Essays In Radical Empiricism

A pioneer in early studies of the human mind and founder of that peculiarlyAmerican philosophy called Pragmatism William James remains Americas mostwidely read ... » 

A pioneer in early studies of the human mind and founder of that peculiarlyAmerican philosophy called Pragmatism William James remains Americas mostwidely read philosopher. Generations of students have been drawn to his lucidpresentations of philosophical problems. His works now being made availablefor the first time in a definitive edition have a permanent place in Americanletters and a continuing influence in philosophy and psychology.The essays gathered in the posthumously published Essays in RadicalEmpiricism formulate ideas that had brewed in Jamess mind for thirty years ashe sought a way out of the philosophical dilemmas generated by the newpsychology of the late nineteenth century. They constitute the explanatory coreof his doctrine of radical empiricism a doctrine that charts his coursebetween the absolute idealism he could not accept and at the other extremethe law of associationism which reduces knowledge to sheer contiguity ofideas. In his introduction John J. McDermott describes the historicalbackground and the genesis of Jamess theory and considers the objectionsraised by its opponents. «