Biography
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10. Psychic Research, the Principles, and Publication
In the mid-1880s William's interest turned to, among other things, psychical research or "spiritualism." The fascination with mediums and psychics was of great curiosity to many in the late nineteenth century with eminent academics and laypersons coming together to learn about and investigate the claims of spiritual phenomena. In one sense, this work would seem at odds with a philosopher whose own work in psychology was sometimes thought to be too physiological.[16] But, as would be a point he often made, physiology (as a solely materialist position) did not exhaust explanations of experience. Between his own confused spiritual inheritance from his father and his never-ending pursuit of the truths which lie in all corners of experience, William kept open the possibility of psychic ability and phenomena until his death, helping to establish the American Society for Psychical Research and setting up a laboratory for psychic experimentation at Harvard. Upon the premature death of his third son Herman in 1885, William and his wife Alice even became regular clients of a trance medium named Leonora Piper.
While he longed for recognition and continued to look for positions elsewhere, the remainder of the decade saw William solidifying his place at Harvard, and after yet another trip to Europe, he came home to focus on the completion of The Principles of Psychology, promised over a decade earlier. In 1890 the literary, psychological, and philosophical masterpiece William had hoped to create came to fruition. Though its size is imposing, its prose, insights, and arguments are intoxicating. In the English language, no work before it had taken on the subject of psychology to the degree and with the concern for empirical evidence that William presented. It offers a radical view of self, mind, thought, and experience in a comprehensive manner. William's Principles undermines the idea of a self which is ontologically prior to experience, emphasizing instead what he called the "stream of consciousness." This "stream" when uninterrupted admits of no division into subjective and objective elements, but when interrupted is redirected by reflective processes that function to "fit" experiences together in order to continue the flow. He explains how habits (physiological, biological, and emotional) play an important instrumental role as the primary controlling mechanism and expression of the self. In other words, William insisted that any analysis of psychology be a "functional" one whereby the living individual as an active being within an influencing environment is taken seriously. The ideas were revolutionary and widely influential.
Though he readily wanted to take on new projects, particularly more squarely in philosophy, the desire to make the Principles more accessible to the classroom had William back at his desk paring down, revising, rewriting, and adding to his two-volume set. The product was his one-volume Psychology (Briefer Course), published in 1892, which became an English-language textbook standard for decades to come. The fame that this and the earlier work gave him created the opportunity for regular speaking engagements and much of his published output for the rest of his life would have its genesis (if not its culmination) in the lecture hall. In fact, he would not again publish a book in his lifetime that did not originate from such sources or as collections of journal articles.
Unfortunate news came in the spring of 1892 when William's sister Alice died from breast cancer. His relationship to Alice was long strained as she went through years of tortured mental and physical problems that, though he should have had sympathy for, he never truly understood. Her published diaries, for which she is justly praised in literary circles, testify to a woman of intelligence, depth, and courage in the face of great suffering. They also give insight to her family, and William's distance over the years was, it is clear, not simply geographical.
The years that followed found William, while still relying on his studies in psychology, moving into more philosophical pursuits. Such thoughts culminated in the 1897 collection of his writings entitled The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Full of important pieces previously published such as "The Sentiment of Rationality" (1879-1882), "The Dilemma of Determinism" (1884), "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" (1891), "Is Life Worth Living?" (1895), as well as the famous essay "The Will to Believe" (1896), the collection was dedicated to William's old friend Charles Peirce: "To whose philosophic comradeship in old times and to whose writings in more recent years I owe more incitement and help than I can express or repay." William had long been a champion of Peirce especially in Peirce's struggle to find a permanent faculty appointment. While a brilliant scientist and philosopher, Peirce's hindrance to this goal was his own personality that was simply intolerable to most people. However, on more than one occasion (and without success), William put Peirce's name forth to hire at Harvard, and in 1893 even suggested Peirce to head the newly forming department of philosophy at the University of Chicago (an appointment that would eventually go to John Dewey).
[16] One example is what is known as the James-Lange theory of emotions, as stated in his famous 1884 article "What Is an Emotion?" and discussed further in chapter XXV ("The Emotions") of The Principles of Psychology.
Source: Talisse RB, Hester DM. 2004. Lives in transition: experiencing James. In On James, chap 1. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing. pp. 12-14. [Adapted by permission of the authors.]
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