Essays in Psychology

William James

Harvard University Press, 1983 - Philosophy - 467 pages

The twenty-nine articles, essays, and reviews in this volume, collected here for the first time, were published by William James over a long span of years, from 1878 (twelve years prior to The Principles of Psychology) to 1906. Some are theoretical; others examine specific psychological phenomena or report the results of experiments James had conducted.

Written for the most part for a scholarly rather than a popular audience, they exhibit James's characteristic lucidity and persuasiveness, and they reveal the roots and development of his view on a wide range of psychological issues. As William R. Woodward notes in his Introduction, these essays "bring the reader closer to James's sources, thereby illuminating his indebtedness to tradition as well as his creative departure from it."

Contents

• Brute and Human Intellect: 1
• Are We Automata?: 38
• The Spatial Quale: 62
• The Feeling of Effort: 83
• Notes on the Sense of Dizziness in DeafMutes: 125
• On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology: 142
• What Is an Emotion?: 168
• The Latest Cure for SeaSickness: 188
• A Suggestion for the Prevention of SeaSickness: 198
• The Consciousness of Lost Limbs: 204
• What the Will Effects: 216
• Réponse de M W James aux remarques de M: 235
• The Congress of Physiological Psychology at Paris: 243
• Notes on Ansel Bourne: 269
• A DeafMutes Recollections: 278
• The Original Datum of SpaceConsciousness: 292
• The Physical Basis of Emotion: 299
• From Johnsons Universal: 315
• Consciousness Under Nitrous Oxide: 322
• Thorndike: 328
• Notes: 341
• Appendixes: 380
• A Note on the Editorial Method: 386
• The Text of Essays in Psychology: 393
• Apparatus: 408
• General Index: 448

About the author

William James, oldest of five children (including Henry James and Alice James) in the extraordinary James family, was born in New York City on January 11, 1842. He has had a far-reaching influence on writers and thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Broadly educated by private tutors and through European travel, James initially studied painting. During the Civil War, however, he turned to medicine and physiology, attended Harvard medical school, and became interested in the workings of the mind. His text, The Principles of Psychology (1890), presents psychology as a science rather than a philosophy and emphasizes the connection between the mind and the body. James believed in free will and the power of the mind to affect events and determine the future. In The Will to Believe (1897) and The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), he explores metaphysical concepts and mystical experiences. He saw truth not as absolute but as relative, depending on the given situation and the forces at work in it. He believed that the universe was not static and orderly but ever-changing and chaotic. His most important work, Pragmatism (1907), examines the practical consequences of behavior and rejects the idealist philosophy of the transcendentalists. This philosophy seems to reinforce the tenets of social Darwinism and the idea of financial success as the justification of the means in a materialistic society; nevertheless, James strove to demonstrate the practical value of ethical behavior. Overall, James's lifelong concern with what he called the "stream of thought" or "stream of consciousness" changed the way writers conceptualize characters and present the relationship between humans, society, and the natural world. He died due to heart failure on August 26, 1910.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Essays in Psychology; Volume 13 of James, William: [The works]; Works, William James
• Author: William James
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1983
• ISBN: 0674267141, 9780674267145
• Length: 467 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / General; Psychology / General