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Pragmatism and Other Writings
The writings of William James represent one of America's most original contributions to the history of ideas. Ranging from philosophy and psychology to religion and politics, James composed the most engaging formulation of American pragmatism. 'Pragmatism' grew out of a set of lectures and the full text is included here along with 'The Meaning of Truth', 'Psychology', 'The Will to Believe', and 'Talks to Teachers on Psychology'.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1907
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William James
344 books1,349 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be one of the greatest figures associated with the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of the functional psychology. He also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty.
Born into a wealthy family, James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr and the brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential books are Principles of Psychology, which was a groundbreaking text in the field of psychology, Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in philosophy, and The Varieties of Religious Experience, which investigated different forms of religious experience.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James received an eclectic trans-Atlantic education, developing fluency in both German and French. Education in the James household encouraged cosmopolitanism. The family made two trips to Europe while William James was still a child, setting a pattern that resulted in thirteen more European journeys during his life. His early artistic bent led to an apprenticeship in the studio of William Morris Hunt in Newport, Rhode Island, but he switched in 1861 to scientific studies at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf. He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end. Two younger brothers, Garth Wilkinson (Wilky) and Robertson (Bob), fought in the Civil War. The other three siblings (William, Henry, and Alice James) all suffered from periods of invalidism.
He took up medical studies at Harvard Medical School in 1864. He took a break in the spring of 1865 to join naturalist Louis Agassiz on a scientific expedition up the Amazon River, but aborted his trip after eight months, as he suffered bouts of severe seasickness and mild smallpox. His studies were interrupted once again due to illness in April 1867. He traveled to Germany in search of a cure and remained there until November 1868; at that time he was 26 years old. During this period, he
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be one of the greatest figures associated with the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of the functional psychology. He also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty.
Born into a wealthy family, James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr and the brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential books are Principles of Psychology, which was a groundbreaking text in the field of psychology, Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in philosophy, and The Varieties of Religious Experience, which investigated different forms of religious experience.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James received an eclectic trans-Atlantic education, developing fluency in both German and French. Education in the James household encouraged cosmopolitanism. The family made two trips to Europe while William James was still a child, setting a pattern that resulted in thirteen more European journeys during his life. His early artistic bent led to an apprenticeship in the studio of William Morris Hunt in Newport, Rhode Island, but he switched in 1861 to scientific studies at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf. He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end. Two younger brothers, Garth Wilkinson (Wilky) and Robertson (Bob), fought in the Civil War. The other three siblings (William, Henry, and Alice James) all suffered from periods of invalidism.
He took up medical studies at Harvard Medical School in 1864. He took a break in the spring of 1865 to join naturalist Louis Agassiz on a scientific expedition up the Amazon River, but aborted his trip after eight months, as he suffered bouts of severe seasickness and mild smallpox. His studies were interrupted once again due to illness in April 1867. He traveled to Germany in search of a cure and remained there until November 1868; at that time he was 26 years old. During this period, he
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April 14, 2016دوستانِ گرانقدر، این نادان 200 صفحه، فقط و فقط چرت و پرت نوشته و بس
انسان وقتی بیشعور و بی خرد شود، حاضر است سرِ خودش را هم کلاه بگذارد و خزعبلات بنویسد... این بیشعور موجوداتِ نادان و مذهبی را « عقل گرا» و « نرم اندیش» و « خوشبین» می داند... و انسانهایی که باخرد هستند و به دین و مذهب اعتقاد ندارند را « سخت اندیش» و « تجربه گرا» و « بدبین» میداند
عزیزانم، و دوستانِ خردگرا، فریبِ نوشته هایِ این نویسنده هایِ بی ارزش و سخیف را نخورید... و بدانید که کسی که به دین و مذهب اعتقاد دارد، نادان و بی خرد و بدبین است
این بی شعور نوشته: فلسفه ای که عقایدِ « داروین» و حقایقِ مربوط به زیست شناسیِ مغز را می پذیرد، یک شکست خورده است و فاقدِ « حیثیت و اعتبار» است... یعنی هر خزعبلاتی میتوانسته سرِ هم کرده و اسمش را کتاب گذاشته و عده ای احمق تر از خودش نیز پیروِ این بیشعور هستند
یعنی «زکریای رازی» و « آرتور شوپنهاور» و « داروین» و « برتراند راسل» و بسیاری از خردمندانِ تاریخ که به دین و مذهب و این چرت و پرت ها اعتقاد نداشتند، همه و همه « عقل گرا» نیستند... و این بیشعورهایِ مذهبی « عقل گرا» هستند!! جوک از این مسخره تر شنیده بودید؟! بدونِ تردید خیر
پیروز باشید و ایرانی
انسان وقتی بیشعور و بی خرد شود، حاضر است سرِ خودش را هم کلاه بگذارد و خزعبلات بنویسد... این بیشعور موجوداتِ نادان و مذهبی را « عقل گرا» و « نرم اندیش» و « خوشبین» می داند... و انسانهایی که باخرد هستند و به دین و مذهب اعتقاد ندارند را « سخت اندیش» و « تجربه گرا» و « بدبین» میداند
عزیزانم، و دوستانِ خردگرا، فریبِ نوشته هایِ این نویسنده هایِ بی ارزش و سخیف را نخورید... و بدانید که کسی که به دین و مذهب اعتقاد دارد، نادان و بی خرد و بدبین است
این بی شعور نوشته: فلسفه ای که عقایدِ « داروین» و حقایقِ مربوط به زیست شناسیِ مغز را می پذیرد، یک شکست خورده است و فاقدِ « حیثیت و اعتبار» است... یعنی هر خزعبلاتی میتوانسته سرِ هم کرده و اسمش را کتاب گذاشته و عده ای احمق تر از خودش نیز پیروِ این بیشعور هستند
یعنی «زکریای رازی» و « آرتور شوپنهاور» و « داروین» و « برتراند راسل» و بسیاری از خردمندانِ تاریخ که به دین و مذهب و این چرت و پرت ها اعتقاد نداشتند، همه و همه « عقل گرا» نیستند... و این بیشعورهایِ مذهبی « عقل گرا» هستند!! جوک از این مسخره تر شنیده بودید؟! بدونِ تردید خیر
پیروز باشید و ایرانی
September 28, 2025
This extraordinary compilation of William James's lectures and writings represents a monumental work that captures the essence of the thought of one of the most lucid philosophers and psychologists of all time. The edition presents the threads of his radical "pragmatism", his psychology of consciousness, and his profound understanding of religious experience with astonishing coherence and relevance. What makes this volume particularly valuable is how it reveals the organic evolution of a thought that constantly resists rigid categories and disembodied abstractions, always inviting us to return to concrete experience as the ultimate goal of all truth.
At the heart of this book, we find James's revolutionary conception of consciousness as a continuous flow, a "river" or "stream" that resists being fragmented into discrete links (similar to Buddhism and the romantic poets). This river metaphor is not merely a poetic image, but the foundation of a radical epistemology that understands knowledge as an active process of construction: "We pose forward in the field of fresh experience with the beliefs of our ancestors" (p. 112), James tells us, in a description that anticipates decades of contemporary theories of cognition. His "pragmatism" is revealed as completely different from that of Stuart Mill and others, as a method for tracing the practical consequences of our ideas in the very texture of everyday life.
The collection shines especially in its treatment of ethics and religion, where James deploys his boldest argument: that values do not inhabit a "sublime dimension" separate from human experience, but emerge from the concrete desires and demands of sentient creatures. His radical question: "How can one physical fact, considered simply as a physical fact, be 'better' than another?" resonates with extraordinary force in our contemporary context. In stating that "as soon as a sentient being is made part of the universe, there is an opportunity for goods and evils to actually exist," James is not founding a pragmatic ethic but a reinterpretation of the natural world by showing how valorization is a process immanent in the flow of conscious experience.
The texts on religion constitute perhaps the most interesting of this collection, where James argues that "trusting our religious claims means first of all living in the light of them, and acting as if the invisible world they suggest were real." This is not a dogmatic faith, but an existential commitment to the vital consequences of certain spiritual hypotheses. His famous judgment: "on pragmatic principles, if the God hypothesis works satisfactorily in the broadest sense of the word, it is true", represents one of the most sophisticated and contemporary defenses of religious experience as a legitimate given of human consciousness.
The edition deserves special praise for preserving James's unique voice which makes complex concepts feel like personal discoveries for the reader. The flow between his public lectures, his technical writings, and his most intimate reflections creates a reading experience that is both intellectual and vitally transformative. Every page breathes what he himself identified as the ultimate criterion of philosophical truth: the ability to "make concrete connections with real life".
This compilation stands as a powerful reminder that the deepest questions about consciousness, morality, and meaning require an approach that honors the totality of human experience. William James offers us not only brilliant ideas but a method for thinking and living more fully and authentically. This work is a compilation that "works satisfactorily in the fullest sense of the word", and therefore deserves to be considered not only authentic but indispensable.
At the heart of this book, we find James's revolutionary conception of consciousness as a continuous flow, a "river" or "stream" that resists being fragmented into discrete links (similar to Buddhism and the romantic poets). This river metaphor is not merely a poetic image, but the foundation of a radical epistemology that understands knowledge as an active process of construction: "We pose forward in the field of fresh experience with the beliefs of our ancestors" (p. 112), James tells us, in a description that anticipates decades of contemporary theories of cognition. His "pragmatism" is revealed as completely different from that of Stuart Mill and others, as a method for tracing the practical consequences of our ideas in the very texture of everyday life.
The collection shines especially in its treatment of ethics and religion, where James deploys his boldest argument: that values do not inhabit a "sublime dimension" separate from human experience, but emerge from the concrete desires and demands of sentient creatures. His radical question: "How can one physical fact, considered simply as a physical fact, be 'better' than another?" resonates with extraordinary force in our contemporary context. In stating that "as soon as a sentient being is made part of the universe, there is an opportunity for goods and evils to actually exist," James is not founding a pragmatic ethic but a reinterpretation of the natural world by showing how valorization is a process immanent in the flow of conscious experience.
The texts on religion constitute perhaps the most interesting of this collection, where James argues that "trusting our religious claims means first of all living in the light of them, and acting as if the invisible world they suggest were real." This is not a dogmatic faith, but an existential commitment to the vital consequences of certain spiritual hypotheses. His famous judgment: "on pragmatic principles, if the God hypothesis works satisfactorily in the broadest sense of the word, it is true", represents one of the most sophisticated and contemporary defenses of religious experience as a legitimate given of human consciousness.
The edition deserves special praise for preserving James's unique voice which makes complex concepts feel like personal discoveries for the reader. The flow between his public lectures, his technical writings, and his most intimate reflections creates a reading experience that is both intellectual and vitally transformative. Every page breathes what he himself identified as the ultimate criterion of philosophical truth: the ability to "make concrete connections with real life".
This compilation stands as a powerful reminder that the deepest questions about consciousness, morality, and meaning require an approach that honors the totality of human experience. William James offers us not only brilliant ideas but a method for thinking and living more fully and authentically. This work is a compilation that "works satisfactorily in the fullest sense of the word", and therefore deserves to be considered not only authentic but indispensable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 17, 2015
James' method of explicating his ideas takes some time to get off the ground and running. But when he does, it's really damn good. Pragmatism is a wonderful metaphysics, and he's writing at such an interesting time in the development of human thought. When you read Nietzsche you think the seeds of postmodernism began with him, but it may be more developed with James' philosophy.
Pragmatism, for James, embraces both science and religion as means towards the improvement and progress of the process we call life. He waxes on this point both individually and cosmically. Pragmatism is centered on pivoting and adapting by means that are practical and successfully put into practice. It's all about that (re: those things; e.g.: beliefs, methods, habits, philosophies) which advance our goals.
James is not shy about his faith, but builds his argument such that his logic is accessible to every viewpoint: he speaks to the naturalists, rationalists, empiricists, idealists, and all the different flavors these categories come in, and espouses pragmatism as a humanism; as a creative process we all go about in our individual lives, one that is interdependent and built on the collective history of humanity.
Truth, with a capital T, is an ongoing process. The Universal, Absolute, God, Reality - whatever you'd like to call it - is not static. There may be some ultimate directionality to evolution, but James suggests a phenomenology that works to and measures itself for the value it engenders our lives. Pragmatism takes Truth as a process of "leading"; a process of improvement and ascent to the higher ideals. We, as individuals, must discern what this means for us; but the key point here is taking the reins of our vehicle and directing our lives with no fixed, stagnate (nor complacent) notion of how to live. We are to exist with the utmost possibility in our mind's eye, and iterate ourselves and our means of being based upon the interactions (success/fail rate) between the internal reality we are creating and the external reality that we all live by and through.
Pragmatism is a fun philosophy. It is empowering and creative and accepting. Its utility has only increased with the proliferation of globalization and the spread of foreign, new ideas for how to live. Buddhism in the West, Christianity in the East, transhumanism, shamanism, paganism: there's no culture or conception of reality - thus far - that is set in stone and proved to be better than the rest. We are swimming in an ocean of possibilities, and pragmatism gives us a compass to navigate the waters and facilitate our reaching some destination. The question remains, of course, but where do you wish to go?
Pragmatism, for James, embraces both science and religion as means towards the improvement and progress of the process we call life. He waxes on this point both individually and cosmically. Pragmatism is centered on pivoting and adapting by means that are practical and successfully put into practice. It's all about that (re: those things; e.g.: beliefs, methods, habits, philosophies) which advance our goals.
James is not shy about his faith, but builds his argument such that his logic is accessible to every viewpoint: he speaks to the naturalists, rationalists, empiricists, idealists, and all the different flavors these categories come in, and espouses pragmatism as a humanism; as a creative process we all go about in our individual lives, one that is interdependent and built on the collective history of humanity.
Truth, with a capital T, is an ongoing process. The Universal, Absolute, God, Reality - whatever you'd like to call it - is not static. There may be some ultimate directionality to evolution, but James suggests a phenomenology that works to and measures itself for the value it engenders our lives. Pragmatism takes Truth as a process of "leading"; a process of improvement and ascent to the higher ideals. We, as individuals, must discern what this means for us; but the key point here is taking the reins of our vehicle and directing our lives with no fixed, stagnate (nor complacent) notion of how to live. We are to exist with the utmost possibility in our mind's eye, and iterate ourselves and our means of being based upon the interactions (success/fail rate) between the internal reality we are creating and the external reality that we all live by and through.
Pragmatism is a fun philosophy. It is empowering and creative and accepting. Its utility has only increased with the proliferation of globalization and the spread of foreign, new ideas for how to live. Buddhism in the West, Christianity in the East, transhumanism, shamanism, paganism: there's no culture or conception of reality - thus far - that is set in stone and proved to be better than the rest. We are swimming in an ocean of possibilities, and pragmatism gives us a compass to navigate the waters and facilitate our reaching some destination. The question remains, of course, but where do you wish to go?
August 21, 2019
Fairly good and straightforwardly sober nuance from a time wherein positivism was becoming more dominant. Though I think his statements on hegel are misguided with regards to his understanding of the absolute and the significance of Hegel's project.
January 26, 2021
Se podría ver a James como un escéptico que se volvió optimista. No sigue pensando hasta destruirlo todo. Se obliga a parar antes. Y se convence a sí mismo de la virtud del freno. Dice que es más fuerte frenar que seguir. Dice que el pragmatismo es un método de depuración de ideas y una teoría de la verdad que deriva en humanismo. En cualquier caso, lo mejor de estas conferencias y ensayos no está sólo en el contenido, en esas ideas luminosas llenas de fantasmas -tan de Henry, como de William, los hijos del teólogo racionalista-. Lo mejor es el estilo. Hay que seguir el hilo de las argumentaciones de James. Con atención flotante como un psicoanalista. Se ven las emociones. James piensa muy en serio. Se enoja. Se aburre. Se avergüenza. Se reafirma. Se defiende. Pide disculpas por pedir al lector que preste atención. Pide disculpas por ser desordenado, por no llegar a nada. A la vuelta de la página ya toca fondo y emerge con megalomanía. Dice que solucionó el problema de la verdad. Imagino a Nietzsche con la mirada estrábica por los horrores de su propia lucidez, por lo que logró ver, quizás James le arrancaría una sonrisa. Pienso que el filólogo loco vería al pragmatismo como un conejo, una presa fácil de otras filosofías. Contra todo, en el pragmatismo jamesiano hay una raíz profunda del liberalismo pluralista de la república moderna. También de muchas republiquetas.
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December 28, 2025'Pragmatists and intellectualists... begin to quarrel only after the question is raised as to what may precisely be meant by the term "agreement," and what by the term "reality," when reality is taken as something for our ideas to agree with.
...The great assumption of the intellectualists is that truth means essentially an inert static relation. When you've got your true idea of anything, there's an end of the matter. You're in possession; you know; you have fulfilled your thinking destiny. You are where you ought to be mentally; you have obeyed your categorical imperative and nothing more need follow on that climax of your rational destiny. Epistemologically you are in stable equilibrium.
Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in any one's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?
The moment pragmatism asks this question, it sees the answer: True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we can not. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known-as.
This thesis is what I have to defend. The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.
But what do the words verification and validation themselves pragmatically mean? They again signify certain practical consequences of the verified and validated idea. It is hard to find any one phrase that characterizes these consequences better than the ordinary agreement-formula—just such consequences being what we have in mind whenever we say that our ideas "agree" with reality.
They lead us, namely, through the acts and other ideas which they instigate, into or up to, or towards, other parts of experience with which we feel all the while—such feeling being among our potentialities—that the original ideas remain in agreement. The connexions and transitions come to us from point to point as being progressive, harmonious, satisfactory. This function of agreeable leading is what we mean by an idea's verification.
...The possession of true thoughts means everywhere the possession of invaluable instruments of action; our duty to gain truth, so far from being a blank command from out of the blue, or a "stunt" self-imposed by our intellect, can account for itself by excellent practical reasons. We live in a world of realities that can be infinitely useful or infinitely harmful. Ideas that tell us which of them to expect count as the true ideas in all this primary sphere of verification, and the pursuit of such ideas is a primary human duty. The possession of truth, so far from being here an end in itself, is only a preliminary means towards other vital satisfactions.
...The practical value of true ideas is thus primarily derived from the practical importance of their objects to us. Their objects are, indeed, not important at all times... Yet since almost any object may some day become temporarily important, the advantage of having a general stock of extra truths, of ideas that shall be true of merely possible situations, is obvious. We store such extra truths away in our memories, and with the overflow we fill our books of reference.
Whenever such an extra truth becomes practically relevant to one of our emergencies, it passes from cold-storage to do work in the world and our belief in it grows active. You can say of it then either that "it is useful because it is true" or that "it is true because it is useful." Both these phrases mean exactly the same thing, namely that here is an idea that gets fulfilled and can be verified.
True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification-process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience. True ideas would never have been singled out as such, would never have acquired a class-name, unless they had been useful from the outset in this way.
From this simple cue pragmatism gets her general notion of truth as something essentially bound up with the way in which one moment in our experience may lead us towards other moments which it will be worth while to have been lead to. Primarily, and on the common-sense level, the truth of a state of mind means this function of a leading that is worth while.
When a moment in our experience of any kind whatever, inspires us with a thought that is true, that means that sooner or later we dip by that thought's guidance into the particulars of experience again and make advantageous connexions with them. This is a vague enough statement, but I beg you to retain it, for it is essential.
Our experience meanwhile is all shot through with regularities. One bit of it can warn us to get ready for another bit, can "intend" or be "significant of" that remoter object. The object's advent is the significance's verification. Truth, in these cases, meaning nothing but eventual verification, is manifestly incompatible with waywardness on our part. Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience: they will lead him nowhere or else make false connexions.
By "realities" or "objects" here, we mean either things of common sense, sensibly present, or else common-sense relations, such as dates, places, distances, kinds, activities. Following our mental image of a house along the cow-path, we actually come to see the house; we get the image's full verification. Such simply and fully verified leadings are certainly the originals and prototypes of the truth-process. Experience offers indeed other forms of truth-process, but they are all conceivable as being primary verifications arrested, multiplied or substituted for one another.
...Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs "pass," so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them. But this all points to direct face-to-face verifications somewhere, without which the fabric of truth collapses like a financial system with no cash-basis whatever. You accept my verification of one thing, I yours of another. We trade on each other's truth. But beliefs verified concretely by somebody are the posts of the whole superstructure.' (87-91)
...The great assumption of the intellectualists is that truth means essentially an inert static relation. When you've got your true idea of anything, there's an end of the matter. You're in possession; you know; you have fulfilled your thinking destiny. You are where you ought to be mentally; you have obeyed your categorical imperative and nothing more need follow on that climax of your rational destiny. Epistemologically you are in stable equilibrium.
Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in any one's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?
The moment pragmatism asks this question, it sees the answer: True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we can not. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known-as.
This thesis is what I have to defend. The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.
But what do the words verification and validation themselves pragmatically mean? They again signify certain practical consequences of the verified and validated idea. It is hard to find any one phrase that characterizes these consequences better than the ordinary agreement-formula—just such consequences being what we have in mind whenever we say that our ideas "agree" with reality.
They lead us, namely, through the acts and other ideas which they instigate, into or up to, or towards, other parts of experience with which we feel all the while—such feeling being among our potentialities—that the original ideas remain in agreement. The connexions and transitions come to us from point to point as being progressive, harmonious, satisfactory. This function of agreeable leading is what we mean by an idea's verification.
...The possession of true thoughts means everywhere the possession of invaluable instruments of action; our duty to gain truth, so far from being a blank command from out of the blue, or a "stunt" self-imposed by our intellect, can account for itself by excellent practical reasons. We live in a world of realities that can be infinitely useful or infinitely harmful. Ideas that tell us which of them to expect count as the true ideas in all this primary sphere of verification, and the pursuit of such ideas is a primary human duty. The possession of truth, so far from being here an end in itself, is only a preliminary means towards other vital satisfactions.
...The practical value of true ideas is thus primarily derived from the practical importance of their objects to us. Their objects are, indeed, not important at all times... Yet since almost any object may some day become temporarily important, the advantage of having a general stock of extra truths, of ideas that shall be true of merely possible situations, is obvious. We store such extra truths away in our memories, and with the overflow we fill our books of reference.
Whenever such an extra truth becomes practically relevant to one of our emergencies, it passes from cold-storage to do work in the world and our belief in it grows active. You can say of it then either that "it is useful because it is true" or that "it is true because it is useful." Both these phrases mean exactly the same thing, namely that here is an idea that gets fulfilled and can be verified.
True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification-process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience. True ideas would never have been singled out as such, would never have acquired a class-name, unless they had been useful from the outset in this way.
From this simple cue pragmatism gets her general notion of truth as something essentially bound up with the way in which one moment in our experience may lead us towards other moments which it will be worth while to have been lead to. Primarily, and on the common-sense level, the truth of a state of mind means this function of a leading that is worth while.
When a moment in our experience of any kind whatever, inspires us with a thought that is true, that means that sooner or later we dip by that thought's guidance into the particulars of experience again and make advantageous connexions with them. This is a vague enough statement, but I beg you to retain it, for it is essential.
Our experience meanwhile is all shot through with regularities. One bit of it can warn us to get ready for another bit, can "intend" or be "significant of" that remoter object. The object's advent is the significance's verification. Truth, in these cases, meaning nothing but eventual verification, is manifestly incompatible with waywardness on our part. Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience: they will lead him nowhere or else make false connexions.
By "realities" or "objects" here, we mean either things of common sense, sensibly present, or else common-sense relations, such as dates, places, distances, kinds, activities. Following our mental image of a house along the cow-path, we actually come to see the house; we get the image's full verification. Such simply and fully verified leadings are certainly the originals and prototypes of the truth-process. Experience offers indeed other forms of truth-process, but they are all conceivable as being primary verifications arrested, multiplied or substituted for one another.
...Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs "pass," so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them. But this all points to direct face-to-face verifications somewhere, without which the fabric of truth collapses like a financial system with no cash-basis whatever. You accept my verification of one thing, I yours of another. We trade on each other's truth. But beliefs verified concretely by somebody are the posts of the whole superstructure.' (87-91)
March 19, 2009
One of my favorite philosophical texts. James is an eye opening read to many who feel dissatisfied with philosophy or that most ideas of the world are too extreme, in either direction. However, James' philosophy of Pragmatism is not "settling" for the average or picking the exact middleground. Pragmatism encourages what works. If an idea fits into what we experience, it is valuable. By the same token, it is a good idea to look at what the consequences would be if a particular idea or philosophy were true. How would this affect us if its tenets were fact? Pragmatism suggests that a lot of what we interact with in the world is in fact affected by our humanity. The world is in constant progress. Another way of saying this is that most of us tend to gravitate toward theories, ideals, morals, etc. to which we already have a propensity. Optimistic people tend to believe in optimistic ideas (religion, politics, etc.) Highly recommended for anyone who wants a new way to look at the world, that allows for anything that "works". James' The Will to Believe is also highly recommended.
February 9, 2020
I hated reading every minute of this book. It made no sense ti me. Am I making myself clear?
December 21, 2007
I like this dude better than his brother...
June 7, 2022
I have, for me, spent a long time reading this book. A sign that I did not enjoy it as much as I expected.
James’s philosophy of pragmatism is one that has much appeal to me with its empiricist basis, but with space for the human. It is a practical philosophy. But when I reflect I see I read this book as much as a piece of literature as a philosophical treatise, and although James often is a fine writer the style felt a little ponderous to me. You know there is an intelligent, artful and jolly soul behind these words, but the style is very 19th century and his frequent use of Latin, French or German phrases seems to be intellectual showing off rather than helping give clarity. This is a little ironic as in his day James was talking not to the professional philosopher, but instead trying to make philosophy accessible to a wider less specialist audience. Expectations change, and I have to remember this was not written with a 21st century audience in mind.
So, if this book was just Pragmatism, then I probably would have given it 3 stars. But the book is padded out with other articles James wrote and these I enjoyed much more. For example the opening paragraph of the short piece “Address at the Centenary of Ralph Waldo Emerson” - a piece I would never have read had it not been in this book, I found rather moving. There are other bits like this scattered through his writing. Perhaps then, he is a writer to cherry pick the best bits from rather than to read end-to-end.
James’s philosophy of pragmatism is one that has much appeal to me with its empiricist basis, but with space for the human. It is a practical philosophy. But when I reflect I see I read this book as much as a piece of literature as a philosophical treatise, and although James often is a fine writer the style felt a little ponderous to me. You know there is an intelligent, artful and jolly soul behind these words, but the style is very 19th century and his frequent use of Latin, French or German phrases seems to be intellectual showing off rather than helping give clarity. This is a little ironic as in his day James was talking not to the professional philosopher, but instead trying to make philosophy accessible to a wider less specialist audience. Expectations change, and I have to remember this was not written with a 21st century audience in mind.
So, if this book was just Pragmatism, then I probably would have given it 3 stars. But the book is padded out with other articles James wrote and these I enjoyed much more. For example the opening paragraph of the short piece “Address at the Centenary of Ralph Waldo Emerson” - a piece I would never have read had it not been in this book, I found rather moving. There are other bits like this scattered through his writing. Perhaps then, he is a writer to cherry pick the best bits from rather than to read end-to-end.
April 6, 2025
جیمز به همهجای فلسفه، سر زده است و اگر چه گذرا و گاهی فاقد جدیت از مساله عبور میکند اما نگاهی را پیش میکشد که فلسفه نمیتواند ساده از کنار آن بگذرد.
حقیقت، چه معنایی غیر از امکان بکارگیری میتواند داشته باشد.
راهی که به واسطهی این نگاه باز میشود زمینههایی فراهم میکند برای ناتمامیت و آنچه جیمز flux در نسبت اندیشه و واقعیت مینامد.
تاثیر دین بر اندیشهی پراگماتیسم در حداقل سه سخنرانی جیمز آشکار است. او از انگارهی تنظیمی کانت نیز برای تبیین خود وام میگیرد.
کتاب برای سال ۱۹۰۷ پیشرو و موثر بر افکار پس از خود است.
حقیقت، چه معنایی غیر از امکان بکارگیری میتواند داشته باشد.
راهی که به واسطهی این نگاه باز میشود زمینههایی فراهم میکند برای ناتمامیت و آنچه جیمز flux در نسبت اندیشه و واقعیت مینامد.
تاثیر دین بر اندیشهی پراگماتیسم در حداقل سه سخنرانی جیمز آشکار است. او از انگارهی تنظیمی کانت نیز برای تبیین خود وام میگیرد.
کتاب برای سال ۱۹۰۷ پیشرو و موثر بر افکار پس از خود است.
June 8, 2023
Reading William James is a breath of fresh air, especially if you’ve ever felt pigeonholed by the different schools of Western thought, which have traditionally taken the form of mutually exclusive binaries. James takes aim primarily at the classic rationalism-versus-empiricism debate, but he addresses other classic binaries, too. In this collection of essays and lectures – published here by Penguin Classics as Pragmatism and Other Writings – James draws a circle around all of these opposing views, and offers a deeply inclusive hermeneutic framework as an alternative.
Through Pragmatism, James reduces theory to affect, temperament, and taste, thus allowing philosophers to have their cake and eat it too. However, his pragmatism is not some kind of ‘soft’ relativism. Although flexible and broadly democratic in tone, it is tough and critical and intellectually sophisticated. He challenges us to put our ideas to work and demands an evaluation of their “cash value” in the world. Ideas become tools that can be used to produce certain results, and whichever result one desires can be causally attributed to their human psychology. Depending on one's preference, this will be distressing for some and freeing for others. But that’s exactly the point.
James’ pragmatism reformulates our questioning, and – like Wittgenstein after him – diagnoses most philosophic problems as the result of faulty questioning. Rather than asking ‘what is Truth?’, James wants us to consider ‘what is the function of any given truth?’ What does it mean to hold this belief to be true and another to be false? What needs do our true-beliefs satisfy? How does truth serve human life?
Clearly, Nietzsche’s perspectivalism and moral philosophy exerted a tremendous influence over James’ work. Yet he is also indebted to a host of other giants in the Western tradition, including Aristotle, Mill, and – of course – Dewey. In terms of impact and legacy, I would argue that James is the most important figure in the Anglo-American intellectual landscape of the 20th-century. For better or worse, his work has made pragmatism virtually synonymous with American philosophy.
On a personal note, James is one of the few ‘great philosophers’ that seemed like a genuinely good human being. A gifted teacher, an elegant writer, a pioneering psychologist, and a humble polymath – James was all of these things and more. He is, to be sure, entirely deserving of the admiration attached to his name. A powerful mind from which I continue to draw inspiration. If you decide to read him, I hope you will draw inspiration, too.
Through Pragmatism, James reduces theory to affect, temperament, and taste, thus allowing philosophers to have their cake and eat it too. However, his pragmatism is not some kind of ‘soft’ relativism. Although flexible and broadly democratic in tone, it is tough and critical and intellectually sophisticated. He challenges us to put our ideas to work and demands an evaluation of their “cash value” in the world. Ideas become tools that can be used to produce certain results, and whichever result one desires can be causally attributed to their human psychology. Depending on one's preference, this will be distressing for some and freeing for others. But that’s exactly the point.
James’ pragmatism reformulates our questioning, and – like Wittgenstein after him – diagnoses most philosophic problems as the result of faulty questioning. Rather than asking ‘what is Truth?’, James wants us to consider ‘what is the function of any given truth?’ What does it mean to hold this belief to be true and another to be false? What needs do our true-beliefs satisfy? How does truth serve human life?
Clearly, Nietzsche’s perspectivalism and moral philosophy exerted a tremendous influence over James’ work. Yet he is also indebted to a host of other giants in the Western tradition, including Aristotle, Mill, and – of course – Dewey. In terms of impact and legacy, I would argue that James is the most important figure in the Anglo-American intellectual landscape of the 20th-century. For better or worse, his work has made pragmatism virtually synonymous with American philosophy.
On a personal note, James is one of the few ‘great philosophers’ that seemed like a genuinely good human being. A gifted teacher, an elegant writer, a pioneering psychologist, and a humble polymath – James was all of these things and more. He is, to be sure, entirely deserving of the admiration attached to his name. A powerful mind from which I continue to draw inspiration. If you decide to read him, I hope you will draw inspiration, too.
July 6, 2018
James is one of those guys who you hear about and kind of mentally file away as Important (Probably Boring). He's actually one of the most personable and intensely interesting writers who don't deal in fiction that I've come across. Pragmatism, the booklet that contains the most concise statement of the only contribution America has made to philosophy (this is what people say, I don't know, heck), is very interesting not just from a standpoint of the philosophy itself but also for the psychology, writing style, and Emersonian love of life that's in it. Really kind of a beautiful book, by the end:
And may not previous reality itself be there, far less for the purpose of reappearing unaltered in our knowledge, than for the very purpose of stimulating our minds to such additions as shall enhance the universe's total value [?]
James's Pragmatism is kind of a moral call to arms, or at least a call to wake up and try to be alive. Downright invigorating, in fact.
His "Will to Believe" is something I wish I had read before my Junior classes in Philosophy. It's a pleasure to see a philosopher and Harvard man shooing away over scrupulous skeptics who would tyrannically make their skepticism the rule.
But maybe the most impressive of all of the essays in here was the first chapter from his Briefer Course in Psychology, in the chapter where he apparently invented the phrase "Stream of Consciousness." I've never seen anyone talk about the basic acts of perceiving and thinking in the majestic but clear way that he does. This read like a gripping novel. I was sitting straight up in my chair with eyebrows raised. This is not exaggeration, and you should read this book. (Then talk to me about it.)
And may not previous reality itself be there, far less for the purpose of reappearing unaltered in our knowledge, than for the very purpose of stimulating our minds to such additions as shall enhance the universe's total value [?]
James's Pragmatism is kind of a moral call to arms, or at least a call to wake up and try to be alive. Downright invigorating, in fact.
His "Will to Believe" is something I wish I had read before my Junior classes in Philosophy. It's a pleasure to see a philosopher and Harvard man shooing away over scrupulous skeptics who would tyrannically make their skepticism the rule.
But maybe the most impressive of all of the essays in here was the first chapter from his Briefer Course in Psychology, in the chapter where he apparently invented the phrase "Stream of Consciousness." I've never seen anyone talk about the basic acts of perceiving and thinking in the majestic but clear way that he does. This read like a gripping novel. I was sitting straight up in my chair with eyebrows raised. This is not exaggeration, and you should read this book. (Then talk to me about it.)
September 12, 2020
Despite the brilliant mind of William James and how brilliant the school of thought Pragmatism is, James's writing style is too...american. This may just be a stubborn complaint from someone who's been entrenched in German, Russian, French, and Danish philosophy, all which flutter with beautiful prose, walking on the edge of poetry (especially in the case of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard). With James, I tend to beg for his essays to finally end, listening to his all-too-simplistic and bland voice, sometimes even threatening me with sleep. With that being said, there are essays worth reading in this collection. Surprisingly, James's most interesting and thought-provoking essays are those that don't grapple with Pragmatism but instead tackle existential issues of meaning, religion, and nihilism as was brilliantly done in his essays: On a Certain Blindness and What Makes a Life Significant. Additionally, I enjoy William James's deadly arguments against idealism and Kantianism that are spread out among the numerous essays. In summa: James is a great thinker who's thoughts require serious contemplation (especially in the modern world), but the process is not entirely pleasant as James's writing style is very seriously boring.
June 29, 2022
Despite the brilliant mind of William James and how brilliant the school of thought Pragmatism is, James's writing style is too...american. This may just be a stubborn complaint from someone who's been entrenched in German, Russian, French, and Danish philosophy, all which flutter with beautiful prose, walking on the edge of poetry (especially in the case of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard). With James, I tend to beg for his essays to finally end, listening to his all-too-simplistic and bland voice, sometimes even threatening me with sleep. With that being said, there are essays worth reading in this collection. Surprisingly, James's most interesting and thought-provoking essays are those that don't grapple with Pragmatism but instead tackle existential issues of meaning, religion, and nihilism as was brilliantly done in his essays: On a Certain Blindness and What Makes a Life Significant. Additionally, I enjoy William James's deadly arguments against idealism and Kantianism that are spread out among the numerous essays. In summa: James is a great thinker who's thoughts require serious contemplation (especially in the modern world), but the process is not entirely pleasant as James's writing style is very seriously boring.
January 13, 2021
I walked away after reading this book a little deflated. I admit- it was a hard read being that it was technical and meant for an audience of Harvard students in the early 1900's. But the concept of Pragmatism and William James' lectures about how to use it and what its value it, has found its way into my thoughts ever since. It's worth skimming through, or even reading a few of the lectures.
"Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it. " - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Read more here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pr...
"Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it. " - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Read more here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pr...
December 31, 2024
Pragmatism sounds like a very sensible philosophical approach, which seems robust under recent advances in science, which I cannot say for many other philosophies. James is often praised as a great writer, but I guess that is not because of his clarity. Even though the philosophy itself seems pretty compact, he requires a lot of words to get the core point across, and even then I feel like pragmatism means something slightly different each time.
Nevertheless, I think pragmatism hits the mark in an important way, so I will revise this book until the ideas become very clear to me.
Nevertheless, I think pragmatism hits the mark in an important way, so I will revise this book until the ideas become very clear to me.
May 25, 2018
در دادن rate بین سه و چهار شک داشتم واقعا.
یه جورایی اینکتاب هم یهکتاب دیگه در مسیر خط فکری اروپاست.
اون چیزیکه نویسنده میگه، تعریفی که از حقیقت ارائه میده، و چیزی که ما در عمل قراره از حقیقت تعریف کنیم، باعث میشه از دید من تعریفش یکم غیرعملی بشه، با این حال، یه سری حرفهای خوب در باب طرز دیدن مسائل مختلف مثل خدا و مذهب میزنه.
شاید برای من قبل از خواندن کتاب existentialism سارتر،بهتر بود این کتاب رو میخوندم.
یه جورایی اینکتاب هم یهکتاب دیگه در مسیر خط فکری اروپاست.
اون چیزیکه نویسنده میگه، تعریفی که از حقیقت ارائه میده، و چیزی که ما در عمل قراره از حقیقت تعریف کنیم، باعث میشه از دید من تعریفش یکم غیرعملی بشه، با این حال، یه سری حرفهای خوب در باب طرز دیدن مسائل مختلف مثل خدا و مذهب میزنه.
شاید برای من قبل از خواندن کتاب existentialism سارتر،بهتر بود این کتاب رو میخوندم.
September 20, 2022
was a tough read with tough concepts (but this is my interpretation and thoughts), but I enjoyed the tender vs Tough-minded, and pragmatism as what practically works for the meaning of truth and how humans create our reality because it works is a fascinating concept, and religion and science are no different, one just has evidence, the other has emotion, which are just as true to humans, one is just true to the reality outside humans
August 9, 2019
Essential essays by James. Great insights into his analysis and thoughts. Pragmatism is the name he gave to his own philosophic system and is and important contribution to thinking in general. A simple attitude to clear thinking.
August 4, 2020
از نظر نویسنده حقیقت مطلق وجود نداره. حقیقت رو نوعی سودمندی در نظر می گیره. حقیقتی که به عمل منجر بشه. حقیقی یا غیر حقیقی بودن مهم نیست، مهم تاثیری که در زندگی میذاره. کاربرد عقیده و باور مهم تر از حقیقی بودن اونه.
May 14, 2022
A good collection of lectures and articles to become acquainted with William James's philosophy, not only his pragmatism and psychology, but also his vital philosophy in essays such as "Is Life Worth Living?," "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life," and "What Makes a Life Significant."
March 6, 2020
James's question seems more valuable every day: what do ideas and ideologies actually look like in the world, enacted?
October 4, 2020
I liked Pragmatism. Some of the other essays did not work as well for me.
March 28, 2021
Prose? Lovely. Content? The worst.
June 10, 2022
Inglés jodido de leer y muy inconsistente, pero ejemplos muy chulos y una forma buena de ver la filosofía.
August 1, 2022
If your going to read one book by William James. This is not the collection of essays you’re looking for. Instead try: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
June 30, 2023
lecture format is fun and interesting ig
December 27, 2023
It was good besides feeling a little old fashioned, which is understandable :)
February 3, 2024
Cool definition of reality. I couldn’t emotionally bear with accepting it, but this guy is definitely onto something.
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