Up@dawn 2.0 (blogger)

Delight Springs

Saturday, November 18, 2023

Getting to know WJ

 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

by Ed Craig

Recently, on the steps of the James Union Building, the home of philosophy at Middle Tennessee State University, awaiting the beginning of a Cornel West event, I was talking with several philosophy students and one young man who was “not in philosophy, but was into it,” and the subject of William James came up. They know of James, but not so much about him. I told Elle, Javan, and Dom that I had a 5-step program to get to know James that I would share, and gave them the following.

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:

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And if you want something that will look great on your bookshelf...

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