James's main desire was

to make teachers "conceive, and, if possible, reproduce

 

sympathetically in their imagination, the mental life of
their pupil as the sort of active unity which he himself
feels it to be."10 The science of logic never made a man
reason correctly, and a knowledge of ethics never made a
man act morally. Similarly, to have a knowledge of psy-
chology is no guarantee that anyone shall be a good teacher.
But it may help by laying down lines within which the rules
of the art of teaching must fall.

We have already indicated the value of verbal recita-
tion as a form of reactive behavior. But as useful as
verbal reactions are, they are not sufficient in terms of
the total process of education. A pupil must keep note-
books, make drawings, work with his hands, enter in the
laboratory and perform experiments, and so on. One of the
most significant innovations in James's time was the intro-
duction of the manual training schools. Such schools, James

argues, are important not for the reason that they will give

122
us people better skilled in trades, but "because they will
give us citizens with an entirely different intellectual
fibre."11 Beside developing habits of observation and
experimentation, laboratory and shop work engender honesty:
"for, when you express yourself by making things, and not by
using words, it becomes impossible to dissimulate your vague-
ness or ignorance by ambiguity."12 Furthermore, in learning
to £9 things for himself, a pupil acquires a habit of self-
reliance, which is one mark of individualism that James
cherished.

Man is a creature with an inclination to do more things
than he has ready-made "circuits" for in his nervous system.13
He is, as Aristotle said,1u a creature who by nature desires
to learn. He can form new habits or tendencies to act not
only because he desires to learn, but he has a very plastic
body and nervous system. It is very important that teachers
should understand the nature of habits and how they function
in the process of education. To this end, James's discussion
of habits and habit-formation is masterful and unsurpassed.

When we use the word "habit," we generally use it
pejoratively: that is, we tend to talk about "bad" habits,
such as the smoking-habit or the swearing-habit or the
drinking-habit. As James noted, we seldom, if ever, talk
(about such things as the moderation-habit or the courage-
habit. But the fact of the matter is that our virtues (where
‘we have any) may be‘Just as habitual as our vices. We are

totally subject to the law of habit as a consequence of the

123

fact that we have (are?) plastic bodies with complex nervous
systems. As James defines the term, "plasticity" means "the
possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influ-
ence, but strong enough not to yield all at once."15 In
light of this, one is led to the view that habits are not
characteristic of men alone. The Law of Habit extends to
all nature.16 A sprained ankle is in danger of being sprained F‘
again. A once inflammed joint is more prone to a relapse. A
suit, after having been worn, clings to the shape of the body

better than when it was new. A look works better after some

 

use. A river flows in a channel which grows broader and
deeper. And so on. Likewise, our nervous systems grow and
take shape, if you will, in the manner in which they have
been exercised, as a sheet of paper or a suit, once folded

or worn, tends then to fall into the same identical folds,
shapes, patterns, or grooves. In short, the first time a
thing is done, it is done with some difficulty. But with
repetition or practice, like playing a musical instrument, it
becomes less difficult and more automatic. Habit takes over
and frees the conscious mind to do more interesting or impor—
tant business. Habit becomes second nature; even "ten times
nature." We are, as James said, "stereotyped creatures, imi-
tators and copiers of our past selves."l7 The greatest part
of our adult life consists in habitual behavior. The way

we shave in the morning, or tie our shoes; the way we eat and
talk are largely automatic. We become for the most part mere

bundles of habitual responses.

12a

Since education is for behavior, and habits are the
stuff of which behavior consists, as James said, then "the
greatest thing in all education is to make our nervous system
our ally instead of our enemy. . . . For this we must make
automatic and habitual, as early as_possib1e, as many useful
actions as we can. . . . The more of the details of our daily
life we can hand over to the effortless custody of auto-
matism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free
for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human
being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision,
and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of
every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and
the beginning of every bit of work are subjects of express
volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man
goes to the deciding or regretting of matters which ought to
be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his

consciousness at all."18

In view of the great importance to
successful living later in adult life, it follows that the
teacher's greatest task should be to encourage in his pupils
those habits that shall be most useful and beneficial to them
throughout life. Consistent with this aim, James proposes
several maxims which ought to be followed if one is to be
successful in the formation of new habits of conduct. They
are:

1) We must take care to launch ourselves with as strong
and decided an initiative as possible.

2) Never suffer an exception to occur till the new
habit is securely rooted in your life.

 

 

 

 

125

3) Seize the very first possible opportunity to act
on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompt-
ing you may experience in the direction of the habits you
aspire to gain.

a) Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little
gratuitous exercise every day.

In sum, there are two basic functions that we assign to
habits: first, a habit simplifies the attainment of a given
end and diminshes fatigue in its attainment while, as a rule,
making the result more accurate; and second, a habit dimin-
ishes the conscious attention which otherwise would be re-
quired to achieve some end. It makes our actions more auto-
matic, thus allowing the mind to engage itself in more inter-
esting and higher activities.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology
tells, is no worse than the hell we make for our-
selves in this world by habitually fashioning our
characters in the wrong way. Could the young but
realize how soon they will become mere walking
bundles of habits, they would give more heed to
their conduct while in the plastic state. We are
spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never
to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or
of vice leaves its never-so-little scar. The
drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, ex-
cuses himself for every fresh dereliction by
saying, 'I won't count this time!‘ Well, he may
not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it,
but it is being counted none the less. Down
among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules
are counting it, registering and storing it up
to be used against him when the next temptation
comes. Nothing we ever do is in strict scien-
tific literalness, wiped out.20

Beyond what is purely physical, there is an ethical
dimension to habit as well. For within certain limits, man
is able to make himself, even, to remake himself. If we

could not change our habits, it is doubtful that an infant

126

.would ever stop sucking his thumb. We need not be condemned
by our present habits to eternal sameness; but by effort of
will or conscious choice, we may change them. Habits are by
nature conservative. They are "the enormous fly-wheel of

society, its most precious conservative agent."21

However,
whereas bad habits may conserve the worst defects in an indi-
vidual or race, good habits may conserve what is best and
most desirable by way of human thought and action.

Habits are related to one's interests. And one's inter-
ests are related to those things which have meaning and value
relative to one's goals or purposes. The most fundamental
purpose that underlies all things is survival or continued
maintenance of the body. As Spinoza said, each thing en-
deavors to persevere in its being or identity.22 Roughly,
there are two kinds of interests: native interests, and
artificial or acquired interests. Native interests, broadly
speaking, lie primarily in bodily sensations: sensations
which, for the most part, concern the physical well-being
of the individual. Acquired interests are generally learned
through being associated with objects that are natively inter-
esting. For an adult, most interests are in fact artifi-
cially acquired. But interests are not merely limited to
physical survival. They include all those objects, or sen-
sations, which are useful to us or which advance our pleasure
and happiness.

According to James, the native interests of children

are wholly limited to sensation.23 Unless a teacher can

127
relate some new idea to a child's native interests, he is
almost doomed to failure so far as the advancement of the
child's interests are concerned. The teacher must always
compete for the child's attention with the other things in
the immediate environment: with the spitballs that Johnny
is throwing, or the faces that Tommy is making, or the dog-
fight in the street, or the fire engine that is screamingly
rushing by. Frequently the child (adults too) will pay more
attention to the physical characteristics of the teacher--
the way he moves his hands, or stutters, or writes on the'
blackboard--than to what the teacher is saying. "Living
things, then, moving things, or things that savor of danger
or of blood, that have a dramatic quality,--these are the
objects natively interesting to childhood, to the exclusion
of almost everything else; and the teacher of young children,
until more artificial interests have grown up, will keep in
touch with her pupils by constant appeal to such matters as
these. Instruction must be carried on objectively, experi-
mentally, anecdotally. The blackboard-drawing and story-
telling must constantly come in."24 Such methods, however,
are limited. They take in only the first steps in the pro-
cess of acquiring new interests.

In order to advance from merely native interests, there
is a simple "law" that relates them to new interests,|zi§.,
"Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting
through becoming associated with an object in which an

interest already exists. The two associated objects grow,

128

as it were, together: the interesting portion sheds its
quality over the whole; and thus things not interesting in
their own right borrow an interest which becomes as real and
as strong as that of any natively interesting thing."25 For
example, a geography lesson on Southeast Asia may take on
greater interest by being associated with the war in Viet
Ham and the place where a child’s father or older brother is
fighting. Or, in the case of an adult, a man may become
interested in the affairs of his local City Council because
of some immediate problem connected with his own property
and home. It would be a mistake, however, to believe that
all things may be made immediately interesting. Some things
may not. On a given occasion, in such cases, we must approach
a child differently. For example, we may simply appeal to
his 223; of punishment.

Education, in short, means "little more than a mass of

possibilities of reaction."26

And the art of teaching con-
sists in bringing about new reactions which are felt and ex-
pressed by a pupil as genuinely as the native reactive ten-
dencies they replaced. "Every acquired reaction is, as a
rule, either a complication grafted on a native reaction, or
a substitute for a native reaction, which the same object
originally tended to provoke."27 Native reaction include
Egay,q;gyg, Curiosity, Imitation, and Ambition. We all have
a fairly clear notion what the first three reactions refer

to. We need not concern ourselves with them. However, as

James uses the remaining two, they are not quite so clear.

129
Imitation leads to Emulation, which is "the impulse to
imitate what you see another doing, in order not to appear
inferior. . . . Emulation is the very nerve of human soci-
ety."28 Ambition slides into Pugnacity and EEliE' Pride
and the fighting spirit in man have often been looked upon
as sinful or unworthy passions. Yet, for James, they are
the springs of most human effort. They are deeply rooted in
our animal nature and are directly related to survival values.
However, since we no longer swing from trees, nor prey upon
our fellow human beings for daily sustenance, we need not con-
ceive the pugnacious tendencies in man so crudely. Pride and
pugnacity are human traits which can be construed in terms
of a general unyillingness to be beaten. It is the spirit of
achievement in the face of danger, or the sense of satisfac-
tion in having accomplished a difficult task, or just plain
being "Number One." In their more refined and noble forms,
pride and pugnacity play an important part in the process of
education. Unlike Rousseau,29 who forbade every form of
rivalry between one pupil and another, and never let his
émile be compared to other children, James believed in the
ideals of competition and arduous achievement as essential
to the development of a spirited and enterprising character.
Following Kill, James wrote that a character is a completely
fashioned will; and a will is an aggregate of tendencies to
act in a firm and prompt and definite way upon all the prin-

cipal emergencies of life.30 For James, soft pedagogics

had taken the place of the old steep and rocky path to

130

learning. The bracing oxygen of effort had been left out.
He said, "It is nonsense to suppose that every step in edu-
cation.ggn_be interesting. The fighting impulse must often
be appealed to. . . . The teacher who never rouses this sort
of pugnacious excitment in his pupils falls short of one of
his best forms of usefulness."31

James's writings continually emphasize the central im-
portance of interest in the process of education. His brief
chapter on interest in his 251k§_has been widely influential.
Whereas James considered instinct the beginning of all
interest, he did not overlook the role of learning in acquir-
ing new interests. It was James who first emphasized the
relationship between stimulus and response. (As we have
indicated, he called them impression and expression.) The
very concept of experience, as defined in Chapter h, grows
out of the notion of reactive behavior. When we reflect upon
the history of the progressive education movement and the
child-centered school, we find much that reminds us of James.
John Dewey, William Kilpatrick, John Childs, and Harold Rugg,
for example, were profoundly influenced by him.32 James's
influence is clearly apparent in scores of books on educa-
tional theory and practice. While James's name is infre-
quently mentioned, his thought and influence run deep. His
very language has become a part of the way we think and
write.33 Through his numerous examples and his effective,
simple style of expression in the Talks, James's thought has

directly passed on to tens of thousands of teachers. Less

131
directly, his influence could be felt in schools and colleges
through the many texts that were soon published after his
Principles. Host textbooks in psychology in the decades
following 1890 were patterned after James's monumental work.
Angell,3u Thorndike,35 Royce,36 Woodworth,37 Seashore,3€
McDougall,39 and others, either directly or indirectly pay
James tribute or acknowledge their debt to him.

Whereas James stands like a giant on the scene of intel-
lectual history, his works are not as well known today as
they deserve to be. In this connection, Allport made the
following comment in his Introduction to a recent edition of
James's PsychologyI Briefer Course: "One reason is that he
wrote at the end of the Victorian era, just before Freud and
American behaviorism made their shattering onslaught on con-
temporary thought. . . . Their surging popularity soon made
James seem old-fashioned, perhaps even a bit pious. But now
that we have recovered from the irreverent shocks adminis-
tered by Freud, Pavlov, Watson, we begin to perceive that the
psychological insights of James have the steadiness of a
polar star. The present-day student is a wiser scientist
and practitioner if he is acquainted with this beacon.“PO

So far, our discussion of James's philosophy of educa-
‘tion.has been largely confined to a consideration of the
"mechanics" of learning. We have been concerned primarily
‘with the art of teaching from the point of view of under-
standing how a teacher may approach a child for the purpose

of redirecting his behavior by appealing to his interests.

132
The only aim of education that we have considered is the
general one of bringing about in a child appropriate re-
sponses. We have not even mentioned what such responses
should be, except that they promote the well-being and
happiness of the individual. In short, we have been con-
cerned with the concept of learning, but not with the content
of value of what should be learned. We shall now discuss the
aims of education in terms of those values James deemed most
worthy of pursuit.

When James sent a copy of the Tglks to Teachers to a
friend, he wrote: "Pray don't wade through the Teacher part,
which is incarnate boredom. I sent it to you merely that you
might read the essay 'On a Certain Blindness,‘ which is
really the perception on which my whole individualistic
philosophy is based." James's talks to teachers are not, of
course, "incarnate boredom." But neither are they the most
important or exciting part of his book. The three addresses
to students, as well as the other addresses mentioned in the
beginning of this chapter, center upon certain few themes
which get at the very heart of James's philosophy and which
constitute some of his most impassioned writing. In discus-
sing the aims of education below, we need not differentiate
‘between the aims of education in elementary and secondary
(schools, or those of college. For James, they are the same.
Idhile we may approach the aims differently at different
JLevels, the nature of the aims differ only in degree, not

1n kind. Broadly speaking, the fundamental aim of education

133
is a moral one: to actualize in human experience those
dispositions which constitute the highest and noblest forms
of human action.

The perception upon which James's pluralistic, or
individualistic, philosophy rests, and to which he made
reference above, has to do with the belief that life is
shot-through with values and meanings which we often fail
to notice because we are insensitive to them. We cannot see
‘things that others see, nor can we feel things that others
feel. Values and meanings are there for others, but unless
we see and feel them in the same way, they form no part of

our world.

Every Jack sees in his own particular Jill
charms and perfections to the enchantment of
which we stolid onlookers are stone-cold. And
which has the superior view of the absolute truth,
he or we? Which has the more vital insight into
the nature of Jill's existence, as a fact? Is
he in excess, being in this matter a maniac? or
are we in defect, being victims of a pathological
anaesthesia as regards Jill's magical importance?
Surely the latter; surely to Jack are the pro-
founder truths revealed; surely poor Jill's pal-
pitating little life-throbs gpp_among the wonders
of creation, 23g worthy of this sympathetic
interest; and it is to our shame that the rest
of us cannot feel like Jack. For Jack realizes
Jill concretely, and weckwft. He struggles to-
ward a union with her inner life, divining her
feelings, anticipating her desires, understanding
her limits as manfully as he can, and yet inade-
quately, too: for he is also afflicted with some
blindness, even here. Whilst we, dead clods that
we are, do not even seek after these things, but
are contented that that portion of eternal fact
named Jill should be for us as if it were not.
Jill, who knows her inner life, knows that Jack's
way of taking it--so importantly-~is the true
and serious way: and she responds to the truth
in him by taking him truly and seriously, too.

13#

May the ancient blindness never wrap its clouds

about either of them again! Where would any of

pg be, were there no one willing to know us as

we really are or ready to repay us for pp; in-

sight by making recognizant return? We ought,

all of us, to realize each caper in this intense,

pathetic, and important way.

The way we come to share meanings and values is to enter
into another's world. If we can see why he values what he
does, or why something has meaning for him, we shall be less
intolerant or impatient of him. By entering into the life-
world of another, we may even come to know and understand
and love things which otherwise would have no meaning, or per-
haps existence, for us. While each of us necessarily lives
in a private world of our own consciousness, we may, to a
greater or lesser extent, imaginatively enter into the world
of others. As James would have every teacher conceive and
imaginatively enter into the active life of her pupil, so
every student should aim to enter into the active life of
others. Where we sympathetically and imaginatively enter
into the life-worlds of great men, we have an opportunity to
encounter great values. And it is the actions of great men
that James would have us emulate. We ought to take up as our
own their standards of conduct and ideals of achievement.

In answer to the question of the value of a college edu-
cation, James said "The best claim that a college education
can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can
aspire to accomplish for you, is this: that it should pplp
you to know a good man when you see him.”2

ently, a college education ought to prepare one to recognize

Stated differ-

 

135
and value human excellence: "The feeling for a good job
anywhere, the admiration of the really admirable, the dis-
esteem of what is cheap and trashy and impermanent,--this is
what we call the critical sense, the sense for ideal values.
It is the better part of wisdom."#3 0n the other hand, "to
have spent one's youth at college, in contact with the choice
and rare and precious, and yet still to be a blind prig or
vulgarian, unable to scent out human excellence or to divine
it amid its accidents, to know it only when ticketed and
labelled and forced on us by other, this indeed should be
accounted the very calamity and shipwreck of a higher educa-
tion."uu Human excellence in all things,--that, then, is
the highest aim of education. In Harvard, James found an
institution which fostered such aims and nurtured the souls
of her independent sons. For James, the true Harvard is "an
inner spiritual Harvard."u5 It is not for the sake of show
or prestige that a serious student would attend Harvard, but
because "of her persistently atomistic constitution, of her
tolerance of exceptionality and eccentricity, of her devotion
to the principles of individual vocation and choice. . . .
The true Harvard is the invisible Harvard in the souls of her
more truth-seeking and independent and often very solitary
sons."n6 Like a contagious disease, such values pass from
man to man by contact. "Education in the long run is an
affair that works itself out between the individual student
and his opportunities. . . . Above all things, offer the

opportunity of higher personal contacts."”7 For James,

136
"The wealth of a nation consists more than anything else in

”8 And the place

the number of superior men that it harbors."
where the greatest geniuses should gather is the university.
There they should mingle and congregate freely and ever-
lastingly for the purpose of advancing truth and enhancing
the quality of human life. In such terms, on the occasion
of his delivering the address on founder's day, James con-
ceived the ideal destiny of Stanford.49
Administrators who look to James for a plan or a method
will be disappointed. He had none. What James did have,
however, was great vision. If we fail to share his vision
of a kind of new Academy, it may be due to a certain blind-
ness on our part. For James, the aim of education is to
actualize in human experience those values deemed best; and
the art of teaching consists in getting the student to pp;
what they are. The only qualifications that a teacher need
possess are the wit and power to bring a student to the brink
of new horizons. The art of teaching is, in short, the art
of getting another human being to feel, to see, to experience
something new for himself.
James was such a teacher. Above all, he makes us see
and feel things concretely--really. In the classroom, he
was the same as he was everywhere else-~kind, sympathetic,
tolerant, stimulating, and charming. He couldn't bring
himself to speak dogmatically, but, rather, he would qualify
what he said with an 3; or pgyp_. .As James Angell has written:

"He was never afraid to make a mistake if only it were honest,

137

and he started off on a new tack when he found himself in
error, as though fallacy were a regular part of the day's
work."50 While he often over-estimated the capacities of
many of his students, this was only his way of putting them
on "their mettle to make good his estimate."51 He could not
abide long-winded arguments or complicated proofs. His
temperament was too quick for that. And he had an enormous
dislike of stuffy, scholarly jargon. Once he read Spencer's
definition of evolution in class:52

Evolution is an integration of matter and con-

comitant dissipation of motion: during which the

matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent

homogeneity to a definite, coherent hetero-

geneity.
And then he went on to translate it:

Evolution is a change from a no-howish, untalk-

aboutable, allalikeness to a somehowish and in

general ta kaboutable not-allalikeness by con-

tinuous stick-togetherations and something-

elsifications.
When it came to good teaching and what it takes to be a good
teacher, James had a good deal to say. This is especially
the case when it comes to the matter of requiring a college
teacher to have a doctorate. The only degree James earned
was the M. D. He never earned a B. A.,an k. A., or a Ph. D.,
and he couldn’t see why it was necessary to hold a doctorate
to be able to teach.

In his "Ph. D. Octopus," James tells about an incident
in which a brilliant Harvard student of philosophy received

zen appointment to teach English literature elsewhere. However,

lno sooner had the new instructor been appointed, than the

138

board of governors made the awful discovery that he did not
have the Ph. D. While at Harvard, perhaps foolishly, he had
been content to study philosophy for its own sake. Now,
however, his new President informed him that his appointment
was to be revoked immediately, unless, of course, he could
procure a Harvard doctor's degree prior to taking up his
teaching that next fall. The candidate could not complete
his thesis to the satisfaction of his committee in time for
spring graduation. Although it was original and brilliant
(subsequently it was recognized to be the most outstanding
contribution in metaphysics from Harvard), it didn't read
like a dissertation. Alas, the candidate was in fear of
losing his appointment. James and his colleagues wrote
enthusiastic letter upon letter in support of the candidate.
Finally, their eloquence and apparent conviction prevailed.
The candidate got the job--but only on the condition that he
secure the degree by the next spring. To make the story
short, the candidate finished his work in philosophy and
earned the right to append those sacred letters (P1. D.)
after his name. Whether or not his having a degree in
philosophy enabled him to teach English literature any better,
was a question that continued to trouble James. It was also
the question that occasioned his essay.

The point of James's essay is that the doctorate shows
nothing about one's teaching ability. Already in his time
it had become the union card of the college teacher. And

anyone who seriously aspired to become a college teacher,

139

but who entered the educational market without a Ph. D.,
was in for a hard time. Colleges, large and small, cared
little what the area of specialization was in, or whether
it had bearing upon the instructor's ability to teach in the
field for which he was hired. The demand for the Ph. D. was
for show. It looked good in a catalogue to list nothing but
doctors of philosophy. As Barzun has pointed out, "From the
time when William James first raised his voice against the
three-letter fetish . . . the number of doctorates obtained
in course has doubled and redoubled. . . . Few administrators
choosing a prospective teacher have ever been known to read
[his dissertatiop7 . . . they merely want to know it exists."53
The time and money involved in taking the Ph. D. makes mem-
bership in a college faculty "the most expensive and least
luxurious club in the world."54 Since James first warned us
against the spreading and menacing tentacles of the octopus,
the situation in education seems to have gotten even worse.

In 1876, twenty-seven years before he published his
attack on the Ph. D., James wrote an article entitled "The
-Teaching of Philosophy in our Colleges."55 In this article,
his earliest piece on higher education, he stated some of
his most characteristic views: views from which he later
never departed. In a letter to the Nation, Stanley Hall
expressed his dissatisfaction with the way philosophy was
then being taught. Hall was a tough-minded experimental
psychologist, and he felt that philosophy was being too
tightly controlled by the presidents of institutions of

1A0

higher learning who were for the most part ministers of the
Gospel. As such, while men of good character, Hall argued
that they were not qualified to teach philosophy. They might
edify students in the direction of good morals, but such fare
would hardly give rise to youthful impulse and curiosity in
matters of science. On these points, James was in full
agreement with Hall. In responding to Hall's letter, James
took the opportunity to give his own views on the teaching
of philosophy. But while his thoughts were expressed in
relation to philosophy, it is quite clear that he intended
to extend them to cover the whole field of higher education.

James wrote, "If the best use of our colleges is to give
young men a wider openness of mind and a more flexible way of
thinking . . . then we hold that philosophy . . . is the most
important of all college studies. . . . However sceptical
one may be of the attainment of universal truth . . . one can
never deny that philosophic study means the habit of always
seeing an alternative, of not taking the usual for granted,
of making conventionalities fluid again, of imagining foreign
states of mind. In a word, it means the possession of mental
perspective. . . . As for philosophy, technically so called,
or the reflection of man on his relations with the universe,
its educational essence lies in the quickening of the spirit
‘to its problems. What doctrines students take from their
‘teachers are of little consequence provided they catch from
them the living, philosophic attitude of mind, the independent,
personal look at all the data of life, and the eagerness

141

to harmonize them. . . . In short, philosophy, like Moliere,
claims her own where she finds it. She finds much of it
today in physics and natural history, and must and will
educate herself accordingly}6

If the philosophic attitude is an attempt to enlarge
the understanding of the scope of application of every notion
which enters into current thought, then it is clear that
philosophy enters into most, if not all, aspects of human
experience. As James's pragmatism is a new name for some
old ways of thinking, so his thoughts on philosophy and
education are a restatement of the old idea of education
for humanitas. The connection between James and the ancient
world can be drawn no better than by quoting a few remarks
by R. H. Wellman with reference to Cicero:

For Cicero, as well as for the ancients generally

since the time of Socrates, the categories of

thought involved in all philosophical discourse

were moral categories: the process of compre-

hending, or better, doing philosophy-~for phi-

losophy in its most important sense was an ars

--necessitated thinking in moral terms which,

in terms of the continuity between thought and

action, meant being moral. Leading the moral

life, therefore, was a matter of actualizing in

human experience those dispositions which were

equivalent to the categories of thought embedded

in philosophy; hence philosophy educated the
man of humanitas, the good man, by cultivating

in him Weltanschauppg within the con-

text of its discourse.

The point of higher education is to push forward the
frontiers of knowledge, to speculate, entertain hypotheses,
to generate ideas. In short, to be philosophical. Under
the ideal of humanitas all other matters are subsumed: for

the ideal of humanitas is the source of all purposive

1A2
activity and value. The process of education should empha-
size creation and discovery, not mechanical routines or the
excavation of lifeless data. The function of a college
teacher is simply to guide a student in his search for a
perspective and help him to avoid what is useless or other-
wise unfruitful. But this requires that the teacher have
something of humanity himself. According to James, it is
to the needs of the student that a teacher should direct
his efforts, not to the satisfaction of the demands of some
curriculum which prescribes what shall be taught and how it
shall be presented.

In James, the notion of "doing your own thing" finds a
supreme champion. However, for a large number of students,
the life of mind has become an occasional affair. That is,
they find little satisfaction in performing routine assign-
ments or classroom chores. The best of them simply retreat
to some quiet place and pursue their own interests in silence
and isolation, if not despair. When the university no longer
challenges them, but they simply go through the motions of
getting a degree for the sake of gaining admission to the
world at large as a college graduate (man of letters?), the
idea of education for humanitas sounds like a false and
hollow thing. Their attendance at a university is not marked
by their enthusiasm for it as an ideal community of scholars,
but, rather, by the stark necessity of having to acknowledge
that they are there because it is a matter of getting and

1A3
eating one's daily bread. For without a college degree,
there is little hope of enjoying the kind of opportunity
that we envision for ourselves.

Were James alive today, one could easily imagine him
leading a demonstration to the Administration Building in
protest of some silly regulation that was being enforced.

One could imagine him in the midst of the drug question,

or see him stoutly defending his views with regard to Amer-
ican policies in Southeast Asia. But one would also see him
defending the right of others to express their views. James
would defend a colleague whose contract was not renewed be-
cause he didn't publish his quota of articles, although he
may have otherwise been an outstanding teacher and member of
the faculty. Social evils, like mental disease, would con-
sume his effort as well as money. An aspiring young author
would receive a sympathetic reading of his work and a thought-
ful note from James. And students would always get a hearing
and a kind word to boot. He was truly a man among men.

James had a profound sense of what is right and good,
and he had an equally profound sense of what is not. Many
.of the problems which confront us today were already apparent
in his time, and he warned us what to expect if we continue
our course. For one thing, the life and growth of a uni-
versity should be measured in terms of human happiness and
achievement. And this means that education must be relevant
to those ends. Having distinguished professors on campus

doesn't mean a thing if they don't teach and students never

luu

meet them. And towering buildings in themselves signify
nothing; for bricks and mortar soon crumble into dust. The
true university, for James, exists in the minds and hearts
of men: its students and teachers alike. With prophetic
insight, James warned us of the problems that would befall
us should we close our eyes to the ideals of humanitas and
choose instead to follow the bitch-goddess, Success, who
beguiles men down the path of cupidity.

It is impossible to summarize the views of so germinal
a thinker as William James. It is likewise impossible to
weigh his influence such that, without doing injustice to
him by oversimplification, we convey a meaningful evaluation
of his influence. But to hazard a guess, his most important
and lasting influence has been indirectly felt by those who
accepted his ideas and incorporated them into their own
views. Unlike Dewey, for example, James did not concern
himself, except for the Talks to Teachers and some informal
addresses, with the problems of education as such. He was
not pedagogically or administratively inclined. But his
influence as a teacher was great upon all those who came
into contact with h1m.58 Perhaps the best short character-
ization of James the man, as well as the nature of his in-
fluence as a teacher, is found in the following, concluding
statement by Ralph Barton Perry, James's great biographer:

James did not found a school, He was incapable

of the patient brooding upon the academic nest

that is necessary for the hatching of disciples.
The number of those who borrowed his ideas is

1&5

small and insignificant beside the number of
those that through him were brought to have
ideas of their own. His greatness as a teacher
lay in his implanting and fostering of intel-
lectual independence. He prized his own uni-
versity for its individualism and tolerance,
and for the freedom which it gave him to sub-
ordinate the scholastic office and the scho-
lastic method to a larger human service. So
the circle of his influence widened to the
bounds of European civilization: while his
versatility, his liberal sympathies, the coin-
cidence of his ruling passions with the deeper
interests of mankind at large, and above all
the profound goodness of his heart, so diver-
sified and humanized this influence that there
were few indee too orthodox or too odd to
respond to it.

NOTES

146

NOTES
INTRODUCTION

1nw11113m James and His Message," Contemporarqueview,
XCIX (1911). 31.

2N. Knight, William James (London: Penguin Books,
1950). 50.

BIrrational Man: A Study in Existential Philoso h
(New York: A Doubleday Anchor Book, I962), I8.
“Op. cit., 32.

5The Writi s of William James (New York: Random House,
1967), x1.
6

Harvey Wish, Society and Thou ht in Modern America
(New York: Longmans, Green and Co., I932), Chapter I3.

 

 

147

NOTES
CHAPTER I

1New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1890. 2 vols. Reprinted,
complete and unaltered, by Dover Publications, Inc., New
York, 1950.

2See Gardner kurphy, Historical Introduction to Modern
Psychology (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, I959),
19 .

3nThe principles," Psychological Review, 50 (1943).
121.

nHarold Rugg, Foundations for American Education
(Yonkers-on-Hudson, N. Y.: WorId Book Company, 1947), 97.

5Ps cholo : Briefer Course (New York: Henry Holt and
Co., 1892). Abridged reprint, ed. Gordon Allport, (New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1961).

' 6Talks to Teachers on Ps cholo : and to Students on
Some of LIfe's IdeaIs (New York: Henry HoIt and Co., I899).
Reprinted, ed. Paul Woodring (New York: W. W. Norton and Co.,

Inc., 1958).

 

A 7The terms "evolutionary theory" and "evolutionism"
'have been deliberately selected because they are vague.
Evolutionism covers not only specific biological theories--
e.g., Darwin's theory of natural selection--, but broad
socio—cultural ones as well--e.g., Spencer's evolutionary
philosophy-~which include such notions as progress, perfect-
ibility, struggle, individualism, exploitation of the weak,
and so on. The number of terms and interpretations is
plethoric, and serves to indicate the degree of importance
of the concept in question.

8As Gardrer Murphy has written: "Of all the nineteenth
century currents most fundamentall congenial to him, be-
cause so closely related to such ersonal7 needs, the most
important was evolutionism; an evolutionism which meant
creativeness through struggle, the primacy of the immediate
task to be done over any abstraction which is removed from
life.” Historical Introductign to Modern Psychology, 194.

148

149

9The ancients, however, generally tended to view the
biological character of species in terms of fixed, immut-
able forms.

10See, for example, Condorcet's The Progress of the
Human Mind, in which he traced human history through nine
epochs or stages to the French Revolution. He predicted
that the 10th stage would usher in the age of ultimate per-
fection of man.

11Strictly speaking, the term "theory" applies not to
evolution, but to Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection.
In the phrase "theory of evolution," the term evolution
explains nothing. It is itself in need of explanation. The
evolution of species is explained by means of the theory of
natural selection. Another point. In his work of 1859,
Darwin was only concerned with an account of the origin of
species. Hence any criticism that the theory of evolution
does not explain the origin of living things, especially
man, misses the point. Beyond the single statement that
"light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history,"
Darwin did not discuss man at all. The "light" that he
cast upon the origin of man was presented in The Descent of
£33 (1871).

12wherees Darwin's The Origin of Species is his most
famous work, it was, perhaps, his The Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals (1872)—that had greater rele-
vance and importance for James's work in psychology.

13In 1875, and for several years following, James used
. Spencer's Princi 1es of Ps cholo as a text in his course
called "PhysioIogical Psychology." Beginning in 1879, he
gave a course in "The Philosophy of Evolution," which used
Spencer's Principlps of Philosophy. See Edwin G. Boring,
"The Influence of Evolutionary Theory upon American Psy-
chological Thought," in Evolutionar Thou ht in America,

edé Stow Persons (New York: George Brazil er, , 75-
27 .

1"(James's Princi 1es of Ps cholo , I, 225, 284-290.
Hereafter we shaII simply refer to this work as the Principles.

15Herbert Spencer, Principles of Ps cholo , 3rd ed.
(New York: D. Appleton, . , I, .

16"Remarks on Spencer's Definition of Mind as Corres-
pondence," Journal of S eculative Philoso h , XII (1878),
1-18; reprinted in James's CoIIected Essa s and views
(New York: Longmans, Green, 1920), 43-68. References are
to the reprinted paper in Collected Essgys.

17Ibid., 51.

I I x

150
18%” #9.
19_Ip_i_g_., 49-50.
20_Ipi_q., 67-68.
21Principles, I, 8.

22For example, we do not choose to become a man any
more than an acorn chooses to become an oak tree. Hence,
while "manhood" and "oakhood" are natural ends relative to
man and acorns, just becoming what we are determined to
become naturally (i.e., biologically) cannot be the main fig
point of James s teleological test. Whatever the reasons
are that there should be oak trees, or men, they are not
tree-reasons or man-reasons. Such "purposes" are simply
not of our own design.

23Such a view assumes that the Cosmos is a kind of
living, intelligent thing which has purposes of its own.
,On this view, pp; role in the "life" of the Cosmos might
correspond to something like the role cells play relative r5
to bodies. Every cell has an end(s) relative to the health
and normal functioning of the body. But as cells, they do
not exist in and for themselves. They exist for the sake
» p; the life-system they help support. In brief, while each
.cell exhibits purposive activity, no cell "chooses" its own
ends: hence, no cell is free to act intelligently.
The above analogy is, of course, fallacious, and we
cannot directly attribute such an argument to James. But,
on this matter, we cannot be sure what James would have
believed, for his remarks indicate an ambivalence which
leaves the question undecided. He says: "Just so we form
our decision upon the deepest of all philosophic problems:
Is the Kosmos an expression of intelligence rational in its
inward nature, or a brute external fact pure and simple?
If we find ourselves, in contemplating it, unable to vanish
the impression that it is a realm of final purposes, that
it exists for the sake of something, we place intelligence
at the heart of it and have a religion. If, on the con-
trary, in surveying its irremediable flux, we can think of
the present only as so much mere mechanical sprouting from
the past, occurring with no reference to the future, we are
atheists and materialists" (Princi 1es, I, 8).
As this passage seems to iIIustrate, each of us pay.
decide what we will. But unless we are prepared to live
with contradictions, we cannot believe both that the Cosmos
is teleological 52g not-teleological: both that we are
free, and that we are not free. NevertheIess, James, here
and always, seems so prepared. This question is at the
geart of his thought and reappears to haunt him throughout
ife.

 

151
24Principles, I, 141.

25.Iames says: "Now the study of the phenomena of con-
sciousness which we shall make throughout the rest of this
book will show us that consciousness is at all times pri-
marily a selecting agency. Whether we take it in the lowest
sphere of sense, or in the highest of intellection, we find
it always doing one thing, choosing one out of several of
the materials so presented to its notice, emphasizing and
accentuating that and suppressing as far as possible all the
rest. The item emphasized is always in close connection
with some interest felt by consciousness to be paramount at
the time." Principles, I, 139.

. 26A note on terminology: In Chapter VII of the Prin-
lciples, James discusses his search for some general term
which can be used to designate all states of consciousness
whatever. However, most of the terms he comes up with he
finds objectionable. For example, "mental state," "con-
scious modification," "modification of the ego," "subject-
‘ive condition," "psychosis," "affection of the soul," and
"idea," are all awkward and have no kindred verbs. On the
other hand, the term "feeling" not only has the verb "to
feel," but it has such derivatives as "feelingly," "felt,"
"feltness," and so on, which, given James's style, makes

it very useful. However, it has other meanings as well, in
‘which cases it is often used as a synonym of "sensation,"
as opposed to thought. "Thought" would perhaps be the best
candidate, except that in some cases it too is awkward. For
example, "thought of a pain" and "feeling of a pain" seem to
connote two different states. In his seeming desperation,
James settles for both "feeling" and "thought" and intends
to use them synonymously, accordingly as they make sense in
the context in which they occur. "If we could say in Eng-
lish 'it thinks,‘ as we say 'it rains,’ or 'it flows,‘ we
should be stating the fact most simply . . ." (Principles,
I, 224-225). In using "thought," we must be care u o
avoid the temptation of identifying it with what is "purely
mental" as opposed to what is physical. Perhaps "thought-
feeling," or vice versa, more nearly approximates James's
intention.

27Psychology: Briefer Course, 151. The Princi 1es was
often re erre o as e James," whereas the BrIefer Eourse
was affectionately known as "The Jimmy."

28Ibid., 151. Elsewhere James says, "It is astonishing
what havoc is wrought in psychology by admitting at the out-
set apparently innocent suppositions, that nevertheless con-
tain a flaw. . . . The notion that sensations, being the
'simplest things, are the first things to take up in psycho-
logy is one of these suppositions" (Principles, I, 224).

152
29Principles, I, 224.

30Ibid., 488. To ask what a child experiences before
he experiences anything is a meaningless question. Aware-
ness is always awareness of something, an object, event, or
quality with which we are already acquainted. We cannot
explain the passage from non-awareness to awareness by com-
paring consciousness to a light switch, for example, in
which there are two clearly defined states: one "offfl the
other ”on." Rather, the passage is "rheostatic." For
whereas at first objects of consciousness are but dimly
perceived, they become more clearly defined as we cast more
light on them.

 

31James's term for this "neutral stuff" is ppre exper-
ience. To some extent, the concept of pure experience owes
something to Chauncey Wright. See Edward H. Nadden's
Chaunce Wri ht (New York: washington Square Press, Inc.,
19 , 130.

32Principles, I, 1.

33Ibid., I, l. Literally, "phenomenon" means "that
which appears." From an epistemological point of view, we
can roughly take it to mean, "that which is known through
the senses rather than through the intellect or intuition."
See John Wild, The Radical Em iricism of William James
(Garden City, N. Y.: DoubIeday and Co., Inc., I969), Chapter
1. Wild feels that the emphasis upon phenomena is signifi-

cant from the point of view of James's "phenomenological
psychology."

3”For James, "kind" is only a class name for minds,
which are objects in a world of other objects. Whatever is
named by "Soul" not only plays no part in empirical science,
but from the point of view of theory, it is a superfluous
hypothesis. See Principles, I, 183.

 

35W. I. 225. 271-284.

36While mind-states are dependent upon body-states as
necessary conditions for existence, James is not proposing
an epiphenomenalistic theory of mind. For as body-states
conditions and lead to mental activity, mind-states also
effect changes in the body. But it would be erroneous to
say that body-states cause mind-states, or that mind-states
cause body-states. Altfiough James is not very clear ini-
tially, it becomes more apparent that his dualistic inter-
actionism is more programmatic and pedagogical in nature
“than it is metaphysical.

37While it is true that mind and body, loosely speak-
ing, affect each other, it is also true that "together"

153

(i.e., as ppp individual) they meet, interact with, and are
conditioned by the external world of things, events, or other
persons. James's interactionism is two—pronged: for minds,
so to speak, not only "inhabit" bodies, but "mind-bodies"
inhabit environments; and in such environments, mind-bodies
not only react to the exigencies of the situation, they in
turn act on them as well.

38Principles, 1, 185-

39Ibid., I, 185. When James says that no one has ques-
tioned the fact that consciousness of some sort goes on, he
means to imply something stronger, yl§., that no one pap
question it seriously. It is a fact which we can know
indubitably, at least of ourselves, when we think.

#012213. 185. James's italics.

ul;p;g., 224. By "thinking," James here means every
form of consciousness indiscriminately.

”ZFor this James must share part of the blame. He was
unsystematic and often inconsistent. His language was
colorful but his remarks were too unguarded. He tried too
hard to communicate his ideas to masses in popular and
familiar terms. And he trusted too much to the good will
and intelligence of his audience or readers. For all the
praise given him as a popular speaker, James actually hated
lecturing. In plain fact, he often did it just for the
money. He really meant to be a serious philosopher but he
died before he could get down to the business of putting
his intellectual house in order. On this point it is in-
structive to quote a letter to F. C. S. Schiller. Speaking
of his reluctance to accept the Hibbert Lectures, James
wrote: "I accepted because I was ashamed to refuse a pro—
fessional challenge of that importance, but I would if it
hadn't come to me. I actually hate lecturing; and this job
condemns me to publish another book written in picturesque
and popular style when I was settling down to something
whose manner would be more strengpissenschaftlich, i.e.,
concise, dry, and impersonal. Hy free and easy style in
Pragmatism has made me so many enemies in academic and
pedantic circles that I hate to go on increasing their
number, and want to become tighter instead of looser.

These new lectures will have to be even looser; for lec-
tures must be prepared for audiences; and once prepared,

I have neither the strength to re-write them, nor the self-
abnegation to suppress them." Ralph Barton Perry, Tpp

Tho ght and Character of William James, 2 vols. (Boston:
LIttle, Brown, and Co., I935), II, 583.

When all is said and done, it nevertheless remains that
his brilliant metaphors became perilous slogans which stood

 

 

154

in the way of clear understanding and consequently hurt
every cause that James endeavored to champion.

“3Chapter 1x of the Principles is entitled "The Stream
of Thought." In the Briefer Cburse and the Talks to Teachers,
James uses the title "The Stream of Consciousness."

“”First published as "The Laws of Habit," Pc ular
Science gpnthly, 30 (1887), 433-451. Reprinted in Frinci-
ples as Chapter IV. Subsequently published separate y as

*—

bit, many editions.

 

CHfiPTER II

lIn the Principles, James distinguishes five character-
istics of the stream of thought, whereas in his Briefer Course
he only mentions four. In his Talks to Teachers his discus-
sion of the stream is reduced to such simplistic terms that
it altogether fails to convey his meaning. (One is tempted to
speculate that James did not even seriously attempt to get
his ideas across here. He simply refers to the stream of con-
sciousness because he was expected to.) The characteristic
of thought which he omits from these later works has to do
with the fact that consciousness "always appears to deal with
objects independent of itself." Such an omission is unfor-
tunate, for James's vital discussion of the relationship
between thought and object has veen overlooked almost com-
pletely. And such an oversight in effect causes us to miss
the whole point of James's theory of mind and its relation to
the world which appears to it. From the point of view of
modern-day phenomenology, this is one of James's most impor-
tant contributions. His analysis of the problem of conscious-
ness and its relations to the world has placed James in the
forefront as an early or proto—phenomenologist. See, for
example, Hans Linschoten, On the Way towards a Phenomenological
Ps choloa , tr. by Giorgi Tifittsburgh: Duquesne University
Press, 19%8). ilso Bruce Wilshire, William James and Phenom-
enology: A Study of "ThejPrincioles of Psychology" (Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press, 196?). And John Wild, The
Radical Empiricism of William James (Garden City, New 735::
Doubleday and Company, Inc., 19595.

2

 

Principles, I, 225.

3Ibid., I, 225. In endeavoring to analyze thought as
part of personal consciousness, James is fully aware of the
problem that "personal consciousness" is one of the terms in
question. However, in order to get on with the investigation,
he says that we must plunge in the middle of things as regards
our vocabulary and use terms that can be adequately defined
only later. Since, according to James, everyone knows what
these terms roughly mean, it is only in a rough way that they
should now be taken (op. cit., 225). The notion of plunging
into the middle of things is a methodological necessity. For

155

156

if we knew perfectly well what we mean by such terms as per-
sonal consciousness, self, mind, and thought, no investigation
would probably be necessary.

”Ibid., 225-226.
51bid., 226.
61bid-

7Such a view is, of course, solipsistic. The argument
for solipsism has been stated in the following way by F. H.
Bradley: "I cannot transcend experience, and experience must
be my experience. From this it follows that nothing beyond
my self exists, for what is experience is its (the self's)
states." appearanc§_and Reality, 2nd edition (Oxford:
Clarendon Press), ZlFi’

E,Principles, I, 230. On this point, James is, of course,
taking an extreme stand. Not only would he say that a par-
ticular sensation of red--could not occur twice in exactly
the same way, but, so it seems, he is also committed to the
view that the proposition "Two plus two equals four" could
not occur in experience a second time in exactly the same way.
Such a conclusion seems odd--a "piece of metaphysical .
sophistry"--even to James (op. cit. 231)! However, strictly
speaking, the point of his argument is that we have no proof
that a given state of consciousness is experienced more than
once by a given individual in exactly the same way.

9Ibid., 231.
loIbid., 232.
111b1d., 236.

12Ibid., 233. In the above passage, "must" refers to
the fact that because of physiological changes in the brain,
it is not possible to experience a given fact-before-me-now
as I may have experienced it on another, different occasion.
While the object may remain the same, I have changed in the
meanwhile.

13Ib1d., 232.

149;, Hans Linschoten, On the wayfiToward a Phenomeno-
logical Psychology, 69-72.

15Here is what Hume had to say about personal identity:
"For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call
.myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or
other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain

157

or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a
perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.
‘When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound
sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be
said not to exist. And were all my perceptions remov'd by
«death, and cou'd I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love,
nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I shou'd be en-
‘tirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requi-
site to make me a perfect non-entity." A Treatise of Human
gajigure, ed. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 195?),

16M" I tasted a new wine, read a new book, gained a
pound in weight, and so on.

17gpinciples, I, 238—239.

18Logically speaking, if it were possible for minds to

ixientify, then it would make no sense to speak of them as
different minds. They would be identical--one system of

‘t omghts, one state of consciousness. The point here seems
13c: be not that there cannot be two or more distinct bodies
lLinving through the same state of mind or consciousness: But,
rather, they could never know that. A given state of mind
vvc>tfld always appear as py state and not another's. This
follows from James's first characteristic, 12%., that thoughts
tend to be part of _a_ personal consciousness. Here, even the
Word "tends" is deliberate. For in those pathological cases
cxf‘ multiple-personality, the "secondary personal selves . . .
form conscious unities, have continuous memories, speak,
vrrtjte, invent distinct names for themselves. . . ." Prin-

ciples, I, 227-228.
lgPrinciples, I, 237.
2°1b1d., I, 225.

21Descartes wrote in a letter: "I had good reason to
asSert that the human soul is always conscious in any cir-
<3'llrnstances-u-even in a mother's womb. For what more certain
(II‘ more evident reason could be relevant than my proof that
the soul's nature or essence consists in its being conscious,
~3tlst as the essence of a body consists in its being extended?
- ‘thing can never be deprived of its own essence." E.
thcombe and P. Geach, Descartes: Philosophical yzitipgs
(3Efidinburgh, 1954), p. 2 . On 8 pro em, a so see Norman
Mailcom, "Dreaming and Skept ism," The Philosophical Review,
XLV (1956). 1n-37.

22Principles, I, 240.
23mm. , I, 240.

159

2“’Ibidu 2&1.

N

5Ibid., 2&2. 92, Aron Gurwitsch, "William James' Theory
of the 'Transitive Parts' of the Stream of Consciousness,"
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, III, 449-u77.

 

26Ibid., I, 2&3. The division of thought into transi-
tive and substantive parts is an exercise in analysis. In
reality we do not have two parts, only thought itself viewed
from two different perspectives. James's partiality for
either "feeling" or "thought" as synonymous designations of
consciousness generally, is not nearly so indecisive as one
rnight first suspect. Both cover the same phenomenon, but
:from different points of view, so to speak--the subjective
zand the objective. Feeling is related to the transitive
jparts and is subjective. Thought is related to the substan-
tzive parts and is objective. Knowledgeggg is acquaintance
Tfith things through the experience of feeling them. Con-
ception is knowledge about things in thought.

 

27David Hume, 13p, pip.
28Principles, I, 251.
29;p;g,, I. 255.
39;p;g., 258.

31gpgg., 260.

32is Linschoten has remarked, "Between 'feeling' on the
(Drie hand and 'thought' on the other, there exists a real
<311fference; but only in the sense that 'thought' is a special
lcfind in the category 'feeling.‘ Because of their essential
1?ۤlationship James at a later time abandoned that twofold
division and speaks in general of 'experience.'" On the Way

(Pcyward,a Phenomenological Psychology, 154.
33Principles, I, 260,255.

3L'In a letter describing his manner of composing, Mozart
=3£iys first bits and crumbs of a piece join themselves in the
IWind, then the soul takes over and the thing begins to grow,
Eilfid "I spread it out broader and clearer, and at last it gets

Eiilmost finished in my head, even when it is a long piece, so
t3}lat I can see the whole of it at a single glance in my mind,
Else if it were a_beautiful painting or a handsome human being;
3111 which way I do not hear it in my imagination at all as a
£3uccession--the way it must come later--but all at once, as
were. It is a rare feast! All the inventing and making
53<>es on in me as in a beautiful strong dream. But the best
(31‘ all is the hearing,of it allat once." Quoted by James,

.~__;nciples, I, 255 fn.

159
35Principles, I, 260.
36mm. , I, 260.

37We must further assume that we do not know the solu-
tion. Once we have learned, say, the multiplication tables,
we do not have to search for the solution (i.e., think), we
know it. Genuine thought, when successful, involves some
discovery, e.g., that two times two equals four. The "solu-
tion" subsequently is not the product of thought, but habit.
We merely recite a formula without benefit of thought, unless,
of course, the question "How much is two times two?" continues
to puzzle us.

38Principles, I, 269. While James's illustration is
perhaps helpful in clearing theoretical questions, the ex-
ample illustrates no real situation. For according to his
own analysis of the privacy and uniqueness of thought, no
two individuals would ever be likely to start from the same
point. Even if it were possible, they would never know it.

39As Harold Rugg has pointed out, this is one of James's
most important contributions, but one which has been too
much neglected by educators and psychologists alike. Foun-
dations for American Education, 92.

”OPrinciples, I, 225.

ulStrictly speaking, there can be no such state of mind
as a thought about nothing. If, for example, I were to ask
someone what he is thinking about, and he answers, "Nothing,”
then I am entitled to conclude that he was not thinking.

uzThe term "intentionality" is principally associated
with the views of Franz Brentano. In his Ps cholqgie vom
empirischen Standpunkte (Leipzig: Meiner, 187H , he described
intentionality as that which characterized the essential
feature of mental phenomena as opposed to that which is non-
mental. Loosely, thought is always directed upon an object:
it is referential. More specifically, "thoughts contain
objects in themselves by way of intention" (o . g;p., Vol. I,
Bk. II, Ch. 1). In short, thoughts refer to hings. See
Roderick M. Chisholm's careful analysis, Perceiving: A
Philoso hical Stud (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press,

, c pter 1. James's term for intentionality was
"conception" (Principles, I, 461f). For a discussion of
James's usuage, see Hans Linschoten, On the Way Toward a

Phenomenological Psychology, 181.

“3In holding that thought and object cannot be inde-
pendently conceived, James does not mean to suggest that one
can be reduced to the other. Unlike the idealists, who hold

160

that objects exist by virtue of their being known and that
mind exists insofar as it thinks about things, James.holds
that objects have an independent existence without the mind.

unPrinciples, I, 459.

Q5Here, of course, "know" is ambiguous. On the one hand,

I have an uncomfortable sensation which I feel (know) directly.
(ind, without doubt, it is uniquely py sensation.) On the
other hand, the sensation is identified as heartburn. Here,

I know that I have a certain common, minor ailment. In knowing
that I have heartburn, I have come to learn what heartburn
means. The object of thought, therefore, is not a sensation, r;
it is a meaning. }

uéPrinciples, I, 272.

“71bid., I, #60. The principle of constancy is ex-
pressed as follows: "The same matters can be thought of in
successive portions of the mental stream, and some of these
portions can know that they mean the same matters which the
other portions meant." Stated differently, "the mind can
always intend, and know when it intends, to think of the
Same." 9p. p;p,, 459. In affirming the fundamental impor-
tance of the principle of constancy, James does not thereby
deny importance to the logical principle of identity, or,
for that matter, any other so-called law of thought. He
holds that the laws of logic are just that, laws of logic.
That is, they are truths about language systems, not facts
about our physical world. For example, in asserting "p
implies,:," we know nothing whatever about our life-world,
only that a given preposition implies itself. James does
not demean the role of logic in conceptual thought, he simply
recognizes the limitation of manipulating symbols in the hope
of discovering what is real or, perhaps, supporting our faith
in.what we take to be real. At best, logic can tell us what
is or is not possible (e.g., a contradictory state of affairs),
but it cannot bolster our confidence one jot as to what states
of affairs do in fact obtain.

 

ugPrinciples, I, #60.

z“)Here it may be instructive to point out that "we"
refers to the collective experiences of men, not simply the
private, subjective experiences of the individual. In this
regard, the pragmatism. of James has been greatly misunderstood.
He is not nearly so subjectivistic as we are wont to believe.
On these questions, James is much closer to C. S. Peirce
than is generally acknowledged.

50Principles, I, 275.
511bid., I, 276.

161
52%,
53;p;g., 279.
5ugplg., #61.
55;p;g,, 463.

56The formula, if you will, for the "construction" of
Jamesian objects--i.e., thipgs--may be expressed in the
following way: "8: aRb-e>O." Briefly, given some state of
the neutral stuff, S, the meaning of S is objectified in
consciousness whenever the function of conception (R) re-
lates (a) the conceiving state and (b) the neutral state,
which are codeterminants of S, such that the object of
thought (0) means S, the given state, and no other.

The term "mattering" is intended to be understood in the
most inclusive, neutral sense possible, in which case, for
example, physical change or process is only one instance.
Following James, I wish to allow for the possibility of other
instances mattering, for example, the "matter" of Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs. Some thoughts have as objects mere
fictional entities: others, entia rationis, like "difference"
and "nonentity." See Principles, I, 551.

57Princip1es, I, 294.
59;p;g., I, 28a.
5?;p;g., 285.
6°;p;g., 285-286.
61;p;g., 297.

62Ibid.

631bid.
641tid., 289-28 .

\(

 

65"The Sentiment of Rationality," Kind, IV, 317-3U6;
reprinted in Collected Essays and Reviews (New York: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1920).

66Essa‘s in Radical Empiricism (New York: Longmans,
Green and Co., 91 ), h2.

67For Hume, the "necessary connection" in events was
simply a fiction based upon expectation and previous exper-
ience of things appearing to be sequentially related. "The

162

mind never perceives any real connection among distinct
existences." A Treatise of Human Nature, 636.

68Principles, I, 245-2u6.

6901‘, as the case may be, a "subject" of discourse.

CHAPTER III

1Principles, II, 293.

2The meaning of any cognitive object can be expressed
propositionally, either "factually" or in the form of a
"belief-statement" about it. By "fact," I mean, simply, any
statement of the form "X is ," where the blank is to be
filled by some predicate without reference to the speaker.

I do not mean to imply, however, that a "factual" statement
is necessarily true. It may be false. I only mean that,
given there are no other qualifications, a statement purports
to be true of a given state-of-affairs. Whether or not it is
in fact true is another matter.

The term "statement" refers to a string of words which
purportrto be either true or false of a given state-of—affairs;
or, to use Jamesian language, aspect of the "neutral stuff."
States-of-affairs simply are. The term "state-of-affairs"
is taken to be primitive, undefined. Strictly speaking, the
value of any statement is either truth or falsehood: and only
statements have those values. Where a given statement corres-
ponds to a given state-of-affairs, the statement is true.
Where it does not correspond, it is not true. The simplest
definition of "statement," then, is "that which is either true
or false." Where a given string of words is neither true nor
false, it is conceptually meaningless. I wish here to avoid
further complication which may result were we to also speak
of truth in connection with, say, "poetic" statements or
”metaphysical" utterances. We shall follow the convention
that all statements are either analytic or synthetic.

By "belief-statement," I mean any factual statement that
is prefaced by some reference to the speaker and his attitude
toward the strength of the truth-claim he is making in his
statement. Belief-statements take the following form: "I
believe (know, suppose, guess, etc.) that. . . ." Here the
dots are to be replaced by some statement. Perhaps the
simplest way to deal with belief-statement is to follow John
Urmson's analysis of "parenthetical verbs" (kind, LXI, 1952,
192-212). Strictly speaking, parenthetical ver s are not
part of the statement. They add nothing to the meaning of a
statement as such but act as clues or signals to the hearer
as to what kind of feeling or emotion or degree of certitude
is to be attributed to a statement when it is uttered. In

163

164

every genuine statement there is an implied claim to the truth
of the assertion by the person who utters it. The claim to
truth need not be very strong however. In fact, the whole
point of some parenthetical verbs is to "modify" or weaken the
absoluteness of claims where we simply assert some bald state-
ment. Such verbs as know, believe, guess, suppose, estimate,
and so on, can be used to indicate the kind of evidence one
has for a statement and, thereby, warn the hearer what degree
of reliability is being claimed. Hence, when a speaker says
"I believe that. . . ," he is in effect making an assertion
that something is the case, 222. . . . Here "but" refers to
the nature of the evidence one has for what is being asserted.
When one says "I believe," he is making an assertion, more

or less confidently, about some state-of—affairs. Further-
more, when we assert a statement, 8, we not only imply that S
is true, or at least offer some kind of qualification in
support of our claim, such as "I believe" or "I guess," but
there is also an implied claim to the reasonableness of 3.
Unless a speaker is lying or abusing the language, whenever

he utters the statement "S," he is warning his hearer that

his utterance is only probably: but it is reasonable to
believe it.

Following Urmson, we shall adopt the convention whereby
the syntactical function of "know," "believe," "suppose,"
etc., will be understood parenthetically. That is, as meta-
grammatical adjuncts which function in the total act of com-
munication to warn, orientate, or otherwise bring to the
hearer's attention how a statement is to be taken, but which
form no part of a statement as such. Hence, we may take as
paradigmatic the following case: "I believe (know, suppose,
etc.) that p," where "pf is the proposition being asserted-

Technical philosophers of knowledge have a predilection
for explicating "know" in what is called the stron sense.

In this sense, "I know that pfl is equivalent to "I am certain
that p," However, since "I am certain that pf implies that
"p” is true, the statement "I know that pfl is redundant. We
may simply assert "p," Properly, then, the only case in
which we could use "know" would be in those situations where
what is being asserted is beyond question. However, if we
explicate "know" in the strong sense, there are probably no
cases in which we could use it without stating a falsehood,
except where the statement in question is analytic--i.e.,
either tautologous or self-contradictory. Empirically
speaking, the class of true statement is infinitesimal, if
not empty. We are seldom, if ever, certain of anything in
this world. In view of such limitations, we must reject the
strong sense of "know" and accept some weaker definition if
the term is to serve us at all. In the paradigm case above,
"believe" is used to cover every degree of assurance, in-
cluding the weakest conviction as well as the highest possible
certainty.

165

3James uses "practical" in its traditional, philo-
sophical sense, in which it is opposed to what is merely
theoretical, ideal, or contemplative. Hence "practical
activity" refers to concrete experience in the real world
of time and space. On this matter, James has been terribly
misunderstood.

”Principles, II, 28a. The "inward stability of the
mind's content is as characteristic of disbelief as of
belief. But we shall presently see that we never disbelieve
anything except for the reason that we believe something
else which contradicts the first thing. Disbelief is thus
an incidental complication to belief, and need not be con- .l
sidered by itself" (lpg.'g;§.). '

5Intelligence and curiosity, for example, are also rele-
vant factors.

6This point raises a curious question about the exis-
tence of objects like Santa, which we shall presently take
up. But perhaps we may forestall some confusion if we take
into account two different meanings of "meaning": extensional
("denotative") and intensional ("connotative") meanings.
"Fairy," ”centaur," and "Santa," for example, each have a
different meaning intensionally; but they all have the same
meaning extensionally. That is, I take it, they all belong
to the "null class": they do not exist extra mentum. ‘

 

723inciples, II, 297-299.

8gpgg., II, 299.

9Ethics, Bk. II, Prop. M1. Many editions.
10;p;g,, Bk. II, Prop. 35.

11That is to say, even mental images, considered by
themselves, involve no error.

lethics, Bk. II, Prop. 49, Note.

13Prinoio1es, II, 290.

1“I mean any object of belief which at a given time is
not shared by the majority of members of a community but
which, from the point of view of the individual who believes
Ag that object, is taken nevertheless to be real.

15Principles, II, 291.

16Ibid., II, 291.

166

179:. Principles, I, #63. James seems to go too far when
he says that "round square" is an absolutely definite concep-
tion which happens to stand for a thing "which nature never
lets us sensibly perceive." What seems to be clear by way of
conception is that the juxtaposition of "round" and "square"
is meaningless, nonsense. But like nonsense verse, perhaps
may give rise to some kind of experience.

lgPrinciples, II, 291.

191b1d., II, 292-29 .

2°1b1d., 291.

21James gives us the following interesting footnote:
"The world of dreams is our real world whilst we are sleeping,
because our attention then lapses from the sensible world.
Conversely, when we wake the attention usually lapses from
the dream-world and that becomes unreal. But if a dream
haunts us and compels our attention during the day it is very
apt to remain figuring in our consciousness as a sort of sub-
universe alongside of the waking world. Post people have
probably had dreams which it is hard to imagine not to have
been glimpses into an actually existing region of being, per-
haps a corner of the 'spiritual world.‘ And dreams have
accordingly in all ages been regarded as revelations, and
have played a large part in furnishing forth mythologies,
and creating themes for faith to lay hold upon. The 'larger
universe,’ here, which is its immediate reductive, is the
total universe, of Nature plus the Super-natural. The dream
holds true, namely, in one half of that universe; the waking
perceptions in the other half. Even to-day dream-objects
figure among the realities in which some 'psychic-researchers'
are seeking to rouse our belief. All our theories, not only
those about the supernatural, but our philosophic and scien-
tific theories as well, are like our dreams in rousing such
different degrees of belief in different minds." Principles,
II, 29H, fn.

22We may similarly treat, for example, the Christian
belief in heaven and hell. Whether or not heaven exists
(and hell), is a factual Question. Hence the statement
"Heaven exists" is either true or false. If I believe that
heaven exists, then I am by virtue of my belief making a
claim that "Heaven exists" is true. But how such a claim
can be verified seems to be a matter of opinion. Should
I happen to believe that "Heaven exists" is true, then I
ought to be prepared to act upon this belief in a character-
istic way, namely, the way others would act were they also
prepared to assert the same statement.

23Principles, II, 29h.

167
21Tom” II, 294.

ZSCharacteristically, with felicity and irony, James
said: "Errors, fictions, tribal beliefs, are parts of the
whole great Universe which God has made, and He must have
meant all these things to be in it, each in its respective
place. But for us finite creatures, Htis to consider too
curiously to consider so.'" Principles, II, 294-295.

 

26Principles, II, 295.

27Ibid., 295.
28

 

In uir Concerninnguman Understandin , ed. L. A.
Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19335, #9.
2

9James uses the term "sting." Elsewhere, to convey

a similar feeling, he frequently uses "grasps." One likes

to believe that were he living today, James would use "grabs
us," as well as other neo-logisms, such as "up-tight,"

"cool," "turned-on." Such terms express feeling-states that
have hitherto remained unnamed or suppressed. One of the
healthiest signs today is the recognition of the body and its
feeling-states. However, we have yet to create a full-blown
natural language of emotion. Until now, the activity of art
has largely carried the burden of expressing emotions, which
may account in part for its continued survival and recognition
in an otherwise matter-of-fact world of business-like affairs.

BOPrinciples, II, 298.

31A note of caution against possible misunderstanding:
We are not suggesting a reductive form of subjectivism which
ultimately leads to solipsism. On the contrary, we hope to
define reality inter-subjectively. ill that the above com-
ment purports to suggest is that perhaps we are in need of a
re-definition or re-evaluation of what we now commonly take
to be real.

32Principles, II, 301.
33Ib1d., II, 306.

34§§§§y Towards a NeW'Theory of Vision (1709). Many
editions. '

35See Pragmatism, 89-90. There James says Berkeley's
criticism of "matter" was absolutely pragmatistic. Far from
denying the existence of matter, Berkeley simply tells us
what it consists of. It is, James continues, a true name for
Just so much in the way of sensation.

36Principles, II, 307.

{1"

168
37L§tters of William James, II, 39,
38Principles, II, 308,

39James says, "In untutored minds the power (to withhold
actio§7 does not exist. Everytexciting thought in the natural
man carries credence withlit, To conceive withgpassion is eo
ipso to affirm." Principles, II, 308}

nowalter Bagehot, "The Emotion of Conviction," Literar
Studies, I, 912—414. Quoted by James, Princi les, II, 308.
Bagehot differentiates between emotion of conviction (feeling-
state) and assent (thought-state). Thus belief Has a double
aspect. Emotions of conviction are the stronger and so form
the basis of genuine beliefs. Assent without conviction is a
hollow thing. But conviction without assent is a blind and
sometimes frightful thing.

”lprinoipies, II, 308.

”ZOur man-on-the-street may of course deliberately tell
us a falsehood. Even so, his actions may belie his words.
Here, the old saw "Seeing is believing" is quite to the point.
In some case, our man may not be able to express himself in
any articulate way. He may not even be aware that he believes
anything or is disposed toward an object in any way. However,
we may still find him--and he find himself--acting in ways
that are perfectly consistent with belief-statements were he
to express them in words. In observing the man-on-the-street,
I may come to certain conclusions as to what he may believe
even though he may never say anything. He may simply show me
by his behavior.

43The University_Chronicle, 1 (September 1898), 287-310.
Reprinted in Collected Essa s and Reviews (New York: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1920 . ,

- auBalph Barton Perry, Annotated Bibliography of the
Writings of William James (New York: Longmans, Green and Co.,

19205, 37.

uSEEQEQatism: A New Name for Someigld Ways of Thinking
(New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 19077,‘EEZH7.

uéOn this question see Haurice Baum, "The Development
of James's Pragmatism Prior to 1879," Journal of Philosophy,
XXX (1933), 43-51. 9:. Philip P. Wiener, Evolution and the
Founders of Pragmatism, Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
19L9, chapter II. Also H. S. Thayer, Meanin and Action,
Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., .3 . T ayer
holds the view that the history of pragmatism can e thought

to have its beginning jointly with the publication in 1878
of C. S. Peirce's "How To Make Our Ideas Clear" and James's

     

 

169

"Remarks on Spencer's Definition of Find as Correspondence,"
while acknowledging that "this is not the received view, nor
the one James made popular by giving the credit for inventing
to Peirce." Qp.‘gi§., Tau—195.

”7Pragnetien, 65-66.

’.
(RCOllected Essays and ReviewS. “10-

ugIbid., 910-414.

50The pragmatic method is "The attitude of lookinggaway
from first things, principles, 'categories,’ supposed necessi-
ties; and of looking towards last thingsL_fruits, conse-
quences, facts." Pragmatism, SU-SS.

SlPragmatism, #5.
52Ibid., 50.
53Ib1d.

5MThe Neaning of Tputh: A Segual to 'Pragmatism,' New
York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909, 1.

55Pragmatism, 213.
56The Meaning of Truth, 218.
57Ib1d., yfvii.

58See Bertrand Russell, "Transatlantic 'Truth,'" filEEEZ
Review (January), 1908. Reprinted in Philoso hical Essavs
(New York: Simon and Shuster, i Clarion Book, 1968), Chapter
V, "William James's Conception of Truth." John Dewey's
papers are an important corrective. See, for example, "The
Development of imerican Pragmatism," in his Philosoph and
Civilization (New York: Ninton, Balch and Co., 1931): also
"What Pragmatism Neans by Practical," Essays in Experimental
Logic (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1916).
Also Peirce's theory of meaning in various papers of Volume
V, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. C. Hart-

shorne, P. Weiss, and A. W. Burks (Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1931-1958).

59The Meaning of Truth, 218.

60Ibid., 218. See H. s. Thayer. I=fea..__.r_15_____ni and Action:
199-153.

61The Meaning of Truth, 218.

170
628ee James's Some Problems of Philosophy (New York:
Longmans, Green and Co., 1911), Appendix, "Faith and the
Right to Believe."

63The Will to Believe (New York: Longmans, Green and
CO. 0 189759 §‘§°

6uPeirce defines "belief" as a deliberate habit of
action, a readiness to act in a certain way under given con-
ditions when actuated by a given motive. Hence, "belief"
and "habit" are treated as synonyms. In short, Peirce
speaks of belief-habits (Collected Papers, V., 510, 516, 523).
As a readiness to act in a deliberate way under given condi-
tions, belief-habits can be construed dispositionally. In
this sense, for example, we may say that "Jones believes that
p" means that Jones behaves or would behave in a certain way
if or when motivated by given conditions. It is not necessary
that Jpnes do anything when he says "I believe that p," it is
sufficient only that he would be prepared to act on p’in a
deliberate way should it be the case that he were to do
something.

For Peirce, belief-habits are not unconscious patterns
of behavior. 0n the contrary, he says, "if we do not know
that we believe, then, from the nature of the case, we do not
believe" (pp. pip., V., 239). To be more precise, a habit
for Peirce is a rule of action and not an action as such. In
this sense, a habit is a generalized form of behavior which
is manifested on a particular occasion with reference to a
particular object or situation, or, in Peirce's words, "to
whatever there be of a certain description" (129, 222., 428).

65That Kant's dicta figure here can be seen in the fol-
lowing remark by Peirce: "What is the proof that the possible
practical consequences of a concept constitute the sum total
of that concept? The argument upon which I rested the maxim
in my original paper was that belief consists mainly in being
deliberately prepared to adopt the formula believed in as a
guide to action. If this be in truth the nature of belief,
then undoubtedly the proposition believed in can itself be
nothing but a maxim of conduct" (Collected Papers, V., 27).

66Wright's influence was pervasive and not soon to be
forgotten. In Brazil, suffering mostly from boredom, James
wrote, "WOuld I might hear Chauncey wright philosophize for
one evening." He often prefaced his remarks by the phrase,
"as Chauncey wright used to say." James looked upon wright
as an authoritative exponent of science and admired his
boldness of ideas as well as his intellectual parsimony when
describing facts. Years later, James remembered him as his
tough-minded old friend who used to say that "behind the
bare phenomenal facts . . . there is nothing." In endeavoring
to point to wright's influence on James, we must not over-
estimate it. It is what it is: an important factor in the

171

development of Jares's thought. But there were negative
influences as well which caused a breach in intellectual
peace between them. Ultimately, Wright and James became
philosophical adversaries. For the source of the above
quotations, as well as the substance of these remarks, see
Ralph Barton Perry's superlative work, The Thought and
Character of William James Briefer Version (New York:
George Brazi ler, 195' , 127-129. See William James's
(unsigned) memorial tribute, "Chauncey wright," Nation,

XXI (1875), 199; reprinted in Jares's posthumous Collected
Essays and Reviews (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1920),
20-25. James also acknowledged Wright's "intellectual com-
panionship in old times" in the Preface of his Principles of

Ps cholov , I, vii. Cf. Edward H. Madden, Chaunce Wright
(New York: washington Square Press, Inc., 196%), 126-130.
For a sympathetic and insightful account of wright's work
and place in American philosophy, see also Nadden's Chauncey

Wright and the Foundations of Pragmatism (Seattle: University
of washington Press, 1963)}

 

 

67In a letter to Peirce, James wrote the following:
"I am gglogical, if not illogical, and glad to be so when I
find Bertie Russell trying to excogitate what true knowledge
means, in the absence of any concrete universe surrounding
the knower and the known. Ass!" Quoted in Perry's Thought
and Character of William James, 368.

O
6'Collegisd,fspsrs. VI-' 193°

CSUntil recently, the stature of Peirce as a philosopher
was virtually unrecognized. (The publication of his Collected
Papers has been an important step in helping bring his ideas
to a world audience.) Hence, an1 appreciation of James by
Peirce fell upon deaf ears. One of the facts which testify
to James's awareness of philosophical problems, was his early
recognition of the significance of Peirce's logico-mathe-
matical works, which place Peirce in the front ranks of
pioneers in this field.

CHAPTER IV

1Strictly speaking, "aesthetics" (aisthetikos) has to
do with perception, especially by feeling. However, as the
term has been more commonly used, it refers to that branch
of philosophy dealing with theories of beauty or art. Alex-
ander Gottlieb Baumgarten is given credit as the official
founder of aesthetics as a separate discipline in 1750.
Today, as used by The American Society for Aesthetics, the
term "aesthetics" is understood to include "all studies of
the arts and related types of experience from a philosophic,
scientific, or other theoretical standpoint, including those
of psychology, sociology, anthropology, cultural histor‘, art
criticism, and education." See the inside front cover of any
recent issue of The Journalof Aesthetics and.Art Criticism.

2New York: Hinton, Balch and Company. 1934. See es-
pecially Chapter III, "Having an Experience." The similarity
between James and Dewey here is remarkable.

3Letter to H. G. Wells, Sept. 11, 1906, Letters of
William James. ed. Henry James, 2 vols.(Boston: Little,
Brown and Company, 1926i II, 260.

4The Next Develo ment in Han (New York: Henry Holt and
~ , and elsewhere.

  

Sln the literature of philosophy, religion, and poli-
tics, Plato's, St. Augustine's, and Thomas More's have en-
visioned perfect Republics, Cities of God, and Utopias.
Whatever other realm Plato may have had in mind, his perfect
state was not, however, of this world; nor was Augustine's
City of God a concrete reality; nor was More's Utopia yet
any closer, for literally it means "No-where." And yet,
these philosophers, and others, did not expend their talents
and energies for nothing. We do not venerate them, nor
eulogize their works just because we learn that what they
wrote are "classics." 0n the contrary, these men are great
because serious men study and wear out the pages of their
texts seeking in seriousness and reverence the wisdom of
these prophets and sages. In a sense we interpret their
dreams: but neither our interpretations nor their dreams are

172

173

merely hypothetical, speculative, or sheer fancy. Just
because Plato's ideal state was an ideal it was, for him,
most real: because Christians like Augustine viewed this
world only as something to be endured, the idea of an
eternal heavenly city was a dream devoutly to be wished;

and because More's England both politically and spiritually
was shaken in the wake of the Reformation, he sought secur-
ity in his Utopia. But these men were not psychotic. They
were intoxicated, if you will, with grand visions, insights,
and inspriations. It is not for nothing, then, that we call
Plato a poet; for he, like others, possessed vision and a
sense of creativity. They were artists as well as philoso-
phers. I hope to make this point clearer below, where we
shall discuss the nature of the poet's vision or insight
(thedria).

It is commonly held that Plato, an "idealist," and
Aristotle, a "naturalist," were worlds apart, so to speak,
in their respective philosophies. It is hard for me to
believe, however, that they were not writing about the same
world, but only differently. Plato wrote "poetically" and
Aristotle wrote "scientifically." Too often poet-philoso-
phers, together with myth-makers, are accused of writing bad
science; and too often naturalists or materialists, or what-
ever else one may call them, are accused of being crass and
irreligious. We often condemn these writers because we
usually judge from some point of view too bigoted, narrow,
or misinformed. We fail to understand the lan ua e of what-
ever is being expressed. We fail to understand wgat is its
beauty or its meaning. We fail to realize its impetuousness,
or mistake its power. And so we disagree, or miss the point
altogether.

6Art and Anarch (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, lgéhx 3.

7Irwin Edman, QEDElJ Art (New York: The Nuseum of Modern
Art, 196QL 33.

CEdgar Wind, 22. cit., 13.

9See, for example, Benedette Croce's article "Aesthetics,"
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Fourteenth Edition).

10

 

Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on
Some of Life 3 Ideals (New York: Henry Holt and Company,

11See Dewey,‘gp. cit., Chapter III.

12Speaking of the "paradisiacal" life at Chautaqua,
this is what James said:

I went in curiosity for a day. I stayed for a week,
held spellbound by the charm and ease of everything, by the

l7h

middle-class paradise, without a sin, without a victim,
without a blot, without a tear.

And yet what was my own astonishment, on emerging into
the dark and wicked world again, to catch myself quite un-
expectedly and involuntarily saying: "Ouf! what a relief!
Now for something primordial and savage, even though it were
as bad as an Armenian massacre, to set the balance straight
again. This order is too tame, this culture too second-rate,
this goodness too uninspiring. This human drama Without a
villain or a pang; this community so refined that ice-cream
soda-water is the utmost offering it can make to the brute
animal in man: this city simmering in the tepid lakeside sun:
this atrocious harmlessness of all things,--I cannot abide as
with them. Let me take my chances again in the big outside '
worldly wilderness with all its sins and sufferings. There
are the heights and depths, the precipices and the steep
ideals, the gleams of the awful and the infinite; and there
is more hope and help a thousand times than in this dead
level and quintessence of every mediocrity. Talks to Teachers,
270-271.

 

13Essay on Utilitarianism. Many editions.

14R. G. Collingwood writes: "Nan, who desires to know
everything, desires to know himself. . . . Without some
knowledge of himself, his knowledge of other things in im-
perfect: for to know something without knowing that one
knows it is only a half-knowing, and to know that one knows
is to know oneself. Self-knowledge is desirable and impor-
tant to man, not only for its own sake, but as a condition
without which no other knowledge can be critically justified
and.securely based." The Idea of Histqu (Oxford: The Clar-
endon Press, 19Q6L 205.

15William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Lyrical Ballads, ed. by R. L. Brett and.A. R. Jones (London:
Nethuen and Co., Ltd., 1965L 266.

16mm. , 266.

17S. H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theor of Poetr and Fine

.Art, #th ed. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd.. 1907L.3§.
O

lbSpeaking of his reaction after having read Tolstoi's
war and Peace and Anna Karenina, James wrote that now "I
feel as if I knew perfection in the representation of human
life. Idfe indeed seems less real than his tale of it. Such
infallible veracity! The impression haunts me as nothing

litezgry ever haunted me before." Letters of William.James,
II. .

19See, for example, J. S. Mill's 0n Libert (many
editions). There Mill argued that individua iberty was

175

necessary to the realization of personal happiness and the
good of society. Noreover, he argued for the unrestricted
flow of ideas as a means for discovering truth. An indi-
vidual's liberty was governed by the principle that one
could do as he wished so long as his actions did not inter-
fere with the liberty of others to also so act.

20Such a scene was vividly recalled by E. W. Ercerson
after a visit in 1C60 or 1861:

"The adipose and affectionate Wilkie," as his father
called him, would say something and be instantly corrected
or disputed by the little cock-sparrow Bob, the youngest,
but good-naturedly defend his statement, and then, Henry
(Junior) would emerge from his silence in defence of Wilkie.
Then Bob would be more impertinently insistent, and Hr.
James would advance as moderator, and William, the eldest,
join in. The voice of the moderator presently would be
drowned by the combatants and he soon came down vigorously
into the arena, and when, in the excited argument, the
dinner knives might not be absent from eagerly gesticulating
hands, dear Mrs. James, more conventional, but bright as well
as motherly, would look at me, laughingly reassuring, saying,
"Don't be disturbed, Edward; they won't stab each other.
This is usual when the boys come home." Quoted in R. B.
Perry' 3 The Thou ht and Character of William James Briefer
Version New York: George Brazi ler, 9

   
 

21"William James' 8 Philosophy of Higher Education,"
School and Society, 39 (February 1934 ), 166.

22Unless, of course, we wish to include all those who
call themselves "pragmatists"; but that is too vague a class-
ification. Dewey, for example, while a pragmatist in the
broader sense, chose to lable his particular form of it
"instrumentalism."

23"William James," in Classic American Philosophers,
ed. Nax H. Fisch (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.,

1951), 12W-125.

CHA 133 V

1New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1899; reprinted
with Introduction by Paul Woodring (New York: W. W. Norton
and Company, Inc., 1958).

2Teacher in America (Garden City. w. Y-= A Doubleday
Anchor Book, 193%), 279.

3

uTalks tofiTeachers, 29.

New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1911.

51b1d., 33. James's emphasis.

Ibid., 33. James's emphasis.

7Ibid.
3 id., 7.
9 1a., 7-8.

11915-1... 3b-35.

122.1929... 35-36.

13Principles, I, 113.
1A1§E§2§1§22§, Book A, line one.
lSPrinciples, I, 105.

lé;p;g.. I, 104.

17Talks to Teachers, 66.
1319351., 66-67.

19.2.1.4." 67-76.

176

. 177
20;p;g,, 77—78.

ZlPrinciples, I, 121.

ZZEmhios, Book III, Proposition VI.
23Talks to Teachers, 92.

2”;p;g.. 93-

25;g;g., 94.

26%” 98. T...
2711923., 38.

r:

281b1d., 9.
/
29See his Emile (1762).
30Talks to Teachegg, 70.

 

I‘ll-v

31Ib1d.. 55.

32See, for xample, John Dewey, Egpgggggg§_ggg_§gggggég§
(New York: Macmillan Company, 1938): William Kilpatrick,
Remaking the Curriculum (New York: Newson and Company, 1936);
John Childs, Education and N rals (New York: Appleton-Century-
Crofts, Inc., 1930); Harold Rugg, American Life and the Cur-
riculum (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1936), and Foundations of
Americ n Education (Yonders-on-Hudson, N. Y.: Wbr Boo:
Company, 19 7 .

33To take but one example: Rugg has written that "edu-
cational workers could build their practical programs in the
twentieth century on the principle that meaning arises out of
the active experience of the individual and that experience
is a continuous stream of minute, complicated, integrated
responses. Learning is making responses. We respond actively,
with meaning; we do not passively "acquire" meanings, by some
,mysterious process, from the environment about us. We have a
meaningful experience only when the organism makes an appro-
priate reaction. The educator can bank on this, then--the
learning child is the active child." American Life and the
Curriculum,231.

3”James R. Angell, Ps cholo (New York: Henry Holt,
1904). Like W. James, Ange sai that he "began to receive
requests from teachers to prepare a briefer volume on the same
general lines [38 his Psychology, 19047." An Introduction to
Psychology (New York: Henry Holt, 191?).

178

35E'dward L. Thorndike, The Elements of Psychology (New
York: A. G. Seiler, 1907). Introduction by James.

36Josiah Royce, Outline of Psychology (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1908).

 

37Robert S. Woodworth, Psychology: A Study of Mental
Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1921). Notice the emphasis on
"Mental Life," which is Jamesian.

3PCarl E. Seashore, Introduction to Psychology (New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1923). Dedicated to James.

39wiiiiam NcDougall, Outline of Ps cholo (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923 . Dedicated "To the Honored
Memory of William James, Great Philosopher, Great Psycholo-
gist, and Great Han."

uONew York: Harper and Brothers, Torchbook edition, xiii.

”lTalks to_leachers, 266-267.

42Memories and Studies (New York: Longmans, Green and
Company, 1911 , 309.~

43
at

5
6

7

8

S1

i . , 314.

i

5‘

id., 314—315-
.. 353-

0: 353'35u0
., 362.

.p
5’
|..I-
Q:

.:

8’

i

.p

5‘

1

.p

Ibid., 363.

 

49"Stanford's Ideal Destiny," hemories and Studies,

356-3670

50"William James." EB? Psychological Review, 18 (1911).
Cl. '

51Ibid., C2.

52Gilbert Highet, The Art of Teachigg (New York: Vintage
Books, 1956), 207.

53Teacher in America, 172-173.
5”Ibid.. 173.

179
55Nation, 23 (September 1976), 179-179-
561bid., 178-179-

57"Cicero: Education for Humanitas," Harvard Educa-
tional Review, 35 (Summer 1965), 362.

SpSee, for example, the following: Roswell P. Angier,
"Another Student's Impressions of James at the Turn of the
Century," Psychological Review, 50 (1943), 132-134; Frederick
E. Bolton, "Great Contributors to Education: William James,"
Progresgiyg Education, (Narch 1930), 82-88; Edmund B. Dela-
barre, "A Student's Impression of James in the Late '80's,"
Psychological Review, 50 (1943), 125-127; Dickinson S. Miller,
"Beloved Psychologist: William James," Great Teachers, ed.

H. Peterson (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1946);
Charles L. Odom, "William James, Great Teacher," The Educa-
tional Forum, VIII (1943-44), 63-68.

59"The Philosophy of William James," Philosophical
Review, 20 (1911), 1-29; reprinted in Perry's Present Philo-

so hical Tendencies (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1955).
37).

B IBLIOGRAPHY

180

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Works by William James

The standard bibliography of the works of James is found
in Ralph Barton Perry's Annotated Bibliography of the writi s
of William James (New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1920 .
This bibliography, with the exception of foreign translations
of James's writings and some minor corrections, is reprinted
in The writi: s of William James, edited, with an Introduction
by John J. HcDermott New York: Random House, 1967). Below is
a chronological listing of all the articles and books referred
to in the text.

 
 

"Chauncey wright" (unsigned), Nation, 21 (1875), 194.

"The Teaching of Philosophy in our Colleges" (unsigned),
Nation, 23 (1876), 175-179.

"Remarks on Spencer's Definition of kind as Correspondence,"
Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 12 (1878), 236-276.

"The fiawskof Habit," Popular Science Monthly. 30 (1887):
33-‘51-

The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. New York: Henry Holt,
14.90.
Elngflggh§p_§plievel and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy.

New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1097.

 

"Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results," University
of California Chronicle, 1 (1898), 287-310.

"Brute and Human Intellect," The Journal of speculative
Philosophy, 12 (1898), 23 - 7 .

Talks to Teachers on Ps cholo : and to Students on Some of
Life’s Ideals. New York: Henry Holt, 1699.

"The Ph. D. Octopus," Harvard Monthly. 36 (1903). 1-9.

 

"The True Harvard,"}Harvard Graduates' Magazine, 12 (1903),

5-8-

181

182

"Stanford's Ideal Destiny," Leland Stanford Junior University
Publications, Trustees' Series, 14 (1906), 5-8.

Pra matism: A New Name for Some 01d Ways of Thinking. New
York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1907.

"The Social Value of the College Bred," HoClure's Magazine,
30 (190C), 419-422.

The Neaning of Truth: A Sequel to "Pragmatism." New York:
Longmans, Green and Co., 1909.

Some Problems of Philosophy (posthumous). New York: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1911.

Memories and Studies (posthumous). New York: Longmans, Green
and Co., 1911.

Essays in Radical Empiricism (posthumous). New York: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1912.

Collected Essays and Reviews (posthumous). New York: Iongmans,
Green and Co., 1920.

Letters pf William James, edited by his son Henry James. 2
vols. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1920.

II. Other Works Cited in the Tex
Angell, James R. Psychology. New York: Henry Holt, 1904.

Angell, J. H. "William James," Psychological Review, 18
(1911), 7C-32.

Angell, J. R. .And Introduction to Psychology. New York:
Henry Holt, 1918.

Angier, Roswell P. "Another Student's Impressions of James
at the Turn of the Centruy," Psychological Review, 50
(1943), 132-134.

Aristotle. Imxaphysics. Nany editions.

Bagehot, Walter. Literary Studies, 2 vols. London: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1t 9.

Barrett, William C. Irrational Han: A Study in Existential
Philosophy. New York: Doubleday Anchor Book. 1962.

Barzun, Jacques. Teacher in America. Garden City, New York:
A Doubleday Anchor Book, 1954.

133

Baum, Naurice. "The Development of James's Pragmatism Prior
to 1879," The Journa; of Philosophy, XXX (1933), 43-51.

Baum, Naurice. "William James' Philosophy of Higher Educa-
tion," School and Society, 39 (1934), 161-166.

Bolton, Frederick E. "Great Contributors to Education:
William James," Prpgressive Education, March, 1930,
‘fz-L-L .

Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality, 2nd ed. Oxford:
1t97.

Clarendon Press,

Brentano, Franz. PS'ChOlO ie vom empirischen Standpunkte. P1
Leipzig: Neiner, 157% .

Butcher, S. H. Aristotle's Theory of_§petry anngine Art,
4th ed. London: Hacmillan and Co., Ltd., 1907.

Childs, John. gpucation and Morals. New York: Appleton-
Century—Crofts, Inc., 1950.

 

Chisholm, R. N. Pprceiving: i Philosophical Study. Ithaca,
N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1957.

Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History. Oxford: The Claren-
don Press, 1946.

Condorcet, Antoine Nicolas de. Sketch for a Historica;
Picture of the Progress of the Human Hind. New York:
Noonday Press, 1955.

Croce, Benedetto. "Aesthetics," Encyclopgedia Britannica
(Fourteenth Edition).

Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Beans of
Natural Selection (1C59). Hany editions.

Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Han and Selection in Rela-
tion to Sex, 2 vols. London: J. Murray, 1971.

Darwin, Charles. The Expression of the Emotions in Han and
Animals. London: J. Hurray, 1372.

 

 

Delabarre, Edmund B. "A tudent's Impression of James in

the Late 'CO's," Psychological Review, 50 (1943), 125-
127.

Descartes, R. Philosophical writipgs, trans. E. Anscombe
and P. Geach. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1954.

Dewey, John. Essa s in Ex erimental Lo ic. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1916.

 

1C4
Dewey, John. "The Development of American Pragmatism,"
Studies in the Hispory of Ideas, Vol. II, edited by
The Department of Philosophy, Columbia University.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1925.

Dewey, John. Characters and Events, vol. I. New York:
Henry Holt and Company, 1929.

Dewey, J. Philoso h and Civilization. New York: Hinton,
Balch and Co., 1931.

Dewey, John. Art as Experience. New York: Hinton, Balch
and Co., 1931.

Dewey, J. Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan
Company, 193 ‘ 0

Dewey, J. "The Principles," Psychological Review, 50 (1943),
121.

Eflman, Irwin, et a1. Art. New York: The Nuseum of Nodern
Art, 1964.

Fisch, Hax, ed. Classic American Philoso hers. New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1951.

Gurwitsch, A. "William James' Theory of the 'Transitive
Parts' of the Stream of Consciousness," Phil. Phenomengl.
£2§.. 3 (194-194). 449-477.

Highet, Gilbert. The Art of Teachipg. New York: Vintage
Books, 1956.

Hume, David. Em uir Concernin Human Understandin , ed.
L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955.

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-
Bigge. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1958.

Hume, David. Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709).
Many editions.

Jacks, L. P. "William James and His Message," The Contem-
porary Review, XCIX (1911), 20-33.

Kilpatrick, William. Remaki the Curriculum. New York:
Newson and Co., 193 .

Knight, Margaret. William James. London: Penguin, 1950.

Linschoten, J. On the we towards a Phenomenolo ical
Psychg§ogy, tr. Giorgi. PittsEurEH: Duquesne Univer-
s

ity ess, 1968.

185

Nadden, Edward H. Chauncey Wright and the Foundations of
Pragmatism. Seattle: University of washington Press,
19 3.

Nadden, Edward H. Chaunce wri ht. New York: Washington
Square Press, 1964.

Malcolm, Norman. "Dreaming and Skepticism," The Philo-
sophical Review, XLV (1956), 14-37.

NcDermott, John J., ed. The Wpitipgs of William James. New
York: Random House, 9 7.

NcDougall, William. Outline of Psychology. New York:
Charles Scribner s Sons, 1923.
Hill, J. S. Essay on Liberty (1859). Many editions.

Hill, J. S. Utilitarianism (1863). Many editions

filler, Dickinson 3. "Beloved Psychologist: William Jamesv"
Great Tgachers, H. Peterson, ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1946.

Murphy, Gardner. An Historical Introduction to Modern
Psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1949.

Odom, Charles L. "William James, Great Teacher," The Edu-
cational Forum, VIII (1943-44), 63-68.

Peirce. C. S. The Collected Pa ers of Charles Sanders
ngngg, V and VIII. Volumes I-VI edited 5y Char1es
Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 1931-35. Volumes VII and VIII edited by Arthur

W. Burks, Cambridge, Harvard university Press, 1958.

Perry, R. B. "The Philosophy of William James," Philoso-
phical Review, 20 (1911), 1-29. Reprinted in Perry's
Present Philosophical Tgndencies, George Braziller,
Inc., New York, 1955.

Perry. Ralph Barton. Annotated Biblio ra h of the itin s
of W 1 1am James. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.,
19 .

Perry, R. B. The Thou ht and Character of William James,
2 vols., Boston: Little, Brown, 1933. Briefer Vgrsion,

New York: Braziller, 1954.

Persons, Stow, ed. Evolutionar Thou ht in America. New
York: George Brazil1er, Inc., 1936.

Rousseau, J.-J. Emile (1762). {any editions.

196

Royce, Josiah. Outline of Psychology. New York: The Nac—
millan Company, 1908.

Rugg, Harold. American Life and the Curriculum. Boston:
Ginn and Company, 1936.

Rugg, Harold. Foundations for Amegican Education. Yonkers-
on-Hudson, N. Y.: World Book Company, 1947.

Russell, B. Philosophical Essays. New York: Simon and
Schuster, a Clarion Book, 1968.

Seashore, Carl E. Introduction to Psychology. New York:
The Macmillan Co., 1923.

Spencer, Herbert. Principles of Psychology, 3rd ed. New
York: D. Appleton, 1896.

Spinoza, B. Ethics. Eany editions.

Thayer, H. S. Leaning and Action; A Critical History of
Pra matism. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Herrill Co., Inc.
l 6%

Thorndike, Edward L. The Elements of Psychology. New York:
A. G. Seiler, 1907.

Urmson, John O. "Parenthetical Verbs," Mind, LXI (1952),
192-212.

Wollman, Robert R. "Cicero: Education for Humanitas, "
Harvard Educational Review, 35 (Summer 1965), 399-362.

Whyte, Lancelot. The Next Development in Lan. New York:
Henry Holt and Co., 19LE.

Wiener, Philip P. Evolution and the Founders of Pra matism.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959.

Wild, John. The Radical Empiricism of William James.

Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.,
1969.

'Wilshire, Bruce. William James and Phenomenology: a Study
of "The Princi 1es of Ps cholo ." Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1969.

Wind, E6 ar. Art and Anarchy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
l9 .

Wish, Harvey. Societygand Thought in Modern America. New
York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1952.

 

 

 

187
Wordsworth, W. and Coleridge, S. T. Lyrical Ballads, eds,
R. L. Brett and A. R. Jones. London: Kethuen and Co.,
Ltd., 1965.

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