JAMES, WILLIAM. — Philosopher, psychologist, and educationalist, b. in Nuova York on 11 Jan. 1842, d. at Chocorna (New Hampshire) on 26 Aug. 1910. Son of a Protestant theologian and nephew of the writer H. James, he first studied at Newport, Nuova York, Paris, and London, then science and medicine at Cambridge (Mass.) and Harvard University (1861–66); subsequently at Dresden and Berlin (1867–68), under the influence of Hegelian romanticism. From 1872 he taught physiology at Harvard University, and later psychology and philosophy. He also exerted a wide influence on European culture (he was a member of the Academies of Berlin, Paris, and Rome) in a pragmatic and spiritualistic direction, especially at international congresses (Congress of Psychology in Rome, 1905); and in the final phase of his thought (1904–10), with a metaphysical attitude known as radical empiricism and pluralism, to which he also added research into metapsychics (parapsychology).
J.’s masterpiece is the work: The principles of psychology (2 vols., Nuova York 1890, Italian trans., 3rd ed., Milano 1909; abridgment, edited by G. Tarozzi, ibid. 1911). Other works by him: Psychology, briefer course (Nuova York 1892); The will to believe (ibid. 1897; Italian trans., Milano 1912); Human immortality (Boston 1898; Italian trans. in the volume W. J. Saggi pragmatisti, edited by G. Papini, Lanciano 1919); Talks to teachers and to students (Nuova York 1890; Italian trans. Gli ideali della vita, Torino 1904; 2nd ed., ibid. 1916); The varieties of religious experience (Nuova York 1902; Italian trans. Torino 1904); Pragmatism (Nuova 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 Pierce, emphasizes the “will to believe” (will to believe) rather than the critique of science. A constant opponent of intellectualistic and rationalistic conceptions, he considers the world to be constituted by living instincts and wills, which bend things to themselves as inferior energies, fashion theories of objects in order to master them, and associate with one another to cooperate in their teleology. The utilitarian and vitalistic value of science accentuates the significance of the will that believes in it, without which no truth is admitted or admissible. The biological needs 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 human beings (“group mind,” or collective, spiritual consciousness) are therefore the fundamental values. The consciousness of subjects itself, 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 (the study of reflex acts, of physical-psychic cerebral structures, of subconscious phenomena, and of emotions), is decisively antimaterialistic.
The physiological organism and the nervous system are here regarded as instruments of existence and action, produced and coordinated, by natural pragmatism, by conscious activity itself. This activity, however, is not to be reduced to an initial “I,” as the idealists would have it, but must be resolved into a “stream of thought,” or a flow of sensory-instinctive tendencies like 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 this meeting in order to transform sensations into reactions: it thus divides consciousness, but only in a pragmatic sense, into a theoretical moment and a practical moment. The connection of the personality is thereby entrusted to memory.
In his religious studies J. appeared animated by lively Christian beliefs, but hostile to Catholicism and dogmatics, and even to monotheism. For him, faith is a subjective act of the will to believe in that which sustains and protects our life: subjective faith may therefore be doubted, but it constitutes a religious experience whose objective content appeals to a power greater than our own and requires our admiration and devotion. It allows various types of belief to coexist, provided that they are useful for their purpose; nevertheless, it also permits one to experience the superiority of a personal God, resembling knowing subjects and provident toward them. This personal God, however, is defined by an encounter between our belief in him and what he does for us: his personality is therefore finite, as are his creative and inspirational activity, in such a way as to allow the autonomous evolution of parts of creation, the freedom of creatures, and the coexistence of evil; and, because of the multiplicity of spirits, it does not exclude polytheism.
J.’s metaphysics concludes in favor of the superiority of the pluralistic and monadological hypothesis, which recognizes the relatively independent existence of individual beings, as opposed to monism, which merges them into one. He is opposed to the idea of a “universe” centered in God and unfavorable to that of a “multiverse”; but he insists on the thesis of the “pluriverse,” or plurality of beings and their tendencies, in relation to which the absolute is absolute only in itself and with respect to what depends on II. The reality of life lies in the very truth of experience: the time in which its continuity unfolds corresponds to perpetual variation, in which the freedom of the will takes root. Time does not permit consciousness to be enclosed in a “hard” soul, or one resistant to objects; rather, it dissolves it in the very love of beings and things. But 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 beyond the limits of the time available to them for being recognized in this life.
J.’s work also extended into education, especially vocational education, and into ethical progress. In the former field he composed eloquent “talks to teachers and students” to illustrate psychological methods and the ideals of life. For the persuasion of disciples and the fulfillment of the educational mission, he proposes the “gospel of surrender,” of self-sacrifice for the understanding and elevation of the souls of others. In the social field he upheld the theories of “meliorism,” or the democratic pursuit of a salutary and religious reform of life, and the predominance of the moral problem as a practical form of struggle for the good and the betterment of society.