Essays in Radical Empiricism

ESSAYS m KADICAL EMPIKICISM BY WILLIAM JAMES NEW IMPKESSION LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 5 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOKE 89 PATKENOSTEE SOW, LONDON BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADBAS COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HENRY JAMES, JR, ALL 8IOHTS KBSCJIVCD FIRST EDITION, APSIt, 101 2 REPRINTED, JEBKlARY, 1922 MADE IN THE UNITED WATSS CONTENTS 1. DOES CONSCIOUSNESS EXIST ...... 1 II. A WORLD OF PUKE EXPERIENCE .... 9 III. THE THING ANB ITS RELATIONS 9 IV. How Two MINDS CAN KNOW ONE THING . . 123 V. TUB PLACE OF AFFECTIONAL PACTB IN A WOBLD OF PtJRK EXPERIENCE 187 VI. TlIB EXPERIENCE Of ACTIVITY ...... 155 VII. THB ESSENCE OF HUMANISM 190 VIII. LA NOTION xra CONSCIENCE ....... 800 IX, Is RADICAL EMFIEICISM SOLJPSXSTIC .... 84 X, ME. PITIUNS KEFUTATION OF RADICAL EMPIEI I8M 41 XI. HUMANISM AND TBOTH ONCE MOEE .... 244 XII. ABTOLOTISM ANB EMPIMCIBM ..,.. 260 . 81 EDITORS PREFACE THE present volume is an attempt to carry out a plan which William James is known to have formed several years before his death. In 1907 lie collected reprints in an envelope which lie inscribed with the title Essays in Radical Empiricism and he also had dupli cate sets of these reprints bound, under the same title, and deposited for the use of stu dents in the general Harvard Library, and in the Philosophical Library in Emerson Hall. Two years later Professor James published The Meaning of Truth and A Pluralistic Uni wne and inserted in these volumes several of the articles which he had intended to use in the Essays in Radical Empiricism Whether he would nevertheless have carried out his original plan, had he lived, cannot be certainly known. Several facts, however, stand out very clearly. In the first place, the articles included in the original plan but omitted from his later vol umes are indispensable to the understanding iii EDITORS PREFACE of Ms other writings. To these articles he re peatedly alludes. Thus, in The Meaning of Truth p. 127, he says This statement is probably excessively obscure to any one who has not read my two articles Does Conscious ness Exist and A World of Pure Experi ence 5 Other allusions have been indicated in the present text. In the second place, the arti cles originally brought together as Essays in Radical Empiricism form a connected whole. Not only were most of them written consecu tively within a period of two years, but they contain numerous cross-references In the third place, Professor James regarded radical em piricism as an independent doctrine. This he asserted expressly Let me say that there is no logical connexion between pragmatism, as I understand it, and a doctrine which I have recently set forth as radical empiricism The latter stands on its own feet One may en tirely reject it and still be a pragmatist, Pragmatism, 1907, Preface, p ix. Finally Professor James came toward the end of Ms life to regard radical empiricism as more IV EDITORS PREFACE fundamental and more Important than prag matism In the Preface to The Meaning of Truth 1909, the author gives the following explanation of his desire to continue, and if possible conclude, the controversy over prag matism I am Interested In another doctrine in philosophy to which I give the name of radical empiricism, and it seems to me that the estab lishment of the pragmatist theory of truth is a step of first-rate importance In making radical empiricism prevail p. xii. In preparing the present volume, the editor has therefore been governed by two motives. On the one hand, he has sought to preserve and make accessible certain Important articles not to be found in Professor Jamess other books. This Is true of Essays I, II, IV, V, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII On the other hand, he has sought to bring together in one volume a set of essays treating systematically of one independent, co herent, and fundamental doctrine...