A Pluralistic Universe

by William James, Henry S. Levinson (Introduction)

Overview

In his famous lectures at Oxford University in 1908 and 1909, William James made a sustained and eloquent case against absolute idealism and intellectualism in philosophy. Ever since Socrates and Plato, the philosophy of the absolute had held sway--the emphasis on essence at the expense of concrete appearance, the insistence on a coherent universe, abstract, timeless, finished, enclosed in its totality. James's own thinking led him to renounce monistic idealism and the intellectualization of all "truth."

Going against the grain of entrenched philosophy, James argues in A Pluralistic Universe that the world is not a uni-verse but a multi-verse. He honors the human experience of manyness and disconnection (and various kinds of unity) in the world of flux and sensation, a world that is discounted scornfully by the monists. "Pluralistic empiricism," as James called it, permits intellectual freedom, while the artificial concepts of monism do not. It approaches the only reality that has any meaning, one that follows the pattern of daily experience. A Pluralistic Universe, like Some Problems in Philosophy and Essays in Radical Empiricism (also available as Bison Books), is basic to an understanding of James's thought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803275911
Publisher:	Nebraska Paperback
Publication date:	10/01/1996
Series:	Works of William James Series
Pages:	405
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.87(d)
Lexile:	1390L (what's this?)

About the Author

Henry Samuel Levinson, a professor and the head of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, is the author of Santayana, Pragmatism, and the Spiritual Life.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction by Richard J. Bernstein

A Pluralistic Universe

Appendix C

Index

Notes

A Note on the Editorial Method

The Text of A Pluralistic Universe

1. The History

2. The Documents

3. The Editorial Problem

Apparatus

Emendations

Textual Notes

Historical Collation

Alterations in the Manuscripts

Word-Division

Appendix: James's Reply to W.P. Montague

General Index

Key to the Pagination of editions