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The Heart of William James

Tekijä: William James

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A selection of seventeen essays from the writings of pioneering American psychologist/philosopher William James that provide insight into his thinking on emotion, war, habit, determinism, religion, and other topics.
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A collection of essays by a fascinating philospher on a wide range of subjects. His excessive verbosity can be off-putting and his mores dated but I found this a hearty meal and well worth the slog. ( )
  danawl | Nov 14, 2012 |
The Heart of William James

reviewed by William Proefriedt — October 14, 2010

Title: The Heart of William James
Author(s): William James, Robert D. Richardson (ed.)
Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge
ISBN: 0674055616, Pages: 368, Year: 2010
Search for book at Amazon.com

In 2006, Robert Richardson offered us his detailed and thoughtful biography of William James. Now, in time for the centenary of James’ death, he has put together The Heart of William James, a fine collection of the philosopher’s writings. Richardson arranges chronologically 17 examples of James’ work including scholarly articles, essays, lectures, chapters from books, and a couple of journalistic pieces. The collection illustrates the diversity of James’ interests, his extraordinary descriptive abilities, his novel handling of old philosophical problems, and his seductive, compelling, and inspirational prose.

The collection is of special interest to educators. Four of the seventeen selections are from James’ Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals. Another selection, “Habit,“ is taken from Psychology: the Briefer Course. Much of that piece was repeated again in a chapter on habit in Talks to Teachers. The other essays find James addressing ethical and social issues; inquiring into the nature of knowledge, consciousness, and truth claims; and commenting thoughtfully on the human condition. Wise educational researchers and policy-makers will find all of this relevant.

Let me state at once a small complaint: not the usual, “Why did the editor not include this favorite of mine?” My complaint is with Richardson’s claim that the selections “have been chosen for their direct appeal to the general reader” (xiii). The first 3 selections: “What is an Emotion,” “The Dilemma of Determinism,” and “The Perception of Reality,” and the 14th, the seminal essay, “Does Consciousness Exist,” present far more of a challenge to the general reader than the others. James wrote differently for different audiences. He is as clear and readable a writer as one can find among serious inquirers into the human condition. Any representative sampling of his writings, nevertheless, would include pieces requiring a specialized background and interests.

Let me comment first on the selections thar appeared previously In James’ Talks to Teachers. In “The Gospel of Relaxation,” he latches on to some popular self-help ideas of his time. To the eagerness and anxiety of students and teachers, James held out the ideals of “harmony, dignity and ease.” We were too intense in our strivings and too excited about our successes. He worried that conscientiousness could create tension in scholars studying for an exam. He counseled them to fling away their books the night before, and say, “’I don’t care an iota whether I succeed or not.’ Say this sincerely and feel it; and go out and play, or go to bed and sleep, and I am sure the results the next day will encourage you to use the method permanently” (p.142). He told teachers not to worry about preparing a daily lesson, but “prepare yourself in the subject so well that it shall be always on tap; then in the classroom, trust your spontaneity and fling away further care” (p. 142). Worry undermined power to act vigorously. The “American nervousness,” of the end of the 19th century, which he decried, finds its counterpart in our present anxieties about securing the place of our children in the American economic hierarchy and the fortunes of the nation in the global marketplace. Were we able to rid ourselves of these twin anxieties, we might just open the door to a pedagogy of harmony, dignity, and ease, and to learners confident of their own power.

John McDermott, the James scholar to whom Richardson dedicates this collection introduced me to, “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,” more than 50 years ago. James argues in this essay that observers frequently remain ignorant of the significance of individuals and their actions. We see them from the outside, bringing to our observations our own concerns. We thereby miss the secret joy that animates them. We fail to see the meaning of their lives. From Horace Mann to the present, educators have heard the virtues of data collection sung in the corridors of central offices. James himself was a brilliant observer and describer of human experience. He understood, however, the limits of the thing he did so well. He urged us to use the sense of our own blindness to what made the lives of others significant as a caution against the predictable intolerances and cruelties flowing from external observation. His insight is a caution to the hubris of present-day data-collectors, in whom we are now investing hundreds of millions of dollars, as they, with a certain set of policy interests in mind, go about the business of collecting and interpreting information. James felt we treated our classifications with too much respect. Even a crab, he thought, probably objects to being classified as a crustacean and insists on being, “myself, alone.” If anyone can spot the secret joy that animates individual students, I would put my money on well-educated and empathic teachers rather than on the most well-meaning bureaucrat collecting data on students and interpreting it from the point of view of a national standards agenda.

What a pleasure these essays are to read! James always finds apt examples drawn from common experience to illustrate complex mechanisms. In “Habit,” he explains to the reader the plasticity of the brain as the physical basis for habit. His description of how the physical substratum of the brain is related to our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors explodes into ethical and pedagogical guidance. “The great thing then in all education is to make our nervous system our ally and not our enemy. …For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible as many useful actions as we can…” (p. 110). James offers exciting ideas to pursue, and holds out possibilities for individuals to engage with the world and make it a better place. In his justly famous “The Moral Equivalent of War,” he argues that a gentle pacifism is not enough; we need to redirect what is warlike in the human spirit. Evolution has bred pugnacity into the bone. Pacifism needs to offer a moral equivalent of war. The martial virtues are permanent and human goods. We are to enlist them in the everyday work of the world.

I am aware of no thinker who engages the world with such passion, energy, and enthusiasm and at the same time conveys not only a tolerance for points of view other than his own, but understands in his bones the sterility of the single voice, of unassailable dogma and settled truth. In the selection, “Concerning Fechner,” James says, “When one of us dies, it is as if an eye of the world were closed, for all perceptive contributions from that quarter cease” (p. 298). His openness to the ideas and reported experiences of others, led him, however, to endorse too enthusiastically, as he does in, “The Energies of Men,” various mind-cure movements which insisted that a particular set of attitudes or practices could annul all pain and weakness. The movements, of course, are still very much with us. James has been blamed unfairly for everything from Italian Fascism to American materialism. I don’t wish to add another accusation to the list. But I do wish he had expressed more skepticism toward those who insist our problems will be overcome when we unlock the powers of our mind.

Nor am I entirely happy with James’ inquiries into belief in God. In “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results,” he argues that the great question to ask about conceptions is what difference they make in life. Since the idea of God gives hope and the materialists offer no hope, he goes with the God hypothesis. Evolutionary science offers us a sad tale of the last days of the universe. “This final wreck and tragedy is of the essence of scientific materialism as presently understood” (p. 193). God’s existence “guarantees an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved. A world with a God in it to say the last word may indeed burn up or freeze, but we then think of him as still mindful of the old ideals and sure to bring them elsewhere to fruition; so that where he is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution are not the absolutely final things” (p. 193).

In “The Sick Soul,” a chapter from The Varieties of Religious Experience, James argues that the “sick soul” recognizes evil, experiences pain, fear, and despair, but is redeemed through a religious experience. The sick soul, unlike the adherents of the “religion of healthy-mindedness” cannot give perpetual Alleluias to the universe, but his despair is turned to good use anyway. James understood himself as one of these sick souls. His presentation of his own and others’ personal despair and of naturalism’s view of our situation in the world was no mere straw man to be easily toppled. “For naturalism” he says, “mankind is in a position similar to that of a set of people living on a frozen lake, surrounded by cliffs over which there is no escape, yet knowing that little by little the ice is melting…, and to be drowned ignominiously is the human creature’s portion. The merrier the skating…the more poignant the sadness with which one must take in the meaning of the total situation” (p. 221).

James looked to the kind of redemptive experiences reported in diaries, autobiographies, and works of devotion by the great and small over hundreds of years of our history as an antidote to despair. He was interested in these experiences and the ways in which they generated enthusiasm and courage and radically changed the behavior of those undergoing them. He asserted that these reported experiences were continuous with some wider self or higher power. While I am unable to follow James down this road, the power of the two selections devoted to his religious inquiries led me to pull The Varieties of Religious Experience, down off my bookshelf. I think The Heart of William James will rouse other readers to similar action. My guess is that such an outcome is just the sort of thing Robert Richardson had in mind when he put together this fine collection.

Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record, Date Published: October 14, 2010
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 16200, Date Accessed: 10/11/2011 3:09:47 PM

Purchase Reprint Rights for this article or review
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Related Articles
William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
William James as an Educator: Individualism and Democracy
Mussolini, William James, and the Rationalists
Essay Review: The Undiscovered Dewey and Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America


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About the Author
William Proefriedt
Queens College, CUNY
E-mail Author
BILL PROEFRIEDT is Professor Emeritus, Queens College, CUNY. He is the author of High Expectations: the Cultural Roots of Standards Reform in American Education. He currently serves as a mentor in CUNY's Faculty Fellows Publication Program.


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2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973 1972 1971 1970 1969 1968 1967 1966 1965 1964 1963 1962 1961 1960 1959 1958 1957 1956 1955 1954 1953 1952 1951 1950 1949 1948 1947 1946 1945 1944 1943 1942 1941 1940 1939 1938 1937 1936 1935 1934 1933 1932 1931 1930 1929 1928 1927 1926 1925 1924 1923 1922 1921 1920 1919 1918 1917 1916 1915 1914 1913 1912 1911 1910 1909 1908 1907 1906 1905 1904 1903 1902 1901 1900



Friends

The Heart of William James

reviewed by William Proefriedt — October 14, 2010

Title: The Heart of William James
Author(s): William James, Robert D. Richardson (ed.)
Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge
ISBN: 0674055616, Pages: 368, Year: 2010
Search for book at Amazon.com

In 2006, Robert Richardson offered us his detailed and thoughtful biography of William James. Now, in time for the centenary of James’ death, he has put together The Heart of William James, a fine collection of the philosopher’s writings. Richardson arranges chronologically 17 examples of James’ work including scholarly articles, essays, lectures, chapters from books, and a couple of journalistic pieces. The collection illustrates the diversity of James’ interests, his extraordinary descriptive abilities, his novel handling of old philosophical problems, and his seductive, compelling, and inspirational prose.

The collection is of special interest to educators. Four of the seventeen selections are from James’ Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals. Another selection, “Habit,“ is taken from Psychology: the Briefer Course. Much of that piece was repeated again in a chapter on habit in Talks to Teachers. The other essays find James addressing ethical and social issues; inquiring into the nature of knowledge, consciousness, and truth claims; and commenting thoughtfully on the human condition. Wise educational researchers and policy-makers will find all of this relevant.

Let me state at once a small complaint: not the usual, “Why did the editor not include this favorite of mine?” My complaint is with Richardson’s claim that the selections “have been chosen for their direct appeal to the general reader” (xiii). The first 3 selections: “What is an Emotion,” “The Dilemma of Determinism,” and “The Perception of Reality,” and the 14th, the seminal essay, “Does Consciousness Exist,” present far more of a challenge to the general reader than the others. James wrote differently for different audiences. He is as clear and readable a writer as one can find among serious inquirers into the human condition. Any representative sampling of his writings, nevertheless, would include pieces requiring a specialized background and interests.

Let me comment first on the selections thar appeared previously In James’ Talks to Teachers. In “The Gospel of Relaxation,” he latches on to some popular self-help ideas of his time. To the eagerness and anxiety of students and teachers, James held out the ideals of “harmony, dignity and ease.” We were too intense in our strivings and too excited about our successes. He worried that conscientiousness could create tension in scholars studying for an exam. He counseled them to fling away their books the night before, and say, “’I don’t care an iota whether I succeed or not.’ Say this sincerely and feel it; and go out and play, or go to bed and sleep, and I am sure the results the next day will encourage you to use the method permanently” (p.142). He told teachers not to worry about preparing a daily lesson, but “prepare yourself in the subject so well that it shall be always on tap; then in the classroom, trust your spontaneity and fling away further care” (p. 142). Worry undermined power to act vigorously. The “American nervousness,” of the end of the 19th century, which he decried, finds its counterpart in our present anxieties about securing the place of our children in the American economic hierarchy and the fortunes of the nation in the global marketplace. Were we able to rid ourselves of these twin anxieties, we might just open the door to a pedagogy of harmony, dignity, and ease, and to learners confident of their own power.

John McDermott, the James scholar to whom Richardson dedicates this collection introduced me to, “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,” more than 50 years ago. James argues in this essay that observers frequently remain ignorant of the significance of individuals and their actions. We see them from the outside, bringing to our observations our own concerns. We thereby miss the secret joy that animates them. We fail to see the meaning of their lives. From Horace Mann to the present, educators have heard the virtues of data collection sung in the corridors of central offices. James himself was a brilliant observer and describer of human experience. He understood, however, the limits of the thing he did so well. He urged us to use the sense of our own blindness to what made the lives of others significant as a caution against the predictable intolerances and cruelties flowing from external observation. His insight is a caution to the hubris of present-day data-collectors, in whom we are now investing hundreds of millions of dollars, as they, with a certain set of policy interests in mind, go about the business of collecting and interpreting information. James felt we treated our classifications with too much respect. Even a crab, he thought, probably objects to being classified as a crustacean and insists on being, “myself, alone.” If anyone can spot the secret joy that animates individual students, I would put my money on well-educated and empathic teachers rather than on the most well-meaning bureaucrat collecting data on students and interpreting it from the point of view of a national standards agenda.

What a pleasure these essays are to read! James always finds apt examples drawn from common experience to illustrate complex mechanisms. In “Habit,” he explains to the reader the plasticity of the brain as the physical basis for habit. His description of how the physical substratum of the brain is related to our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors explodes into ethical and pedagogical guidance. “The great thing then in all education is to make our nervous system our ally and not our enemy. …For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible as many useful actions as we can…” (p. 110). James offers exciting ideas to pursue, and holds out possibilities for individuals to engage with the world and make it a better place. In his justly famous “The Moral Equivalent of War,” he argues that a gentle pacifism is not enough; we need to redirect what is warlike in the human spirit. Evolution has bred pugnacity into the bone. Pacifism needs to offer a moral equivalent of war. The martial virtues are permanent and human goods. We are to enlist them in the everyday work of the world.

I am aware of no thinker who engages the world with such passion, energy, and enthusiasm and at the same time conveys not only a tolerance for points of view other than his own, but understands in his bones the sterility of the single voice, of unassailable dogma and settled truth. In the selection, “Concerning Fechner,” James says, “When one of us dies, it is as if an eye of the world were closed, for all perceptive contributions from that quarter cease” (p. 298). His openness to the ideas and reported experiences of others, led him, however, to endorse too enthusiastically, as he does in, “The Energies of Men,” various mind-cure movements which insisted that a particular set of attitudes or practices could annul all pain and weakness. The movements, of course, are still very much with us. James has been blamed unfairly for everything from Italian Fascism to American materialism. I don’t wish to add another accusation to the list. But I do wish he had expressed more skepticism toward those who insist our problems will be overcome when we unlock the powers of our mind.

Nor am I entirely happy with James’ inquiries into belief in God. In “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results,” he argues that the great question to ask about conceptions is what difference they make in life. Since the idea of God gives hope and the materialists offer no hope, he goes with the God hypothesis. Evolutionary science offers us a sad tale of the last days of the universe. “This final wreck and tragedy is of the essence of scientific materialism as presently understood” (p. 193). God’s existence “guarantees an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved. A world with a God in it to say the last word may indeed burn up or freeze, but we then think of him as still mindful of the old ideals and sure to bring them elsewhere to fruition; so that where he is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution are not the absolutely final things” (p. 193).

In “The Sick Soul,” a chapter from The Varieties of Religious Experience, James argues that the “sick soul” recognizes evil, experiences pain, fear, and despair, but is redeemed through a religious experience. The sick soul, unlike the adherents of the “religion of healthy-mindedness” cannot give perpetual Alleluias to the universe, but his despair is turned to good use anyway. James understood himself as one of these sick souls. His presentation of his own and others’ personal despair and of naturalism’s view of our situation in the world was no mere straw man to be easily toppled. “For naturalism” he says, “mankind is in a position similar to that of a set of people living on a frozen lake, surrounded by cliffs over which there is no escape, yet knowing that little by little the ice is melting…, and to be drowned ignominiously is the human creature’s portion. The merrier the skating…the more poignant the sadness with which one must take in the meaning of the total situation” (p. 221).

James looked to the kind of redemptive experiences reported in diaries, autobiographies, and works of devotion by the great and small over hundreds of years of our history as an antidote to despair. He was interested in these experiences and the ways in which they generated enthusiasm and courage and radically changed the behavior of those undergoing them. He asserted that these reported experiences were continuous with some wider self or higher power. While I am unable to follow James down this road, the power of the two selections devoted to his religious inquiries led me to pull The Varieties of Religious Experience, down off my bookshelf. I think The Heart of William James will rouse other readers to similar action. My guess is that such an outcome is just the sort of thing Robert Richardson had in mind when he put together this fine collection.

Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record, Date Published: October 14, 2010
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 16200, Date Accessed: 10/11/2011 3:09:47 PM

Purchase Reprint Rights for this article or review
Article Tools
Email this article
Print this article
Post a Comment
Related Articles
William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
William James as an Educator: Individualism and Democracy
Mussolini, William James, and the Rationalists
Essay Review: The Undiscovered Dewey and Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America


Related Discussion

Post a Comment | Read All

About the Author
William Proefriedt
Queens College, CUNY
E-mail Author
BILL PROEFRIEDT is Professor Emeritus, Queens College, CUNY. He is the author of High Expectations: the Cultural Roots of Standards Reform in American Education. He currently serves as a mentor in CUNY's Faculty Fellows Publication Program.


Member Center
Welcome william!
My Account | Logout
Submit My Work
TCR @ Your Library
Book Reviews @ Your Library


In Print

This Month's Issue
Back Issues:
2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973 1972 1971 1970 1969 1968 1967 1966 1965 1964 1963 1962 1961 1960 1959 1958 1957 1956 1955 1954 1953 1952 1951 1950 1949 1948 1947 1946 1945 1944 1943 1942 1941 1940 1939 1938 1937 1936 1935 1934 1933 1932 1931 1930 1929 1928 1927 1926 1925 1924 1923 1922 1921 1920 1919 1918 1917 1916 1915 1914 1913 1912 1911 1910 1909 1908 1907 1906 1905 1904 1903 1902 1901 1900



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A selection of seventeen essays from the writings of pioneering American psychologist/philosopher William James that provide insight into his thinking on emotion, war, habit, determinism, religion, and other topics.

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