Damn Great Empires! William James and the Politics of Pragmatism

Jerome Bruner and William James Regarding Pragmatism ’ s Does Pragmatism

As its most basic mission, pragmatism sets out to determine an idea’s merit by examining its practical consequences, rather than through purely abstract evaluation. As a result of this emphasis on an idea’s effectiveness, the complex ways in which pragmatists conceive of abstract notions such as truth and self-concept are often overlooked. Close examination of the works of two pragmatist thinke...

Pragmatism, Ideology and Embodiment: William James and the Philosophical Foundations of Cognitive Linguistics

William James and the evolution of consciousness

Despite having been relegated to the realm of superstition during the dominant years of behaviourism, the investigation and discussion of consciousness has again become scientifically defensible. However, attempts at describing animal consciousness continue to be criticised for lacking independent criteria that identify the presence or absence of the phenomenon. Over one hundred years ago Willi...

William James on the Self

In the late nineteenth century William James pieced together a theory of self that is remarkably modern, some might say 'post-modern.' In Chapter X of his magnum opus, The Principles of Psychology (1890), entitled "The Consciousness of Self," James discusses the manifold nature of the self treating it in its native complexity. Among other things, he proposes a notion of identity and experience ...

William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition (review)