William James and Phenomenology

by James M. Edie

This is a study of all the recent literature on william james written from a phenomenological perspective with the purpose of showing that william james made fundamental contributions to the phenomenological theory of the intentionality of consciousness, To the phenomenological theory of self-Identity, And to the phenomenological conception of noetic freedom as the basic concept of ethical theory.

Genres: Philosophy

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1987

Reviews

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an extremely difficult book to review - on one hand there are just too many factors within the text to do it justice, and, on the other hand, it focuses specifically on James impact on Phenomenology. One thing to note about William James is that he wasn't necessarily a philosopher though many would classify him as such. I believe he thought of himself first and foremost as an empirical researcher attempting to discover the nature of the mind in experience and the core of consciousness. Also, James tended to ask many questions without really providing a structure or scaffold to the answers. This is perhaps why he influenced phenomenology (Husserl specifically) without having a 'philosophy' himself (ignoring Pragmatism here). Nevertheless, his goal was to utilize research to reach the answer.

One of the chief tasks of phenomenology is to analyze complex intentional acts or experiences of reality - sometimes thought of as the primacy of perception. Experience is structured by and for consciousness - and there is some sort of intentional unity which binds meanings and perceptions. This was James' focus. At the time there wasn't a term 'phenomenology' but he was hoping to empirically discover what experience tells us about consciousness. He believed that every moment of time is subject to the laws of consciousness and some sort of perceptual space or world rooted in experience. Much of what he tried to answer was captured in his only opus - the Principles of Psychology which Husserl apparently read and was influenced by (along with Whitehead, Merleau-Ponty and Heiddeger).

It was a tough read not knowing James' works very well. Edie cheated a bit by combining four separate papers on James into this book which gave it a fragmented feel. So, unless you're a James scholar there are probably better sources to learn about him.

James would probably be frustrated to know that 100 years later the philosophical problem of consciousness has yet to be discovered.

[Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first two chapters are the poor man's Bruce Wilshire (who also wrote a William James and Phenomenology). The second two chapters are alright (one on James' religious writing and one on his method).

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clear, straightforward illustration of the ways in which James anticipated certain key phenomenological themes, e.g., intentionality, transcendental consciousness, the noesis-noema distinction, and the method of description.