William James

William James
William James (1842-1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist, often regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for his contributions to pragmatism, a philosophical tradition that assesses the truth of beliefs based on their practical outcomes, and for his seminal work "The Principles of Psychology," which laid the foundation for modern psychology. James also explored religious experiences and mysticism, profoundly influencing both philosophy and psychology through his interdisciplinary approach.

Author's Books:


The present volume is an attempt to carry out a plan which William James is known to have formed several years before his death. In 1907 he collected reprints in an envelope which he inscribed with the title ‘Essays in Radical Empiricism’; and he also had duplicate sets of these reprints bound, under the same title, and deposited for the use of students in the general Harvard Library, and in the... more...

TALKS TO TEACHERS In the general activity and uprising of ideal interests which every one with an eye for fact can discern all about us in American life, there is perhaps no more promising feature than the fermentation which for a dozen years or more has been going on among the teachers. In whatever sphere of education their functions may lie, there is to be seen among them a really inspiring amount of... more...

LECTURE I THE TYPES OF PHILOSOPHIC THINKING As these lectures are meant to be public, and so few, I have assumed all very special problems to be excluded, and some topic of general interest required. Fortunately, our age seems to be growing philosophical again—still in the ashes live the wonted fires. Oxford, long the seed-bed, for the english world, of the idealism inspired by Kant and Hegel, has... more...

The lectures that follow were delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston in November and December, 1906, and in January, 1907, at Columbia University, in New York. They are printed as delivered, without developments or notes. The pragmatic movement, so-called—I do not like the name, but apparently it is too late to change it— seems to have rather suddenly precipitated itself out of the air. A... more...

THE pivotal part of my book named Pragmatism is its account of the relation called 'truth' which may obtain between an idea (opinion, belief, statement, or what not) and its object. 'Truth,' I there say, 'is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their agreement, as falsity means their disagreement, with reality. Pragmatists and intellectualists both accept this... more...

RELIGION AND NEUROLOGY It is with no small amount of trepidation that I take my place behind this desk, and face this learned audience. To us Americans, the experience of receiving instruction from the living voice, as well as from the books, of European scholars, is very familiar. At my own University of Harvard, not a winter passes without its harvest, large or small, of lectures from Scottish,... more...