William James is for me the most inclusive mind I can listen to, the most concrete and the least hampered by trifles.

For the reader unfamiliar with William James these two paragraphs from one of the many recent biographies of James (Richardson, 2006) may be helpful in appreciating James’ significance: “Alfred North Whitehead said, ‘In Western Literature there are four great thinkers, whose services to civilized thought rest largely on their achievements in philosophical assemblage; though each of them made important contributions to the structure of philosophical system.  These men are Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, and William James.’  John McDermott says, ‘William James is to classic American philosophy as Plato was to Greek and Roman philosophy, an originating and inspirational fountainhead.’  James is famous for pragmatism (which he sometimes felt he should have called humanism), though he should be remembered for his radical empiricism (which could be called phenomenology); that is, his belief that reality is confined to what we experience, with the crucial proviso that nothing we experience can be excluded.

His book The Will to Believe was about the right to believe, and his Varieties of Religious Experience made religion possible for many educated moderns who are uncomfortable with the authority of churches and dogmas.  The book is also a cornerstone of the modern field of comparative religion.  Though it is nearly a hundred years since James died, his thought is still very much alive.  ‘I find him visibly and testably right,’ says Jacques Barzun.  ‘He is for me the most inclusive mind I can listen to, the most concrete and the least hampered by trifles. (2006, p. xiv)”

Related articles

• AA's "Third Co-founder," William James
• It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than think your way into a new way of acting
• Affect and Rationality in William James
• Important point to keep in mind is that we should stop worrying so much about finding happiness. Instead, concentrate on living today
• There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation
• Alcoholics have a specific problem: they drink too much.
• A. A, had it's beginning in a mystical experience.
• Bill W. spoke about his transcendent spiritual experience in Towns Hospital, one which some believe may have actually been a near death experience due to its similarities to recorded NDE's
• The word intuition comes from the Latin intuir, which appropriately means 'knowledge from within.'
• If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly