The Letters of William James, Vol. 2James, William
Philosophy
The Letters of William James, Vol. 2
James, William
Intellectuals -- United States; James, William, 1842-1910; Philosophers -- United States; Psychologists -- United States
The new subjects which he offered at Harvard during the nineties are
indicative of the directions in which his mind was moving. In the first
winter after his return he gave a course on Cosmology, which he had
never taught before and which he described in the department
announcement as "a study of the fundamental conceptions of natural
science with especial reference to the theories of evolution and
materialism," and for the first time announced that his graduate
"seminar" would be wholly devoted to questions in mental pathology
"embracing a review of the principal forms of abnormal or exceptional
mental life." In 1895 the second half of his psychological seminar was
announced as "a discussion of certain theoretic problems, as
Consciousness, Knowledge, Self, the relations of Mind and Body." In 1896
he offered a course on the philosophy of Kant for the first time. In
1898 the announcement of his "elective" on Metaphysics explained that
the class would consider "the unity or pluralism of the world ground,
and its knowability or unknowability; realism and idealism, freedom,
teleology and theism."[2]
But there is another aspect of the nineties which must be touched upon.
After getting back "to harness" in 1893 James took up, not only his full
college duties, but an amount of outside lecturing such as he had never
done before. In so doing he overburdened himself and postponed the
attainment of his true purpose; but the temptation to accept the
requests which now poured in on him was made irresistible by practical
considerations. He not only repeated some of his Harvard courses at
Radcliffe College, and gave instruction in the Harvard Summer School in
addition to the regular work of the term; but delivered lectures at
teachers' meetings and before other special audiences in places as far
from Cambridge as Colorado and California. A number of the papers that
are included in "The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular
Philosophy" (1897) and "Talks to Teachers and Students on Some of Life's
Ideals" (1897) were thus prepared as lectures. Some of them were read
many times before they were published. When he stopped for a rest in
1899, he was exhausted to the verge of a formidable break-down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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