The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2

by William James

Overview

This is the first inexpensive edition of the complete Long Course in Principles of Psychology, one of the great classics of modern Western literature and science and the source of the ripest thoughts of America’s most important philosopher. As such, it should not be confused with the many abridgements that omit key sections.
The book presents lucid descriptions of human mental activity, with detailed considerations of the stream of thought, consciousness, time perception, memory, imagination, emotions, reason, abnormal phenomena, and similar topics. In its course it takes into account the work of Berkeley, Binet, Bradley, Darwin, Descartes, Fechner, Galton, Green, Helmholtz, Herbart, Hume, Janet, Kant, Lange, Lotze, Locke, Mill, Royce, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, Wundt, and scores of others. It examines contrasting interpretations of mental phenomena, treating introspective analysis, philosophical interpretations, and experimental research.
Although the book originally appeared nearly 75 years ago, it remains unsurpassed today as a brilliantly written survey of William James’ timeless view of psychology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486203829
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	06/01/1950
Series:	Notable American Authors Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	720
Sales rank:	220,688
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

CHAPTER XVII. SENSATION
Its distinction from perception
Its cognitive function-acquaintance with qualities
No pure sensations after the first days of life
The 'relativity of knowledge'
The law of contrast
The psychological and the physiological theories of it
Hering's experiments
The 'eccentric projection' of sensations

CHAPTER XVIII. IMAGINATION
Our images are usually vague
Vague images not necessarily general notions
Individuals differ in imagination ; Galton's researches
The 'visile' type
The 'audile' type
The 'motile' type
Tactile images
The neural process of imagination
Its relations to that of sensation
CHAPTER XIX. THE PERCEPTION OF 'THINGS'
Perception and sensation
Perception is of definite and probable things
"Illusions;-of the first type, -of the second type"
"The neural process in perception, 'Apperception'"
Is perception an uncouscious inference?
Hallucinations
The neural process in hallucination
Binet's theory
Perception-time'
CHAPTER XX. THE PERCEPTION OF SPACE
The feeling of crude extensity
The perception of spatial order
Space-'relations'
The meaning of localization
Local signs'
The construction of 'real' space
The subdivision of the original sense-spaces
The sensation of motion over surfaces
The measurement of the sense-spaces by each other
Their summation
Feelings of movement in joints
Feelings of muscular contraction
Summary so far
How the blind perceive space
Visual space
Helmholtz and Reid on the test of a sensation
The theory of identical points
The theory of projection
"Ambiguity of retinal impressions,-of eye-movements"
The choice of the visual reality
Sensations which we ignore
Sensations which seem suppressed
Discussion of Wundt's and Helmholtz's reasons for denying that retinal sensations are of extension
Summary
Historical remarks
CHAPTER XXI. THE PERCEPTION OF REALITY
Belief and its opposites
The various orders of reality
Practical' realities
The sense of our own bodily existence is the nucleus of all reality
The paramount reality of sensations
The influence of emotion and active impulse on belief
Belief in theories
Doubt
Relations of belief and will
CHAPTER XXII. REASONING
Recepts'
"In reasoning, we pick out essential qualities"
What is meant by a mode of conceiving
What is involved in the existence of general propositions
The two factors of reasoning
Sagacity
The part played by association by similarity
The intellectual contrast between brute and man: association by similarity the fundamental human distinction
Different orders of human genius
CHAPTER XXIII. THE PRODUCTION OF MOVEMENT
The diffusive wave
Every sensation produces reflex effects on the whole organism
CHAPTER XXIV. INSTINCT
Its definition
Instincts not always blind or invariable
Two principles of non-uniformity in instincts:
1) Their inhibition by habits
2) Their transitoriness
Man has more instincts than any other mammal
Reflex impulses
Imitation
Emulation
Pugnacity
Sympathy
The hunting instinct
Fear
Acquisitiveness
Constructiveness
Play
Curiosity
Sociability and shyness
Secretiveness
Cleanliness
Shame
Love
Maternal love
CHAPTER XXV. THE EMOTIONS
Instinctive reaction and emotional expression shade imperceptibly into each other
The expression of grief; of fear; of hatred
"Emotion is a consequence, not the cause, of the bodily expression"
Difficulty of testing this view
Objections to it discussed
The subtler emotions
No special brain-centres for emotion
Emotional differences between individuals
The genesis of the various emotions
CHAPTER XXVI. WILL
Voluntary movements: they presuppose a memory of involuntary movements
Kinæsthetic impressions
No need to assume feelings of innervation
The 'mental cue' for a movement may be an image of its visual or auditory effects as well as an image of the way it feels
Ideo motor action
Action after deliberation
Five types of decision
The feeling of effort
Unhealthiness of will:
1) The explosive type
2) The obstructed type
Pleasure and pain are not othe only springs of action
All consciousness is impulsive
What we will depends on what idea dominates in our mind
The idea's outward effects follow from the cerebral machinery
Effort of attention to a naturally repugnant idea is the essential feature of willing
The free-will controversy
"Psychology, as a science, can safely postulate determinism, even if free-will be true"
The education of the Will
Hypothetical brain-schemes
CHAPTER XXVII. HYPNOTISM
Modes of operating and susceptibility
Theories about the hypnotic state
The symptoms of the trance
CHAPTER XXVIII. NECESSARY TRUTHS AND THE EFFECTS OF EXPERIENCE
Programme of the chapter
Elementary feelings are innate
The question refers to their combinations
What is meant by 'experience'
Spencer on ancestral experience
Two ways in which new cerebral structure arises: the 'back-door' and the 'front-door' way
The genesis of the natural sciences
Scientific conceptions arise as accidental variations
The genesis of the pure sciences
Series of evenly increasing terms
The principle of mediate comparison
That of skipped intermediaries
Classification
Predication
Formal logic
Mathematical propositions
Arithmetic
Geometry
Our doctrine is the same as Locke's
Relations of ideas v. couplings of things
The natural sciences are inward ideal schemes with which the order of nature proves congruent
Metaphysical principles are properly only postulates
Æsthetic and moral principles are quite incongruent with the order of nature
Summary of what precedes
The origin of instincts
Insufficiency of proof for the transmission to the next generation of acquired habits
Weismann's views
Conclusion