William James 1842 – 1910

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.