The Divided Self of William James
Cambridge University Press
Edition: 1st Edition, 5/6/1999
EAN 9780521642699, ISBN10: 0521642698
Hardcover, 376 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
This book offers a powerful interpretation of the philosophy of William James. It focuses on the multiple directions in which James's philosophy moves and the inevitable contradictions that arise as a result. The first part of the book explores a range of James's doctrines in which he refuses to privilege any particular perspective: ethics, belief, free will, truth and meaning. The second part of the book turns to those doctrines where James privileges the perspective of mystical experience. Richard Gale then shows how the relativistic tendencies can be reconciled with James's account of mystical experience. An appendix considers the distorted picture of James's philosophy that has been refracted down to us through the interpretations of his work by John Dewey.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. The Promethean Pragmatist
1. The ethics of Prometheanism
2. The willfulness of belief
3. The freedom of belief
4. The will to believe
5. The ethics of truth
6. The semantics of 'truth'
7. Ontological relativism
William James meets Poo-bah
Part II. The Anti-Promethean Mystic
8. The self
9. The I-thou quest for intimacy and religious mysticism
10. The humpty-dumpty intuition and panpsychism
11. Attempts at a one-world interpretation of James
Appendix
John Dewey's naturalization of William James
Bibliography of works cited
Index.