A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in PhilosophyJames, William
Philosophy
A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy
James, William
Philosophy, Modern
Note 5, page 280.--Green's attempt to discredit sensations by
reminding us of their 'dumbness,' in that they do not come already
_named_, as concepts may be said to do, only shows how intellectualism
is dominated by verbality. The unnamed appears in Green as synonymous
with the unreal.
Note 6, page 283.--_Philosophy of Reflection_, i, 248 ff.
Note 7, page 284.--Most of this paragraph is extracted from an address
of mine before the American Psychological Association, printed in the
_Psychological Review_, vol. ii, p. 105. I take pleasure in the
fact that already in 1895 I was so far advanced towards my present
bergsonian position.
Note 8, page 289.--The conscious self of the moment, the central self,
is probably determined to this privileged position by its functional
connexion with the body's imminent or present acts. It is the present
_acting_ self. Tho the more that surrounds it may be 'subconscious'
to us, yet if in its 'collective capacity' it also exerts an active
function, it may be conscious in a wider way, conscious, as it were,
over our heads.
On the relations of consciousness to action see Bergson's _Matière
et Mémoire, passim_, especially chap. i. Compare also the hints in
Münsterberg's _Grundzüge der Psychologie_, chap, xv; those in my own
_Principles of Psychology_, vol. ii, pp. 581-592; and those in W.
McDougall's _Physiological Psychology_, chap. vii.
Note 9, page 295.--Compare _Zend-Avesta_, 2d edition, vol. i, pp. 165
ff., 181, 206, 244 ff., etc.; _Die Tagesansicht_, etc., chap, v, § 6;
and chap. xv.
LECTURE VIII
Note 1, page 330.--Blondel: _Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne_, June,
1906, p. 241.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
THE THING AND ITS RELATIONS[1]
Experience in its immediacy seems perfectly fluent. The active
sense of living which we all enjoy, before reflection shatters our
instinctive world for us, is self-luminous and suggests no paradoxes.
Its difficulties are disappointments and uncertainties. They are not
intellectual contradictions.
When the reflective intellect gets at work, however, it discovers
incomprehensibilities in the flowing process. Distinguishing its
elements and parts, it gives them separate names, and what it thus
disjoins it cannot easily put together. Pyrrhonism accepts the
irrationality and revels in its dialectic elaboration. Other
philosophies try, some by ignoring, some by resisting, and some by
turning the dialectic procedure against itself, negating its first
negations, to restore the fluent sense of life again, and let
redemption take the place of innocence. The perfection with which any
philosophy may do this is the measure of its human success and of its
importance in philosophic history. In an article entitled 'A world of
pure experience,[2] I tried my own hand sketchily at
[Footnote 1: Reprinted from the _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology,
and Scientific Methods_, vol. ii, New York, 1905, with slight verbal
revision.]
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