Essays in Radical Empiricism Quotes

“The pragmatic method starts from the postulate that there is no difference of truth that doesn’t make a difference of fact somewhere; and it seeks to determine the meaning of all differences of opinion by making the discussion hinge as soon as possible upon some practical or particular issue.”
― William James, Essays in Radical Empiricism

“The ‘I think’ which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the ‘I breath’ which actually does accompany them. There are other internal facts besides breathing… but breath, which was ever the original of ‘spirit,’ breath moving outwards, between the glottis and the nostrils, is, I am persuaded, the essence out of which philosophers have constructed the entity known to them as consciousness. That entity is fictitious, while thoughts in the concrete are fully real. But thoughts in the concrete are made of the same stuff as things are.”
― William James, Essays in Radical Empiricism