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James trained as a physician and taught anatomy at Harvard, but never practiced medicine. Instead, he pursued his interests in psychology and then philosophy. He wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism.
As a young man, James struggled for direction about his future. Unlike others his age, he was not allowed to attend college because his father, metaphysician, essayist, and theologian Henry James, Sr. believed colleges were hotbeds of sin.
The family lived for a time in Newport, Rhode Island and finally settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. View the William James's Transitions lecture by exhibit curator Linda Simon, Professor of English at Skidmore College.
After attending the Lawrence Scientific School, where his teacher was Charles W. Eliot, William James attended Harvard Medical School. Soon depression struck, disabling him for almost five years. His friendship with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was especially important to him at this time.
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James spent his entire academic career at Harvard. He was appointed instructor in physiology for the spring 1873 term, instructor in anatomy and physiology in 1873, assistant professor of psychology in 1876, assistant professor of philosophyin 1881, full professor in 1885, endowed chair in psychology in 1889, return to philosophy in 1897, and emeri...
James wrote voluminously throughout his life. A fairly complete bibliography of his writings by John McDermott is 47 pages long. He gained widespread recognition with his monumental Principles of Psychology (1890), 1,400 pages in two volumes that took ten years to complete. Psychology: The Briefer Course, was an 1892 abridgement designed as a less ...
James was one of the early pioneers of American pragmatism, along with Charles Peirce and John Dewey. Although Peirce was the first of the three to write on pragmatism, James adopted many of Peirce’s ideas and popularized them in his lectures and essays. James defined true beliefs as those that prove useful to the believer. Truth, he said, is that ...
James did important work in philosophy of religion. In his Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh he provided a wide-ranging account of The Varieties of Religious Experience(1902) and interpreted them according to his pragmatic leanings. James was not interested in studying religious institutions or doctrines. He focused instead on "the fe...
James is one of the two namesakes of the James-Lange theory of emotion, which he formulated independently of Carl Lange in the 1880s. The theory holds that emotion is the mind's perception of physiological conditions that result from some stimulus. In James' oft-cited example, it is not that we see a bear, fear it, and run. Rather, we see a bear an...
One of the long-standing schisms in the philosophy of history concerns the role of individuals in producing social change. One faction sees individuals ("heroes" as Thomas Carlyle called them) as the motive power of history, and the broader society as the page on which they write their acts. The other sees society as moving according to holistic pr...
Individual Works
1. The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. (1890) 2. Psychology (Briefer Course)(1892) 3. The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy(1897) 4. Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine(1897) 5. Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals(1899) 6. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), ISBN 0140390340 7. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907), 1981: ISBN 0915145057 8. A Pluralistic...
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William James: Writings 1878-1899. Library of America, 1992. 1212 pp. ISBN 0940450720 1. “Psychology: Briefer Course” (rev. and condensed Principles of Psychology), “The Will to Believe,” and other essays in popular philosophy, talks to teachers and students, essays (nine others). William James: Writings 1902-1910. Library of America, 1987. 1379 pp. ISBN 0940450380 1. “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” “Pragmatism,” “A Pluralistic Universe," "The Meaning of Truth,” “Some Problems of Phi...
Goodman, Russell. "William James."The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2006 Edition). Edited by Edward N. Zalta.James, William. 1907. "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth." Lecture 6 in Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. New York: Longman Green and Co. p. 83. Online editionMcDermott, John J. (ed.). The Writings of William James: A Comprehensive Edition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Revised edition, 1977. ISBN 0226391884Myers, Gerald E. 1986. William James: His Life and Thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300034172On a late September morning in 1891, William James walked reluctantly to his class in Harvard College’s Sever Hall. Characteristically dressed in a colorful shirt and a Norfolk jacket with a boutonniere, he must have seemed slightly bohemian.
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Feb 9, 2024 · James was associated with Harvard College and made significant contributions to the understanding of consciousness and human behavior. William James was born in New York City in 1842 into an intellectual family, with his father being a theologian and his brother, Henry James, a renowned novelist.
