A student asked the other day what else he might read by or about William James.
A former student, my friend Ed Craig, has written this:
Five Steps to Know William James
MY FIVE STEP PLAN FOR KNOWING WILLIAM JAMES
I never had heard of William James before I went back to college at age 74, and I think of myself as a fairly well educated man. I knew his brother Henry, the author. I have discovered that I am not alone in not encountering James in my education. I have been educating myself in James over the past couple of years and have come to love him. I have found that James speaks to me, and that there are great lessons in how to live in his writings. It has been worthwhile for me to know him better, and I think it would be for others. For any interested, here is a 5-step plan to get to know this remarkable man.
Step 1: Do a quick Google search. Read Wikipedia.
It helps your introduction to William James to get some sense of who he was and his place as an American philosopher. James is not part of the philosophical canon and does not belong to any “school” of philosophy. English philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861 – 1947) claimed that the four great philosophical “assemblers” were Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, and William James. Good company. James was a remarkable man. A quick read of his Wikipedia entry on his early life, career, and family gives a taste of who he was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James
Step 2: Watch an address by James’s biographer Robert Richardson.
An address by James’s biographer Robert Richardson in August 2010 to the William James Symposium in Chocorua, New Hampshire, on the 100th anniversary of the death of James, provides helpful insight into the type of thinking that makes James so valuable in understanding how to live. (Chocorua was James’s summer home, and the view of Mount Chocorua from his home, which “had 14 doors, all opening outside,” is on the home page of Dr. Phil Oliver’s blog, Up@dawn 2.0.) https://jposopher.blogspot.com/
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William James online -- James's work is in the public domain, & free on the Internet. Look for him in the Gutenberg library... but if you'd prefer a handsome keepers' edition in book format I recommend the Library of America's two volumes:
William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism by Robert Richardson
Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James-companion anthology to Sick Souls...
William James : Writings 1878-1899 : Psychology, Briefer Course / The Will to Believe / Talks to Teachers and Students / Essays (Library of America)
William James : Writings 1902-1910 : The Varieties of Religious Experience / Pragmatism / A Pluralistic Universe / The Meaning of Truth / Some Problems of Philosophy / Essays (Library
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