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Older brother of novelist Henry James, William James (1842-1910) was a philosopher, psychologist, physiologist, and professor at Harvard. An important professor of Gertrude Stein's, James has influenced such twentieth-century thinkers as John Dewey, Richard Rorty, Jurgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, and Julia Kristeva.
Giles Gunn is Professor of English and of Global and International Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is author of Culture of Criticism & Criticism of Culture as well as editor of the Penguin Classics volume Early American Writing.
Introduction by Giles Gunn Suggestions for Further Reading A Note on the Texts
Pragmatism (1907)
Preface Lecture I: The Present Dilemma in Philosophy Lecture II: What Pragmatism Means Lecture III: Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered Lecture IV: The One and the Many Lecture V: Pragmatism and Common Sense Lecture VI: Pragmatism's Conception of Truth Lecture VII: Pragmatism and Humanism Lecture VIII: Pragmatism and Religion
From The Meaning of Truth (1909)
Preface The Tigers in India Humanism and Truth
From Psychology: Briefer Course (1892)
The Stream of Consciousness
From The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Preface The Will to Believe Is Life Worth Living?
The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life
From Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (1899)
II. On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings III. What Makes a Life Significant
Miscellaneous Essays
Address at the Centenary of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903)
A World of Pure Experience (1904)
Is Radical Empiricism Solipsistic? (1905)
Notes
Overview
Marked by a rare combination of penetrating thought and virtuosic style, the writings of William James represent one of America's most original contributions to the history of ideas. Ranging from philosophy and psychology to religion and politics, James composed the most engaging formulation of American pragmatism. This collection presents Pragmatism in its ...