William James 1842 – 1910
William James (1842 – 1910) was an American philosopher of the Modern era, associated with Pragmatism and Process Philosophy.
William James was a 19th and early 20th-century American philosopher and psychologist, one of the founders of pragmatism and a central figure in the early development of modern psychology. His monumental Principles of Psychology of 1890 helped establish psychology as an empirical discipline distinct from philosophy. The Will to Believe defended the rationality of religious belief in the absence of conclusive evidence, and Pragmatism set out his pragmatic theory of meaning and truth, drawing on Charles Sanders Peirce while popularising the position. The Varieties of Religious Experience remains a classic in the philosophy of religion. He spent most of his career at Harvard University and was the brother of the novelist Henry James.
William James (1842–1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who, with C. S. Peirce and John Dewey, founded the American pragmatist tradition. Born in New York City to the wealthy and intellectually intense James family — his brother was the novelist Henry James — he trained as a physician at Harvard but never practiced medicine, joining the Harvard faculty in 1873 and remaining there for the rest of his career.
James's first major work, The Principles of Psychology (1890), was a two-volume founding text of modern empirical psychology and a major work of philosophical psychology in its own right. The Will to Believe (1897), Pragmatism (1907), and A Pluralistic Universe (1909) developed his distinctive philosophical framework. Where Peirce restricted pragmatism to a doctrine about meaning, James extended it to a theory of truth: a belief is true if it works in practice, with consequences for individual experience and religious belief that Peirce found unacceptable.
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), James's Gifford Lectures, is one of the most influential philosophical treatments of religion ever written. James's psychology of religious experience, his radical empiricism, and his pragmatic temperament have shaped twentieth-century American philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, and pragmatism. He died at his country home in New Hampshire in 1910 of heart failure.
Key facts
- Nationality
- American
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Pragmatism, Process Philosophy
Selected quotes
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“Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”
In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly. -
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
Ch. 22 -
Attributed to William James:
“Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake.”
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“Pragmatism asks its usual question. Grant an idea or belief to be true, what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life?”
Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth -
Attributed to William James:
“Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they have got a second.”
William James by topic
Three-way comparisons including William James
Frequently asked about William James
- When did William James live?
- William James was born in 1842 and died in 1910.
- Where was William James from?
- William James was an American philosopher of the Modern era.
- What philosophical movements is William James associated with?
- William James was associated with Pragmatism and Process Philosophy.
- What was William James known for?
- William James was a 19th and early 20th-century American philosopher and psychologist, one of the founders of pragmatism and a central figure in the early development of modern psychology.
- How many quotes are attributed to William James?
- There are 18 attributed quotations from William James in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.
Quotes that are not actually from William James
These lines are widely circulated as William James, but they do not appear in William James's works. Each entry below identifies the actual source.
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“Man alone, of all the creatures on earth, can change his own patterns. Man alone is the architect of his destiny. The greatest revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives ... It is too bad that most people will not accept this tremendous discovery and begin living it.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but the actual source is Spencer W. Kimball. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Man alone, of all creatures of the earth, can change his thought pattern and become the architect of his destiny." Actually said by Spencer W. Kimball , twelfth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in his Miracle of Forgiveness (1969), p. 114. This predates any of the misquo
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“Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Not found in James's writings. The earliest similar cite is to Episcopal Methodist Bishop W. F. Oldham in 1906. Quote Investigator . | A related quote is in James's Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907) (see above): "Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spot
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“Overall there is a smell of fried onions.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Claimed to be written by James while intoxicated by nitrous oxide. Does not appear in his essay Subjective Effects of Nitrous Oxide . First attributed, not necessarily seriously, by Robert Anton Wilson in his Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1979). Possibly Wilson's version is his humorous descendant of a
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“The most significant characteristic of modern civilization is the sacrifice of the future for the present, and all the power of science has been prostituted to this purpose.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Not found in James' writings. Actually written by Oliver Edwin Baker in Agriculture in Modern Life (1939), p. 5.