William James as American Plato ?

Alfred North Whitehead wrote a letter to Charles Hartshorne in 1936 in which he referred to William James as the American Plato. Especially given Whitehead’s admiration of Plato, this was a high compliment to James. What was the basis for this compliment and analogy? In responding to that question beyond the partial and scattered references provided by Whitehead, this article briefly explores the following aspects of the thought of James in relation to Whitehead: the one and the many, the denial of Cartesian dualism, James’s background in physiology, refutation of Zeno’s paradoxes, religious experience, and other kinships. In the end, the author agrees with Robert Neville that James had seminal ideas which could correctly result in a complimentary analogy with Plato. Therefore, a greater focus on the important thought of James is a needed challenge in contemporary philosophy. Michel Weber provided a very helpful article in two parts entitled, “Whitehead’s Reading of James and Its Context,” in the spring 2002 and fall 2003 editions of Streams of William James. Weber began his article with a reference to Bertrand Russell: “When Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) visited Harvard in 1936, ‘there were two heroes in his lectures – Plato and James.’” Although he goes on to affirm that Whitehead could have said the same, Weber either overlooks the fact, or is not aware, that Whitehead actually did compare James to Plato in his January 2, 1936 hand-written letter to Charles Hartshorne, as printed by Whitehead’s biographer, Victor Lowe: European philosophy has gone dry, and cannot make any worthwhile use of the results of nineteenth century scholarship. It is in chains to the sanctified presuppositions derived from later Greek thought . . . . My belief is that the effective founders of the renascence in American philosophy are Charles Peirce WILLIAM JAMES AS AMERICAN PLATO? 112 and William James. Of these men, W. J. is the analogue to Plato, and C. P. to Aristotle, though the time-order does not correspond, and the analogy must not be pressed too far. Have you read Ralph Perry’s book (2 vols.) on James? It is a wonderful disclosure of the living repercussions of late 19 century thought on a sensitive genius. It is reminiscent of the Platonic Dialogues. W. J.’s pragmatic descendants have been doing their best to trivialize his meanings in the notions of Radical Empiricism, Pragmatism, Rationalization. But I admit W. J. was weak on Rationalization. Also he expressed himself by the dangerous method of overstatement (2.345). What was it about William James that both reminded Whitehead of Plato and in doing so made James such a crucial source for Whitehead? In responding to this question, Weber is a good beginning point. Weber’s stated goal was to “quote all the explicit occurrences of James in Whitehead’s corpus and to weave them into a synthetic argument (Weber 1.18).” While in basic agreement with Weber, I propose some expansions and extensions to his article which should more fully complete the response to the question of the Plato/James analogy.