Biography
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9. Professional Philosophy
Aside from his marriage, the year 1878 marked a turning point in William's life as his academic work made headway. In January of 1878, the Journal of Speculative Philosophy published William's first signed publication, "Remarks on Spencer's Definition of Mind as Correspondence." Therein, William takes on the philosophy and psychology of Hebert Spencer, work he had been acquainted with for nearly a decade. While supporting the Darwinian foundation of Spencer's thought, William criticizes, among other things, what he sees as Spencer's reductionist conclusions that human beings are survivalists and their nature is geared only to protection and procreation. William saw this narrowing of human experience as mistaken. Informed by his reading of French philosopher Charles Renouvier, and professing a theme that resurfaced throughout his psychological and philosophical writings, William stresses that human activity and the efforts put forth are a wildcard that cannot, a priori, be "knowable." Furthermore, experience shows us that many interests, not just survival, conspire in the individual to give life it richness and flavor – an inextractible richness.
If ministry to survival be the sole criterion of mental excellence, then luxury and amusement, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Plato, and Marcus Aurelius, stellar spectroscopy, diatom markings, and nebular hypotheses are by-products on too wasteful a scale. The slag-heap is too big – it abstracts more energy than it contributes to the ends of the machine.[13]
Arguing that such "excesses" of the Spencerian scale cannot merely be superfluous, "truth" can never be mere "correspondence," for our interests extend beyond mere survival in the face of what is "given." Our "mental interests, hypotheses, postulates, so far as they are bases for human action – action which to a great extent transforms the world – help make the truth which they declare."[14]
In the same year, John Fiske (from the Metaphysical Club) put William in contact with the publisher Henry Holt who was looking to produce a textbook in psychology. William was eager to set forth his thoughts on the topic, hoping to create a volume that would provide sufficient funding for his family. And while the project became quite protracted, its definitive and seminal results are unmistakable, namely the 1890 publication of the two-volume The Principles of Psychology.
Meanwhile, in 1879 William published more essays, most importantly, "The Sentiment of Rationality" wherein he argues for the place of the affective dimensions in inquiry where the "feeling" of contentment is our sign of resolution to what his friend Charles Peirce called the "irritation of doubt."[15] Such work, along with his own resolve to shift disciplines achieved William's coveted position of assistant professor of philosophy at Harvard in 1880 where he continued to serve for more than twenty-five years, a time rightly chronicled as a golden age in the department. During those years, James would help Josiah Royce gain a post, teach George Santayana, Gertrude Stein, Ralph Barton Perry, W.E.B. Du Bois, and William Ernest Hocking, and become the foremost advocate of pragmatism, influencing the likes of John Dewey and George Herbert Mead.
[13] See Myers GE (ed). 1992. William James: writings 1878-1899. New York: Library of America. p 901.
[14] See ibid, p 908.
[15] See Hartshorne C, Weiss P (eds). 1932. The collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Volume 5. Boston: Harvard University Press. pp 358-387.
Source: Talisse RB, Hester DM. 2004. Lives in transition: experiencing James. In On James, chap 1. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing. pp. 11-12. [Adapted by permission of the authors.]
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