Josiah Royce

Born	(1855-11-20)November 20, 1855 Grass Valley, California
Died	September 14, 1916(1916-09-14) (aged 60) Cambridge, Massachusetts
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Objective idealism
Influenced by Lotze, Peirce, James, Kempe
Influenced Lewis, Huntington, Marcel, Sheffer, Blanshard, Sprigge, Cohen

Josiah Royce (November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916) was an American objective idealist philosopher.

Life[link]

Royce, born in Grass Valley, California, grew up in pioneer California very soon after the California Gold Rush. He received the B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley (at that time located in Oakland) in 1875 where he also accepted an instructorship teaching English composition, literature, and rhetoric. After some time in Germany, where he came to admire Hermann Lotze, the new Johns Hopkins University awarded him in 1878 one of its first four doctorates, in philosophy. He taught a course on the history of German thought, which was “one of his chief interests” because he was able to give consideration to the philosophy of history (Pomeroy, 6). He then taught philosophy, first at the University of California, Berkeley, then at Harvard from 1882 until his death, thanks to the good offices of William James, who was at once Royce's friend and philosophical antagonist.

Royce stands out starkly in the philosophical crowd because he was the only major American philosopher who spent a significant period of his life studying and writing history, specifically of the American West, “As one of the four giants in American philosophy of his time […] Royce overshadowed himself as historian, in both reputation and output” (Pomeroy, 2). During his first three years at Harvard, Royce taught many different subjects such as English composition, forensics, psychology and philosophy for other professors. He finally received a position as a professor in 1892. During this time he suffered a breakdown and took a semester off during which he did most of his historical writing (Pomeroy, 3).

Grass Valley Library Royce Branch

Clendenning (1999) is the standard biography. Autobiographical remarks by Royce can be found at Oppenheim (2001). In 1883 he was approached by a publishing company who asked him to write the state history of California, “In view of his precarious circumstances at Harvard and his desire to pursue the philosophical work for which he had come east, Royce found the prospect attractive […]. He wrote to a friend that he was ‘tempted by the money’” (Pomeroy 3). Royce viewed the task as a side project, which he could use to fill his free time. Royce spent a significant period of time writing histories of California, enjoying it so much that he began to write novels set in California in which he was able to include his philosophical ideas. The books were considered to be “the fictional counterpart to his history, in which he developed similar philosophical themes” (Pomeroy, 5). In 1891 his historical writing career came to an end, but not before he had published several novels, reviews of California’s historical volumes, and articles in journals.

Ideas[link]

Royce's key works include The World and the Individual (1899–1901) and The Problem of Christianity (1913), both based on lectures, given at the Gifford and Hibbert lectures series respectively. The heart of Royce's idealist philosophy was his contention that the apparently external world has real existence only as known by an ideal Knower, and that this Knower must be actual rather than merely hypothetical. He offered various arguments for this contention in both of his major works. He appears never to have repudiated this view, even though his later works are largely devoted to expositing his philosophy of community.

Two key influences on the thought of Royce were Charles Sanders Peirce and William James. In fact, it can be argued that a major way Peirce's ideas entered the American academy is through Royce's teaching and writing, and eventually that of his students. Peirce also reviewed Royce's The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885). Some have claimed that Peirce also supervised Royce's Ph.D., but that is impossible as Peirce arrived at Johns Hopkins in 1879.

Royce is also perhaps the founder of the Harvard school of logic, Boolean algebra, and foundation of mathematics. His logic, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of mathematics were influenced by Charles Peirce and Alfred Bray Kempe. Students who in turn learned logic at Royce's feet include Clarence Irving Lewis, who went on to pioneer modal logic, Edward Vermilye Huntington, the first to axiomatize Boolean algebra, and Henry M. Sheffer, known for his eponymous stroke. Much of Royce's writings on logic and mathematics, reminiscent in some ways of Bertrand Russell's much better known Principia Mathematica, and on scientific method, are reproduced in Royce (1951, 1961).

In recent decades, Royce appears not to have attracted as much attention as other now-classic American philosophers, such as Peirce, John Dewey, and his Harvard colleagues William James, and George Santayana. Philosophers influenced by Royce include Brand Blanshard in the United States and Timothy L.S. Sprigge in the United Kingdom.

Legacy[link]

• The Royce School, which later merged with Anna Head's School for Girls to become the Head-Royce School
• Royce Hall, one of the original four buildings at UCLA
• Grass Valley Library-Royce Branch
• Josiah Royce Hall, Fresno High School

See also[link]

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2007)

• Primary
  • 1912. The Sources of Religious Insight. 2001 ed., Catholic Univ. of America Press. online edition
  • 1913. The Problem of Christianity. 2001 ed., Catholic Univ. of America Press. online edition (volume one)
  • 1914. War and Insurance. Macmillan.
  • 1916. The Hope of the Great Community. Macmillan.
  • 1919. Lectures on Modern Idealism. Ed. by J. Loewenberg. Yale University Press.
  • 1920. Fugitive Essays, ed. J. Loewenberg. Harvard University Press.
  • 1951. Royce's Logical Essays: Collected Logical Essays of Josiah Royce. Robinson, D.S., ed. Dubuque, IA: W. C. Brown Co.
  • 1961. Principles of Logic. Philosophical Library.
  • 1963. Josiah Royce's Seminar 1913-1914: As Recorded in the Notebooks of Harry T. Costello. Ed. by G. Smith. Rutgers University Press.
  • 2005 (1969). The Basic Writings of Josiah Royce, 2 vols. Ed. by J. J. McDermott. Fordham University Press.
  • 1970. The Letters of Josiah Royce. Ed. by J. Clendenning. University of Chicago Press.
  • 1998. Metaphysics / Josiah Royce: His Philosophy 9 Course of 1915-1916. Hocking, W. E., R. Hocking, and F. Oppenheim, eds. State University of New York Press.
  • 2001. Josiah Royce's Late Writings: A Collection of Unpublished and Scattered Works, 2 vols. Ed. by Oppenheim, F. Thoemmes Press. History of American Thought - Archive copy at the Wayback Machine
  • 2002 California : a study of American character : from the conquest in 1846 to the second vigilance committee in San Francisco Berkeley : Heyday Books, c2002. First published Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1886.

• Secondary
  • Auxier, R., ed., 2000. Critical Responses to Josiah Royce, 1885-1916, 3 vols. Thoemmes Press.
  • Clendenning, J., 1999. The Life and Thought of Josiah Royce, 2nd ed. Vanderbilt University Press.
  • Ivor Grattan-Guinness, 2000. The Search for Mathematical Roots 1870-1940. Princeton Uni. Press.
  • Kuklick, Bruce, 1985. Josiah Royce: An Intellectual Biography. Hackett.
  • Clarence Irving Lewis, 1916, "Types of Order and the System [Sigma]," Philosophical Review 25: 407-19.
  • Pomeroy, Earl. "Josiah Royce, Historian in Quest of Community." The Pacific Historical Review 40 (1971): 1-20. JSTOR. IUPUI University Library, Indianapolis. 15 Apr. 2008
  • Oppenheim, F. M., 1980. Royce's Voyage Down Under: A Journey of the Mind. University Press of Kentucky.
  • -----, 1987. Royce's Mature Philosophy of Religion. University of Notre Dame Press.
  • -----, 1993. Royce's Mature Ethics. University of Notre Dame Press.
  • Trotter, G., 2001. On Royce. Wadsworth.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Josiah Royce

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Josiah Royce

• Josiah Royce entry by Kelly A. Parker in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Josiah Royce Society.
• The World and the Individual online text (Macmillan Company, London 1900-1901), a summary and a biography.
• A collection of essays.
• Renaming ceremony, 2005, of the Grass Valley Library Royce Branch
• The Josiah Royce Papers, a critical edition.

Josiah
King of Judah
Reign	641/640 to 610/609 BC
Born	c. 648 BC
Birthplace	probably Jerusalem
Died	Tammuz (June/July) 609 BC
Place of death	Jerusalem
Royal House	House of David
Father	Amon
Mother	Jedidah

Josiah or Yoshiyahu ( /dʒoʊˈsaɪ.ə/ or /dʒəˈzaɪ.ə/;^[1][2] Hebrew: יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ, Modern Yoshiyyáhu Tiberian Yôšiyyāhû, literally meaning "healed by Yahweh" or "supported of Yahweh"; Greek: Ιωσιας; Latin: Josias; c. 649–609 BC) was a king of Judah (641–609 BC) who instituted major reforms. Josiah is credited by most historians with having established or compiled important Jewish scriptures during the Deuteronomic reform that occurred during his rule.

Josiah became king of Judah at the age of eight, after the assassination of his father, King Amon, and reigned for thirty-one years,^[3] from 641/640 to 610/609 BC.^[4]

He is also one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.

Family[link]

Josiah was the son of King Amon and Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. His grandfather Manasseh was one of the kings blamed for turning away from the worship of Yahweh. Manasseh adapted the Temple for idolatrous worship. Josiah's great-grandfather was King Hezekiah who was a noted reformer.

Josiah had four sons: Johanan, Eliakim (born c. 634 BC) by Zebudah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah, Mattanyahu (c. 618 BC) and Shallum (633/632 BC) both by Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.^[5]

Shallum succeeded Josiah as king of Judah, under the name Jehoahaz.^[6] Shallum was succeeded by Eliakim, under the name Jehoiakim,^[7] who was succeeded by his own son Jeconiah;^[8] then Jeconiah was succeeded to the throne by Mattanyahu, under the name Zedekiah.^[9] Zedekiah was the last king of Judah before the kingdom was conquered by Babylon and the people exiled.

Religious reforms[link]

Closer view of the inner court and House of the Temple of Solomon (house of the Lord) as depicted in a 3-D computer model.

A sketch of the Temple of Solomon (house of the Lord) based on descriptions in the Tanakh.

View of the Temple of Solomon (house of the Lord) with ceiling removed as depicted in a 3-D computer model.

In the eighteenth year of his rule, Josiah ordered the High Priest Hilkiah to use the tax money which had been collected over the years to renovate the temple. It was during this time that Hilkiah discovered the Book of the Law. While Hilkiah was clearing the treasure room of the Temple ^[10] he found a scroll described as "the book of the Law" ^[11] or as "the book of the law of Yahweh by the hand of Moses".^[10] The phrase "the book of the Torah" (ספר התורה) in 2 Kings 22:8 is identical to the phrase used in Joshua 1:8 and 8:34 to describe the sacred writings that Joshua had received from Moses. The book is not identified in the text as the Torah and many scholars believe this was either a copy of the Book of Deuteronomy or a text that became a part of Deuteronomy as we have it per De Wette's suggestion in 1805.

Hilkiah brought this scroll to Josiah's attention, and the king ordered it read to a crowd in Jerusalem. He is praised for this piety by the prophetess Huldah, who made the prophecy that all involved would die without having to see God's judgment on Judah for the sins they had committed in prior generations.^[12][13]

Josiah encouraged the exclusive worship of Yahweh and outlawed all other forms of worship.2 Kings 23 According to the biblical account, Josiah destroyed the living quarters for male cult prostitutes which were in the Temple,^[14] and also destroyed pagan objects related to the worship of Baal or Asherah, "and all the hosts of the heavens". Josiah had living pagan priests executed and even had the bones of the dead priests of Bethel exhumed from their graves and burned on their altars, which was viewed as an extreme act of desecration. Josiah also reinstituted the Passover celebrations, such magnitude of which the Biblical account states had not been observed since before the days of the judges. (2 Kings 23:21-23)

According to 1 Kings 13:1-3 an unnamed "man of God" Iddo had prophesied to King Jeroboam of Israel, approximately three hundred years earlier, that "a son named Josiah will be born to the house of David" and that he would destroy the altar at Bethel. And the only exception to this destruction was for the grave of an unnamed prophet he found in Bethel (2 Kings 23:15-19), who had foretold that these religious sites Jeroboam erected would one day be destroyed (see 1 Kings 13). Josiah ordered the double grave of the "man of God" and of the Bethel prophet to be let alone as these prophecies had come true.

According to the later account in 2 Chronicles, Josiah even destroyed altars and images of pagan deities in cities of the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim, "and Simeon, as far as Naphtali" (2 Chronicles 34:6-7), which were outside of his kingdom, Judah, and returned the Ark of the Covenant to the Temple.^[15] (see List of Artifacts Significant to the Bible).

Foreign relations[link]

Pharaoh Necho II

When Josiah became king of Judah in about 641/640 BC, the international situation was in flux. To the east, the Assyrian Empire was beginning to disintegrate, the Babylonian Empire had not yet risen to replace it, and Egypt to the west was still recovering from Assyrian rule. In this power vacuum, Jerusalem was able to govern itself for the time being without foreign intervention.

In the spring of 609 BC, Pharaoh Necho II personally led a sizable army up to the Euphrates River to aid the Assyrians.[1][2] Taking the coast route Via Maris into Syria at the head of a large army, consisting mainly of his mercenaries, and supported by his Mediterranean fleet along the shore, Necho passed the low tracts of Philistia and Sharon. However, the passage over the ridge of hills which shuts in on the south of the great Jezreel Valley was blocked by the Judean army led by Josiah, who may have considered that the Assyrians and Egyptians were weakened by the death of the pharaoh Psamtik I only a year earlier (610 BC), who had been appointed and confirmed by Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal.[3] Josiah attempted to block the advance at Megiddo, where the fierce battle was fought and where Josiah was killed. (2 Kings 23:29, 2 Chronicles 35:20-24) Necho then joined forces with the Assyrian Ashur-uballit II and together they crossed the Euphrates and lay siege to Harran. The combined forces failed to capture the city, and Necho retreated back to northern Syria.

Succession[link]

There are two accounts of Josiah's death in the Bible. The Books of Kings merely state that Necho II met Josiah at Megiddo and killed him. (2 Kings 23:29) The Book of 2 Chronicles 35:20-27 gives a lengthier account and states that Josiah was fatally wounded by Egyptian archers and was brought back to Jerusalem to die. His death was a result of "not listen[ing] to what Necho had said at God's command..." when Necho stated:

"What quarrel is there between you and me, O king of Judah? It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you." (NIV)

Josiah did not heed this warning and by both accounts his death was caused by meeting Necho at Megiddo. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. According to 2 Chronicles 35:25, Jeremiah wrote a lament for Josiah's passing (Not in The Book of Lamentations).

After the setback in Harran, Necho left a sizable force behind, and returned to Egypt. On his return march, Necho found that Jehoahaz had been selected to succeed his father, Josiah. (2 Kings 23:31) Necho deposed Jehoahaz, who had been king for only three months, and replaced him with his older brother, Jehoiakim. Necho imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver (about 3 3/4 tons or about 3.4 metric tons) and a talent of gold (about 75 pounds or about 34 kilograms). Necho then took Jehoahaz back to Egypt as his prisoner, (2 Chronicles 36:1-4) never to return.

Necho had left Egypt in 609 BC for two reasons: one was to relieve the Babylonian siege of Harran, and the other was to help the king of Assyria, who was defeated by the Babylonians at Carchemish. Josiah's actions suggest that he was aiding the Babylonians by engaging the Egyptian army.^{[citation needed]}

Book of the Law[link]

The Biblical text states that the priest Hilkiah found a "Book of the Law" in the temple during the early stages of Josiah's temple renovation. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries it was agreed among scholars that this was an early version of the Book of Deuteronomy, but recent biblical scholarship sees it as largely legendary narrative about one of the earliest stages of creation of Deuteronomistic work.^[16] According to the Bible Hilkiah gave the scroll to his secretary Shaphan who took it to king Josiah. Historical-critical biblical scholarship generally accepts that this scroll — an early predecessor of the Torah — was written by the priests driven by ideological interest to centralize power under Josiah in the Temple in Jerusalem, and that the core narrative from Joshua to 2 Kings up to Josiah's reign comprises a "Deuteronomistic History" (DtrH) written during Josiah's reign.^[17] On the other hand, recent European theologians posit that most of the Torah and Deuteronomistic History was composed and its form finalized during Persian period, several centuries later.^[18]

Sources[link]

The chief textual sources of information for Josiah's reign are 2 Kings 22-23 and 2 Chronicles 34-35. Considerable archaeological evidence exists, including a number of "scroll-style" stamps which date to his reign.^{[citation needed]}

The date of Josiah's death can fairly well be established. The Babylonian Chronicle dates the battle at Harran between the Assyrians and their Egyptian allies against the Babylonians from Tammuz (July–August) to Elul (August–September) 609 BC. On that basis, Josiah was killed in the month of Tammuz (July–August) 609 BC, when the Egyptians were on their way to Harran.^[19]

Rabbinic Literature[link]

According to Rabbinic interpretation, Huldah said to the messengers of King Josiah, "Tell the man that sent you to me," etc. (2 Kings 22:15), indicating by her unceremonious language that for her Josiah was like any other man. The king addressed her, and not Jeremiah, because he thought that women are more easily stirred to pity than men, and that therefore the prophetess would be more likely than Jeremiah to intercede with God in his behalf (Meg. 14a, b; comp. Seder 'Olam R. xxi.). Huldah was a relative of Jeremiah, both being descendants of Rahab by her marriage with Joshua (Sifre, Num. 78; Meg. 14a, b). While Jeremiah admonished and preached repentance to the men, she did the same to the women (Pesiḳ. R. 26 [ed. Friedmann, p. 129]). Huldah was not only a prophetess, but taught publicly in the school (Targ. to 2 Kings 22:14), according to some teaching especially the oral doctrine. It is doubtful whether "the Gate of Huldah" in the Second Temple (Mid. i. 3) has any connection with the prophetess Huldah; it may have meant "Cat's Gate"; some scholars, however, associate the gate with Huldah's schoolhouse (Rashi to Kings l.c.).E. C. L. G.

The prophetic activity of Jeremiah began in the reign of Josiah; he was a contemporary of his relative the prophetess Hulda and of his teacher Zephaniah (comp. Maimonides in the introduction to "Yad"; in Lam. R. i. 18 Isaiah is mentioned as Jeremiah's teacher). These three prophets divided their activity in such wise that Hulda spoke to the women and Jeremiah to the men in the street, while Zephaniah preached in the synagogue (Pesiḳ. R. l.c.). When Josiah restored the true worship, Jeremiah went to the exiled ten tribes, whom he brought to Palestine under the rule of the pious king ('Ar. 33a). Although Josiah went towar with Egypt against the prophet's advice, yet the latter knew that the pious king did so only in error (Lam. R. l.c.); and in his dirges he bitterly laments the king's death, the fourth chapter of the Lamentations beginning with a dirge on Josiah (Lam. R. iv. 1; Targ. II Chron. xxxv. 25).

See also[link]

• The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts for the possible role of Josiah in creation of the Bible.
• Hertz J.H. (1936) The Pentateuch and Haftoras. Deuteronomy. Oxford University Press, London.
• Friedman, R. (1987) Who wrote the Bible? New York: Summit Books

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jewish Encyclopedia: Josiah
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Josias
• Jewish Virtual Library Josiah

William James

Born	(1842-01-11)January 11, 1842 New York City, New York
Died	August 26, 1910(1910-08-26) (aged 68) Tamworth, New Hampshire
Era	19th/20th century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy and Psychology
School	Pragmatism
Main interests	Pragmatism, Psychology, Philosophy of Religion, Epistemology, Meaning
Notable ideas	The Will to Believe Doctrine, the pragmatic theory of truth, radical empiricism, James-Lange theory of emotion, psychologist's fallacy
Influenced by Peirce, Hume, African Spir, Blaise Pascal,[1] Mill, Bain, Swedenborg, Schiller, Lotze, Reid, Renouvier, Brown
Influenced Dewey, Alan Watts, Schiller, Bergson, Santayana, Putnam, Rorty, Churchman, Jackson, Bill W., B. Alan Wallace, Mordecai Kaplan, Wittgenstein, Raknes, Cohen, Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois

This article is about the American psychologist and philosopher. For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation)

William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He was the first educator to offer a psychology course in the U.S.^[2] He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.

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.

Early life[link]

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.^[3] 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.

James 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 until November 1868. (During this period he began to publish, with reviews appearing in literary periodicals like the North American Review.) He finally earned his M.D. degree in June 1869, but never practiced medicine. What he called his "soul-sickness" would only be resolved in 1872, after an extended period of philosophical searching. He married Alice Gibbens in 1878.

James's time in Germany proved intellectually fertile, helping him find that his true interests lay not in medicine but in philosophy and psychology. Later, in 1902 he would write: "I originally studied medicine in order to be a physiologist, but I drifted into psychology and philosophy from a sort of fatality. I never had any philosophic instruction, the first lecture on psychology I ever heard being the first I ever gave".^[4]

Career[link]

James spent almost his entire academic career at Harvard. He was appointed instructor in physiology for the spring 1873 term, instructor in anatomy and physiology in 1873, assistant professor of psychology in 1876, assistant professor of philosophy in 1881, full professor in 1885, endowed chair in psychology in 1889, return to philosophy in 1897, and emeritus professor of philosophy in 1907.

James studied medicine, physiology, and biology, and began to teach in those subjects, but was drawn to the scientific study of the human mind at a time when psychology was constituting itself as a science. James's acquaintance with the work of figures like Hermann Helmholtz in Germany and Pierre Janet in France facilitated his introduction of courses in scientific psychology at Harvard University. He taught his first experimental psychology course at Harvard in the 1875–1876 academic year.^[5]

During his Harvard years, James joined in philosophical discussions with Charles Peirce, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Chauncey Wright that evolved into a lively group informally known as The Metaphysical Club in 1872. Louis Menand speculates that the Club provided a foundation for American intellectual thought for decades to come.

William James and Josiah Royce, ca. 1910

Among James's students at Harvard University were such luminaries as Boris Sidis, Theodore Roosevelt, George Santayana, W. E. B. Du Bois, G. Stanley Hall, Ralph Barton Perry, Gertrude Stein, Horace Kallen, Morris Raphael Cohen, Walter Lippmann, Alain Locke, C. I. Lewis, and Mary Whiton Calkins.

Following his January, 1907 retirement from Harvard, James continued to write and lecture, publishing Pragmatism, A Pluralistic Universe, and The Meaning of Truth. James was increasingly afflicted with cardiac pain during his last years. It worsened in 1909 while he worked on a philosophy text (unfinished but posthumously published as Some Problems in Philosophy). He sailed to Europe in the spring of 1910 to take experimental treatments which proved unsuccessful, and returned home on August 18. His heart failed him on August 26, 1910 at his home in Chocorua, New Hampshire. He was buried in the family plot in Cambridge Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He was one of the strongest proponents of the school of functionalism in psychology and of pragmatism in philosophy. He was a founder of the American Society for Psychical Research, as well as a champion of alternative approaches to healing. He challenged his professional colleagues not to let a narrow mindset prevent an honest appraisal of those beliefs.

In an empirical study by Haggbloom et al. using six criteria such as citations and recognition, James was found to be the 14th most eminent psychologist of the 20th Century.^[6]

Writings[link]

William James wrote voluminously throughout his life. A non-exhaustive bibliography of his writings, compiled by John McDermott, is 47 pages long.^[7] (See below for a list of his major writings and additional collections)

He gained widespread recognition with his monumental Principles of Psychology (1890), totaling twelve hundred pages in two volumes, which took twelve years to complete. Psychology: The Briefer Course, was an 1892 abridgement designed as a less rigorous introduction to the field. These works criticized both the English associationist school and the Hegelianism of his day as competing dogmatisms of little explanatory value, and sought to re-conceive the human mind as inherently purposive and selective.

President Jimmy Carter's Moral Equivalent of War Speech, on April 17, 1977, equating the United States' 1970's energy crisis, oil crisis and the changes and sacrifices Carter's proposed plans would require with the "moral equivalent of war," may have borrowed its title, much of its theme and the memorable phrase from James' classic essay "The Moral Equivalent of War" derived from his last speech, delivered at Stanford University in 1906, in which "James considered one of the classic problems of politics: how to sustain political unity and civic virtue in the absence of war or a credible threat...." and "...sounds a rallying cry for service in the interests of the individual and the nation." ^{[8] [9] [10]}

Epistemology[link]

James defined true beliefs as those that prove useful to the believer. His pragmatic theory of truth was a synthesis of correspondence theory of truth and coherence theory of truth, with an added dimension. Truth is verifiable to the extent that thoughts and statements correspond with actual things, as well as the extent to which they "hang together," or cohere, as pieces of a puzzle might fit together; these are in turn verified by the observed results of the application of an idea to actual practice.^[11][12]

"The most ancient parts of truth . . . also once were plastic. They also were called true for human reasons. They also mediated between still earlier truths and what in those days were novel observations. Purely objective truth, truth in whose establishment the function of giving human satisfaction in marrying previous parts of experience with newer parts played no role whatsoever, is nowhere to be found. The reasons why we call things true is the reason why they are true, for 'to be true' means only to perform this marriage-function," he wrote.^[13]

James held a world view in line with pragmatism, declaring that the value of any truth was utterly dependent upon its use to the person who held it. Additional tenets of James's pragmatism include the view that the world is a mosaic of diverse experiences that can only be properly interpreted and understood through an application of "radical empiricism." Radical empiricism, not related to the everyday scientific empiricism, asserts that the world and experience can never be halted for an entirely objective analysis, if nothing else the mind of the observer and simple act of observation will affect the outcome of any empirical approach to truth as the mind and its experiences, and nature are inseparable. James's emphasis on diversity as the default human condition — over and against duality, especially Hegelian dialectical duality — has maintained a strong influence in American culture, especially among liberals (see Richard Rorty). James's description of the mind-world connection, which he described in terms of a "stream of consciousness (psychology)", had a direct and significant impact on avant-garde and modernist literature and art.

In What Pragmatism Means, James writes that the central point of his own doctrine of truth is, in brief, that "Truths emerge from facts, but they dip forward into facts again and add to them; which facts again create or reveal new truth (the word is indifferent) and so on indefinitely. The 'facts' themselves meanwhile are not true. They simply are. Truth is the function of the beliefs that start and terminate among them." Richard Rorty claims that James did not mean to give a theory of truth with this statement and that we should not regard it as such. However, other pragmatism scholars such as Susan Haack and Howard Mounce do not share Rorty's instrumentalist interpretation of James.^[14]

In The Meaning of Truth, James seems to speak of truth in relativistic terms: "The critic's [sc., the critic of pragmatism] trouble...seems to come from his taking the word 'true' irrelatively, whereas the pragmatist always means 'true for him who experiences the workings.' "^[15] However, James responded to critics accusing him of relativism, scepticism or agnosticism, and of believing only in relative truths. To the contrary, he supported an epistemological realism position.^[16]

Cash Value[link]

From the introduction to William James's Pragmatism by Bruce Kuklick, p.xiv.

James went on to apply the pragmatic method to the epistemological problem of truth. He would seek the meaning of 'true' by examining how the idea functioned in our lives. A belief was true, he said, if it worked for all of us, and guided us expeditiously through our semihospitable world. James was anxious to uncover what true beliefs amounted to in human life, what their "Cash Value" was, what consequences they led to. A belief was not a mental entity which somehow mysteriously corresponded to an external reality if the belief were true. Beliefs were ways of acting with reference to a precarious environment, and to say they were true was to say they guided us satisfactorily in this environment. In this sense the pragmatic theory of truth applied Darwinian ideas in philosophy; it made survival the test of intellectual as well as biological fitness. If what was true was what worked, we can scientifically investigate religion's claim to truth in the same manner. The enduring quality of religious beliefs throughout recorded history and in all cultures gave indirect support for the view that such beliefs worked. James also argued directly that such beliefs were satisfying — they enabled us to lead fuller, richer lives and were more viable than their alternatives. Religious beliefs were expedient in human existence, just as scientific beliefs were.

Will to Believe Doctrine[link]

In William James's lecture of 1896 titled "The Will to Believe," James defends the right to violate the principle of evidentialism in order to justify hypothesis venturing. This idea foresaw the demise of evidentialism in the 20th century^{[citation needed]} and sought to ground justified belief in an unwavering principle that would prove more beneficial. Through his philosophy of pragmatism William James justifies religious beliefs by using the results of his hypothetical venturing as evidence to support the hypothesis' truth. Therefore, this doctrine allows one to assume belief in God and prove His existence by what the belief brings to one's life.

Free will[link]

In The Will to Believe, James simply asserted that his will was free. As his first act of freedom, he said, he chose to believe his will was free. He was encouraged to do this by reading Charles Renouvier, whose work convinced James to convert from monism to pluralism. In his diary entry of April 30, 1870, James wrote,

"I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second Essais and see no reason why his definition of free will — 'the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts' — need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume for the present — until next year — that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will."^[17]

In 1884 James set the terms for all future discussions of determinism and compatibilism in the free will debates with his lecture to Harvard Divinity School students published as "The Dilemma of Determinism." In this talk he defined the common terms "hard determinism' and "soft determinism" (now more commonly called "compatibilism").

"Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom."^[18]

James called compatibilism a "quagmire of evasion,"^[18] just as the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and David Hume that free will was simply freedom from external coercion were called a "wretched subterfuge" by Immanuel Kant.

James described chance as neither hard nor soft determinism, but "indeterminism". He said

"The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance...This notion of alternative possibility, this admission that any one of several things may come to pass is, after all, only a roundabout name for chance." ^[19]

James asked the students to consider his choice for walking home from Lowell Lecture Hall after his walk.

"What is meant by saying that my choice of which way to walk home after the lecture is ambiguous and matter of chance?...It means that both Divinity Avenue and Oxford Street are called but only one, and that one either one, shall be chosen."^[20]

With this simple example, James was the first thinker to enunciate clearly a two-stage decision process (others include Henri Poincaré, Arthur Holly Compton, Karl Popper), with chance in a present time of random alternatives, leading to a choice which grants consent to one possibility and transforms an equivocal ambiguous future into an unalterable and simple past. There is a temporal sequence of undetermined alternative possibilities followed by adequately determined choices.

James’ two-stage model effectively separates chance (the indeterministic free element) from choice (an arguably determinate decision that follows causally from one’s character, values, and especially feelings and desires at the moment of decision).

Philosophy of religion[link]

James did important work in philosophy of religion. In his Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh he provided a wide-ranging account of The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and interpreted them according to his pragmatic leanings. Some of the important claims he makes in this regard:

• Religious genius (experience) should be the primary topic in the study of religion, rather than religious institutions—since institutions are merely the social descendant of genius.
• The intense, even pathological varieties of experience (religious or otherwise) should be sought by psychologists, because they represent the closest thing to a microscope of the mind—that is, they show us in drastically enlarged form the normal processes of things.
• In order to usefully interpret the realm of common, shared experience and history, we must each make certain "over-beliefs" in things which, while they cannot be proven on the basis of experience, help us to live fuller and better lives.

The investigation of mystical experience was constant throughout the life of James, leading him to experiment with chloral hydrate (1870), amyl nitrite (1875), nitrous oxide (1882), and even peyote (1896). James claimed that it was only when he was under the influence of nitrous oxide that he was able to understand Hegel.^[21] He concluded that while the revelations of the mystic hold true, they hold true only for the mystic; for others, they are certainly ideas to be considered, but can hold no claim to truth without personal experience of such. For example, consider the claim to truth held by the immutable laws of physics.

Instincts[link]

Like Sigmund Freud, James was influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.^[22] At the core of James' theory of psychology, as defined in Principles of Psychology (1890), was a system of "instincts."^[22] James wrote that humans had many instincts, even more than other animals.^[22] These instincts, he said, could be overridden by experience and by each other, as many of the instincts were actually in conflict with each other.^[22] In the 1920s, however, psychology turned away from evolutionary theory and embraced radical behaviorism.^[22]

Theory of emotion[link]

James is one of the two namesakes of the James-Lange theory of emotion, which he formulated independently of Carl Lange in the 1880s. The theory holds that emotion is the mind's perception of physiological conditions that result from some stimulus. In James's oft-cited example; it is not that we see a bear, fear it, and run. We see a bear and run, consequently we fear the bear. Our mind's perception of the higher adrenaline level, heartbeat, etc., is the emotion.

This way of thinking about emotion has great consequences for the philosophy of aesthetics. Here is a passage from his great work, Principles of Psychology, that spells out those consequences.

[W]e must immediately insist that aesthetic emotion, pure and simple, the pleasure given us by certain lines and masses, and combinations of colors and sounds, is an absolutely sensational experience, an optical or auricular feeling that is primary, and not due to the repercussion backwards of other sensations elsewhere consecutively aroused. To this simple primary and immediate pleasure in certain pure sensations and harmonious combinations of them, there may, it is true, be added secondary pleasures; and in the practical enjoyment of works of art by the masses of mankind these secondary pleasures play a great part. The more classic one's taste is, however, the less relatively important are the secondary pleasures felt to be, in comparison with those of the primary sensation as it comes in. Classicism and romanticism have their battles over this point. Complex suggestiveness, the awakening of vistas of memory and association, and the stirring of our flesh with picturesque mystery and gloom, make a work of art romantic. The classic taste brands these effects as coarse and tawdry, and prefers the naked beauty of the optical and auditory sensations, unadorned with frippery or foliage. To the romantic mind, on the contrary, the immediate beauty of these sensations seems dry and thin. I am of course not discussing which view is right, but only showing that the discrimination between the primary feeling of beauty, as a pure incoming sensible quality, and the secondary emotions which are grafted thereupon, is one that must be made.

William James' bear[link]

From Joseph LeDoux's description of William James's Emotion ^[23]

Why do we run away if we notice that we are in danger? Because we are afraid of what will happen if we don't. This obvious (and incorrect) answer to a seemingly trivial question has been the central concern of a century-old debate about the nature of our emotions.

It all began in 1884 when William James published an article titled "What Is an Emotion?"^[24] The article appeared in a philosophy journal called Mind, as there were no psychology journals yet. It was important, not because it definitively answered the question it raised, but because of the way in which James phrased his response. He conceived of an emotion in terms of a sequence of events that starts with the occurrence of an arousing stimulus {the sympathetic nervous system or the parasympathetic nervous system}; and ends with a passionate feeling, a conscious emotional experience. A major goal of emotion research is still to elucidate this stimulus-to-feeling sequence—to figure out what processes come between the stimulus and the feeling.

James set out to answer his question by asking another: do we run from a bear because we are afraid or are we afraid because we run? He proposed that the obvious answer, that we run because we are afraid, was wrong, and instead argued that we are afraid because we run:

Our natural way of thinking about... emotions is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My thesis on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion (called 'feeling' by Damasio).

The essence of James's proposal was simple. It was premised on the fact that emotions are often accompanied by bodily responses (racing heart, tight stomach, sweaty palms, tense muscles, and so on; sympathetic nervous system) and that we can sense what is going on inside our body much the same as we can sense what is going on in the outside world. According to James, emotions feel different from other states of mind because they have these bodily responses that give rise to internal sensations, and different emotions feel different from one another because they are accompanied by different bodily responses and sensations. For example, when we see James's bear, we run away. During this act of escape, the body goes through a physiological upheaval: blood pressure rises, heart rate increases, pupils dilate, palms sweat, muscles contract in certain ways (evolutionary, innate defense mechanisms). Other kinds of emotional situations will result in different bodily upheavals. In each case, the physiological responses return to the brain in the form of bodily sensations, and the unique pattern of sensory feedback gives each emotion its unique quality. Fear feels different from anger or love because it has a different physiological signature {the parasympathetic nervous system for love}. The mental aspect of emotion, the feeling, is a slave to its physiology, not vice versa: we do not tremble because we are afraid or cry because we feel sad; we are afraid because we tremble and are sad because we cry.

Philosophy of history[link]

One of the long-standing schisms in the philosophy of history concerns the role of individuals in social change.

One faction sees individuals (as seen in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution, A History) as the motive power of history, and the broader society as the page on which they write their acts. The other sees society as moving according to holistic principles or laws, and sees individuals as its more-or-less willing pawns. In 1880, James waded into this controversy with "Great Men and Their Environment," an essay published in the Atlantic Monthly. He took Carlyle's side, but without Carlyle's one-sided emphasis on the political/military sphere, upon heroes as the founders or overthrowers of states and empires.

A philosopher, according to James, must accept geniuses as a given entity the same way as a biologist accepts as an entity Darwin's ‘spontaneous variations.’ The role of an individual will depend on the degree of its conformity with the social environment, epoch, moment, etc.^[25]

James introduces a notion of receptivities of the moment. The societies' mutations from generation to generation are determined (directly or indirectly) mainly by the acts or examples of individuals whose genius was so adapted to the receptivities of the moment or whose accidental position of authority was so critical that they became ferments, initiators of movements, setters of precedent or fashion, centers of corruption, or destroyers of other persons, whose gifts, had they had free play, would have led society in another direction.^[26] For James, the great men of history manipulate the thoughts of society. "Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives." He continues, "The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."

View on Spiritualism and Associationism[link]

James studied closely the schools of thought known as associationism and spiritualism. The view of an associationist is that each experience that one has leads to another, creating a chain of events. The association does not tie together two ideas, but rather physical objects.^[27] This association occurs on an atomic level. Small physical changes occur in the brain which eventually form complex ideas or associations. Thoughts are formed as these complex ideas work together and lead to new experiences. Isaac Newton and David Hartley both were precursors to this school of thought, proposing such ideas as “physical vibrations in the brain, spinal cord, and nerves are the basis of all sensations, all ideas, and all motions...”^[28] James disagreed with associationism in that he believed it to be too simple. He referred to associationism as “psychology without a soul”^[29] because there is nothing from within creating ideas; they just arise by associating objects with one another.

On the other hand, a spiritualist believes that mental events are attributed to the soul. Whereas in associationism, ideas and behaviors are separate, in spiritualism, they are connected. Spiritualism encompasses the term innatism, which suggests that ideas cause behavior. Ideas of past behavior influence the way a person will act in the future; these ideas are all tied together by the soul. Therefore, an inner soul causes one to have a thought, which leads them to perform a behavior, and memory of past behaviors determine how one will act in the future.^[29]

These two schools of thought are very different, and yet James had a strong opinion about the two. He was, by nature, a pragmatist, and therefore believed that one should use whatever parts of theories make the most sense and can be proven.^[30] Therefore, he recommended breaking apart spiritualism and associationism and using the parts of them that make the most sense. James believed that each person has a soul, which exists in a spiritual universe, and leads a person to perform the behaviors they do in the physical world.^[30] James was influenced by Emmanuel Swedenborg, who first introduced him to this idea. James states that, although it does appear that humans use associations to move from one event to the next, this cannot be done without this soul tying everything together. For, after an association has been made, it is the person who decides which part of it to focus on, and therefore determines in which direction following associations will lead.^[27] Associationism is too simple in that it does not account for decision-making of future behaviors, and memory of what worked well and what did not. Spiritualism, however, does not demonstrate actual physical representations for how associations occur. James therefore chose to combine the views of spiritualism and associationism to create his own way of thinking that he believed to make the most sense.

James was the first president of the American branch of the Society for Psychical Research. The lending of his name made Leonora Piper a famous medium. He wrote that "the supernormal knowledge which she unquestionably displays" was at least achieved through genuine telepathy, though he remained unconvinced she communicated with spirits.^[31] In time James found the investigations of Piper's mysterious abilities boring.^[32]

See also[link]

	Philosophy portal
	Psychology portal

• The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life
• Psychology of religion
• Functional psychology
• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers
• William James Lectures
• Leonora Piper
• William James Society

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

Works by James[link]

• The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. (1890) Dover Publications 1950, vol. 1: ISBN 0-486-20381-6, vol. 2: ISBN 0-486-20382-4
• Psychology (Briefer Course) (1892) University of Notre Dame Press 1985: ISBN 0-268-01557-0, Dover Publications 2001: ISBN 0-486-41604-6
• The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
• Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine (the Ingersoll Lecture, 1897)
  • The Will to Believe, Human Immortality (1956) Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-20291-7
• Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (1899), Dover Publications 2001: ISBN 0-486-41964-9, IndyPublish.com 2005: ISBN 1-4219-5806-6
• The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), ISBN 0-14-039034-0
• Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907), Hackett Publishing 1981: ISBN 0-915145-05-7, Dover 1995: ISBN 0-486-28270-8
• A Pluralistic Universe (1909), Hibbert Lectures, University of Nebraska Press 1996: ISBN 0-8032-7591-9
• The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel to "Pragmatism" (1909) Prometheus Books, 1997: ISBN 1-57392-138-6
• Some Problems of Philosophy: A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy (1911), University of Nebraska Press 1996: ISBN 0-8032-7587-0
• Memories and Studies (1911) Reprint Services Corp: 1992: ISBN 0-7812-3481-6
• Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912) Dover Publications 2003, ISBN 0-486-43094-4
  • critical edition, Frederick Burkhardt and Fredson Bowers, editors. Harvard University Press 1976: ISBN 0-674-26717-6 (includes commentary, notes, enumerated emendations, appendices with English translation of "La Notion de Conscience")
• Letters of William James, 2 vols. (1920)
• Collected Essays and Reviews (1920)
• Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James, 2 vols. (1935) Vanderbilt University Press 1996 reprint: ISBN 0-8265-1279-8 (contains some 500 letters by William James not found in the earlier edition of the Letters of William James)
• William James on Psychical Research (1960)
• The Correspondence of William James, 12 vols. (1992–2004) University of Virginia Press, ISBN 0-8139-2318-2
• The Dilemma of Determinism

Works by others[link]

• Essays Philosophical and Psychological in Honor of William James, by his Colleagues at Columbia University (London, 1908)
• Flournoy, La Philosophie de William James (Saint-Blaise, 1911)
• Josiah Royce, William James and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life (New York, 1911)
• Ménard, Analyse et critique des principes de la psychologie de W. James (Paris, 1911)
• K. A. Busch, William James als Religionsphilosoph (Göttingen, 1911)
• Boutroux, William James (New York, 1912)
• R. B. Perry, Present Philosophical Tendencies (New York, 1912)
• James Huneker, "A Philosophy for Philistines" in his The Pathos of Distance (New York, 1913)
• Werner Bloch, Der Pragmatismus von James und Schiller nebst Exkursen über Weltanschauung und über die Hypothese (Leipzig, 1913)
• H. V. Knox, Philosophy of William James (London, 1914)
• Henry James's A Small Boy and Others (1913) and Notes of a Son and Brother (1914)
• Roberts, Jane, The Afterdeath Journal of William James, ISBN 0-13-01815-9

Collections[link]

• William James: Writings 1878–1899, (1992). Library of America, 1212 p., ISBN 978-0-940450-72-1

Psychology: Briefer Course (rev. and condensed Principles of Psychology), The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, Talks to Teachers and Students, Essays (nine others)

• William James: Writings 1902–1910, (1987). Library of America, 1379 p., ISBN 978-0-940450-38-7

The Varieties of Religious Experience, Pragmatism, A Pluralistic Universe, The Meaning of Truth, Some Problems of Philosophy, Essays

• The Writings of William James: A Comprehensive Edition, (1978). University of Chicago Press, 912 p., ISBN 0-226-39188-4

Pragmatism, Essays in Radical Empiricism, and A Pluralistic Universe complete; plus selections from other works

• In 1975, Harvard University Press began publication of a standard edition of The Works of William James.

Secondary works[link]

• Jacques Barzun. A Stroll with William James (1983). Harper and Row: ISBN 0-226-03869-6
• Deborah Blum. Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death (2006). Penguin Press, ISBN 1-59420-090-4
• Wesley Cooper. The Unity of William James's Thought (2002). Vanderbilt University Press, ISBN 0-8265-1387-5
• Howard M. Feinstein. Becoming William James (1984). Cornell University Press, ISBN 978-0-8014-8642-5
• Louis Menand. The Metaphysical Club (2001). Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, ISBN 0-374-52849-7. analyzes the lives and relationship between James, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey.
• Gerald E. Myers. William James: His Life and Thought (1986). Yale University Press 2001 paperback: ISBN 0-300-08917-1. focuses on his psychology, includes 230 pages of notes.
• James Pawelski. The Dynamic Individualism of William James (2007). SUNY press, ISBN 0-7914-7239-6.
• Robert D. Richardson. William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (2006). Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0-618-43325-2
• Robert D. Richardson, ed. "The Heart of William James" (2010). Harvard U. Press, ISBN 978-0-674-05561-2
• Linda Simon. Genuine Reality: A Life of William James (1998). Harcourt Brace & Company, ISBN 0-226-75859-1

Fiction[link]

• Richard Liebmann-Smith. The James Boys: A Novel Account of Four Desperate Brothers (2008) posits Jesse and Frank are noms de outlaw used by William and Henry James's two younger brothers who went West and fought in the Civil War. Written somewhat in the style of Henry James.

External links[link]

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• William James Society
• William James Studies
• Streams of William James
• Emory University: William James – major collection of essays and works online
• Harvard University: Life is in the Transitions: William James, 1842–1910 – online exhibition from Houghton Library
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: William James
• William James on Information Philosopher
• William James: Looking for a Way Out
• Great Men and the Environment: William James
• "Biological Consciousness and the Experience of the Transcendent: William James and American Functional Psychology"
• "Oh Those Fabulous James Boys!" article from Psychology Today March/April 1995
• New York Times obituary
• William James at Find a Grave
• William James on the Mystical Site www.mysticism.nl
• A short interview with Robert D. Richardson, author of the biography William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
• Biography of William James
• European William James Project : Centre de philosophie pratique « Chromatiques whiteheadiennes »
• William James quotes