JAMES, WILLIAM. - Philosopher, psychologist and educationist, b. in New York on 11 Jan. 1842, d. at Chocorua (New Hampshire) on 26 Aug. 1910. The son of a Protestant theologian and the nephew of the writer H. James, he studied first at Newport, New York, Paris, London, then science and medicine at Cambridge (Mass.) and at Harvard University (1861-66); then at Dresden and Berlin (1867-68) under the influence of Hegelian Romanticism. From 1872 he taught physiology at Harvard University, subsequently psychology and philosophy. He exercised a wide influence also on European culture (he was a member of the academies of Berlin, Paris and Rome) in a pragmatic and spiritualistic sense, especially at international congresses (Congress of Psychology at Rome, 1905); and in the last phase of his thought (1904-10) with a metaphysical attitude, known as radical empiricism and pluralism, to which he also joined research in metapsychics (parapsychology).
J.'s masterpiece is the work: The principles of psychology (2 vols., New York 1890, Italian trans., 3rd ed., Milan 1909; compendium, edited by G. Tarozzi, ibid. 1911). His other works: Psychology, briefer course (New York 1892); The will to believe (ibid. 1897; Italian trans., Milan 1912); Human immortality (Boston 1898; Italian trans. in the vol. W. J. Saggi pragmatisti, edited by G. Papini, Lanciano 1919); Talks to teachers and to students (New York 1890; Italian trans. Gli ideali della vita, Turin 1904; 2nd ed., ibid. 1916); The varieties of religious experience (New York 1902; Italian trans. Turin 1904); Pragmatism (New York 1907); The meaning of truth (ibid. 1909); A pluralistic universe (ibid. 1909); Some problems of philosophy (ibid. 1911); Memories and studies (ibid. 1911); Essays in radical empiricism (ibid. 1912).
J.'s pragmatism, although inspired by Peirce, brings into prominence the "will to believe" (will to believe) rather than the critique of science. A constant opponent of intellectualist and rationalist conceptions, he considers the world as made up of instincts and living wills, which bend things to themselves as inferior energies and fashion theories of objects in order to dominate them and associate in order to cooperate in their teleology. The utilitarian and vitalistic value of science accentuates the significance of the will that believes in it, and without which no truth is admitted or admissible. The biological exigencies of the individual, the expansion and development of his practical personality, his coexistence and connection with other living beings and above all with his fellow men ("group mind" or collective, spiritual consciousness) are therefore the fundamental values. The very consciousness of subjects, in order to respect their nature, must be founded not on their objective scientific appearances, but on their conduct or practical behaviour (behaviours).
J.'s psychology, in which he achieved historic results as an experimenter (study of reflex acts, of the physical-psychic cerebral structures, of subconscious phenomena, of the emotions), is decidedly anti-materialistic.
The physiological organism and the nervous system are considered in it as instruments of existence and of action, produced and coordinated, by natural pragmatism, by conscious activity itself. This, however, is not to be reduced to an initial "I", as the idealists would have it, but to be resolved into a "stream of thought", or flux of sensitive-instinctive tendencies as elementary waves (psychic dust). The meeting of these waves determines consciousness and the search for objects as its occasional and probable causes; the nervous system enters into the meeting in order to transform sensations into reactions: it thus divides, but only in a pragmatic sense, consciousness into a theoretical moment and a practical moment. The connection of the personality is in this way entrusted to memory.
In his religious studies J. appeared animated by lively Christian beliefs, but averse to Catholicism and to dogmatics, and even to monotheism. Faith is for him a subjective act of the will to believe in what sustains and protects our life: subjective faith can therefore be doubted, but it constitutes a religious experience whose objective content appeals to a power greater than ours and which demands our admiration and devotion. It allows various types of belief to coexist, provided they are useful to their purpose: yet it also allows the superiority of a personal God to be experienced, similar to knowing subjects and provident for them. This personal God is however defined by an encounter between our belief in him and what he does for us: his personality is therefore finite, and so too is his creative and inspiring activity, so that it admits the autonomous evolution of parts of creation, the freedom of creatures and the coexistence of evil, and, because of the multiplicity of spirits, does not exclude polytheism.
J.'s metaphysics concludes in favour of the superiority of the pluralistic and monadological hypothesis, which recognizes the relatively independent existence of individual beings, as against monism, which fuses them into one. He is opposed to the idea of a "universe" centred in God and unfavourable to that of a "multiverse": but he insists on the thesis of the "pluriverse", or plurality of beings and of their tendencies, in relation to which the absolute is such only in itself and with regard to what depends on it. The reality of life lies in the very truth of experience: the time in which its continuity unfolds corresponds to a perpetual variation, in which the freedom of the will is rooted. Time does not permit consciousness to be bound in a closed soul, "hard" or resistant towards objects, but rather dissolves it in the very love of beings and things: yet it recommends believing in the immortality of one's own being, since its sensations and volitions pass beyond the intellectual threshold of consciousness (v. Myers) and the limits of the time at their disposal to be recognized in this life.
J.'s work extended also into education, especially professional education, and into ethical progress. In the first field he delivered eloquent "talks to teachers and to students", to illustrate psychological methods and the ideals of life. He proposes, for the persuasion of disciples and for the fulfilment of the educational mission, the "gospel of letting oneself go", of self-sacrifice to the understanding and elevation of other souls. In the social field he upheld the theories of "meliorism", or the democratic pursuit of a salutary and religious reform of life, and the prevalence of the moral problem as a practical form of struggle for the good and the improvement of society.
Bibliography9 works
Santino Caramella