PHGA 7252 The Philosophy of William James
Professor Judith Green
Spring 2008
Thursday, 4:30 – 6:30 pm

...The problems that absorbed, possibly obsessed, James are good problems to worry about.  What are experiences?  What capacities does a creature for whom there is something it is like to be that creature have that an automaton lacks?  How do such concepts as agency, self, free action, and the like fit with the effort to develop a scientific psychology, and, most importantly of all, what makes life worth living?  James never let these questions drop off the agenda in an effort to focus his efforts on giving a picture of only a piece of the world.  He wanted and worked at a picture of the whole thing.
                           --Owen Flanagan, “Consciousness as a Pragmatist Views It” (47)

One of the original members of “The Metaphysical Club” that launched American Pragmatism as a philosophical movement, William James (1842-1910) remains one of the most readable and widely read modern philosophers.  James greatly influenced diverse thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Husserl, Scheler, Whitehead, Schilling, Wittgenstein, Dewey, Mead, DuBois, Locke, Addams, and Wittgenstein.  Many influential contemporary philosophers continue to critically engage and build upon James’s texts and ideas, including Habermas, Putnam, Rorty, West, Flanagan, Taylor, and thinkers in the emerging Positive Psychology and Pragmatist Feminism movements.  All of these thinkers appreciate the depth of James’s insights about psychology, metaphysics, epistemology, language, ethics, politics, and religion, as well as the clarity, beauty, and humor of his essay style, even as they take issue with various aspects of his views. 

In this class, we will read a selection of James’s essays and books of historical importance and continuing influence, pairing these with works by contemporary thinkers who draw upon and critically engage them.  We will start with a set of essays that frame James’s intellectual terrain paired with recent critical commentaries on them, including “The Sentiment of Rationality,” “The Dilemma of Determinism,” “The Will to Believe,” “Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth,” “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” and “The Moral Equivalent of War.” Then we will read all or parts of four of James’s books in relation to works by contemporary thinkers in the fields of philosophical psychology, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and epistemology:

• Principles of Psychology (1890) in relation to Flanagan’s work and Positive Psychology, 
• The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) in works by Charles Taylor and Ellen Kappy Sukiel,
• A Pluralistic Universe (1909) in relation to recent work by David C. Lambeth and Richard Rorty, and
• Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912) in relation to recent work by Hilary Putnam and others.

Each week, Seminar Members will write two-page reflections on the readings and share responsibility for leading discussions.  Each member will develop an Annotated Bibliography and write a publishable review of a recent book related to James’s work.  Finally, each member will write a twelve-page essay suitable for conference presentation or submission to a journal.