ISBN: 9781596257283

  James was the eldest son of Henry James, an idiosyncratic and voluble man whose philosophical interests attracted him to the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg. One of William&rsq… More...

  James was the eldest son of Henry James, an idiosyncratic and voluble man whose philosophical interests attracted him to the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg. One of William’s brothers was the novelist Henry James. The elder Henry James held an “antipathy to all ecclesiasticisms which he expressed with abounding scorn and irony throughout all his later years.” Both his physical and his spiritual life were marked by restlessness and wanderings, largely in Europe, that affected the training of his children at school and their education at home. Building upon the works of Swedenborg, which had been proffered as a revelation from God for a new age of truth and reason in religion, the elder James had constructed a system of his own that seems to have served him as a vision of spiritual life. This philosophy provided the permanent intellectual atmosphere of William’s home life, to some degree compensating for the undisciplined irregularity of his schooling, which ranged from New York to Boulogne, France, and to Geneva and back. The habits acquired in dealing with his father’s views at dinner and at tea carried over into the extraordinarily sympathetic yet critical manner that William displayed in dealing with anybody’s views on any occasion. When James was 18 years of age, he tried his hand at studying art, under the tutelage of William M. Hunt, an American painter of religious subjects. But he soon tired of it and the following year entered the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. From courses in chemistry, anatomy, and similar subjects there, he went to the study of medicine in the Harvard Medical School, but he interrupted this study in order to accompany the eminent naturalist Louis Agassiz, in the capacity of assistant, on an expedition to the Amazon. There James’s health failed, and his duties irked him. He returned to the medical school for a term and then during 1867–68 went to Germany for courses with the physicist and physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz, who formulated the law of the conservation of energy; with Rudolf Virchow, a pathologist; with Claude Bernard, the foremost experimentalist of 19th-century medicine; and with others. At the same time he read widely in the psychology and philosophy then current, especially the writings of Charles Renouvier, a Kantian idealist and relativist. The acquaintance with Renouvier was a focal point in James’s personal and intellectual history. He seems from adolescence to have been a delicate boy, always ailing, and at this period of his stay in Germany he suffered a breakdown, with thoughts of suicide. When he returned home in November 1868, after 18 months in Germany, he was still ill. Though he took the degree of M.D. at the Harvard Medical School in June 1869, he was unable to begin practice. Between that date and 1872 he lived in a state of semi-invalidism in his father’s house, doing nothing but reading and writing an occasional review. Early in this period he experienced a sort of phobic panic, which persisted until the end of April 1870.  Digital Content>E-books>Philosophy>Philosophy>Philosophy, Neeland Media LLC Digital >16<

ISBN: 9781596257283

Why is real-world experience vital to a mature appreciation of any philosophical system? Why is the search for “objective truth” a trickier proposition than it seems at first … More...

Why is real-world experience vital to a mature appreciation of any philosophical system? Why is the search for “objective truth” a trickier proposition than it seems at first glance? American psychologist and philosopher WILLIAM JAMES (1842–1910), brother of novelist Henry James, was a groundbreaking researcher at Harvard University, author of such works as Principles of Psychology (1890) and The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), and one of the most influential academics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Here, in a series of essays first published in book form in 1909, and considered a sequel to his series of lectures collected in Pragmatism (also available from Cosimo), James explores these questions as he discusses: • the function of cognition • humanism and truth • the relation between knower and known • the essence of humanism • the meaning of the word truth • the absolute and strenuous life • and more. Digital Content>E-books>Philosophy>Philosophy>Philosophy, Digireads.com Publishing Digital >16<

2011, ISBN: 9781596257283

Brother of novelist Henry James and godson of eminent philosopher, essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James (1842-1910) gained notoriety for the monumental contributions he ma… More...

Brother of novelist Henry James and godson of eminent philosopher, essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James (1842-1910) gained notoriety for the monumental contributions he made in the field of Psychology, particularly in the areas of education, religion, mysticism and pragmatism. James was a founder of The American Society for Psychological Research, and continued to write and lecture after his retirement from a thirty-two-year tenure at Harvard University. His 1907 publication of ´´Pragmatism´´, in which he promoted his philosophical doctrine on what he called radical empiricism, was subject to both praise and criticism. As a result, he published a sequel called ´´The Meaning of Truth´´ in 1909 in an effort to clarify his arguments toward objective truth. These two works, among James´ last, are part of his vast repertoire of works considered to be some of the most important in American philosophical writing. The Meaning of Truth eBook ePUB 01.01.2011 eBooks>Fremdsprachige eBooks>Englische eBooks>Sach- & Fachthemen, .201<

ISBN: 9781596257283

James (1842-1910), an early champion of pragmatic American philosophy, answered critics of the chapter on truth in his 1907 Pragmatism by synthesizing all had ever written about the topic… More...

James (1842-1910), an early champion of pragmatic American philosophy, answered critics of the chapter on truth in his 1907 Pragmatism by synthesizing all had ever written about the topic into a book published by Longmans, Green in 1907. Dover reproduces the 1932 reprint. There is neither index nor bibliography. Cited in Books for College Libraries, 3d. ed.. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Digital Content>E-books>Philosophy>Philosophy>Philosophy, Digireads.com Publishing Digital >16<

2012, ISBN: 9781596257283

Brother of novelist Henry James and godson of eminent philosopher, essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James (1842-1910) gained notoriety for the monumental contributions he ma… More...

Brother of novelist Henry James and godson of eminent philosopher, essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James (1842-1910) gained notoriety for the monumental contributions he made in the field of Psychology, particularly in the areas of edu Pragmatism, Philosophy, The Meaning of Truth~~ William James~~Pragmatism~~Philosophy~~9781596257283, EN, The Meaning of Truth, William James, 9781596257283, Digireads.com Publishing, 12/15/2009, , , , Digireads.com Publishing, 12/15/2009<