Thinker

William James quotes

7 passages in English · 1842–1910 · Pragmatism.

Overview

William James (1842–1910) was the Harvard psychologist-philosopher who popularized pragmatism and pioneered scientific psychology in America. Brother of novelist Henry James, he trained in medicine and wrote The Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience. Handbook dates: 1842–1910. Openness to experience made him a bridge between science and religion.

Main ideas

Truth is what works in the way of belief—cash-value in experiential consequences—without crude subjectivism. Stream of consciousness replaces atomistic mental chemistry. The will to believe may be legitimate under genuine, forced, momentous options when evidence is insufficient. Radical empiricism takes pure experience relations as real. Pluralistic universe resists block-universe monism. Religious varieties are judged by fruits in life.

Major works

  • The Principles of Psychology
  • Pragmatism
  • The Varieties of Religious Experience
  • Essays in Radical Empiricism

Legacy

James founded American psychology’s literary-scientific style and global pragmatism’s public face. Philosophy of religion still leans on Varieties. Cognitive science and phenomenology reclaim the stream of thought.

Themes in this archive

Truth (2) · Knowledge (1) · Self (1) · Wisdom (1)

Quotes by theme

William James on truth

  1. Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent.
  2. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
  3. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.
  4. The essential achievement of the will is to attend to a difficult object and hold it fast before the mind.
  5. Consciousness…does not appear to itself chopped up in bits…It is nothing jointed; it flows.
  6. The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
  7. The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief.