The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

For the week of July 15th - July 21st, we are reading Chapter Four of The Metaphysical Club.

Our motto at The History Book Club is that it is never too late to begin a book. We are with you the entire way.

The fourth week's reading assignment is:

Week Four - July 15th - July 21st- Chapter Four
The Man of Two Minds (73 - 96)

We will open up a thread for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers. We will also open up supplemental threads as we did for other spotlighted books.

This book was kicked off on June 26th. We look forward to your participation. Amazon and Barnes and Noble and other noted on line booksellers do have copies of the book and shipment can be expedited. The book can also be obtained easily at your local library, or on your Kindle. Make sure to pre-order now if you haven't already. Please also patronage your local book stores.

This weekly thread will be opened up today.

There is no rush and we are thrilled to have you join us. It is never too late to get started and/or to post.

Bentley will be leading this discussion. Assisting Moderator Kathy will be the back up.

Welcome,

~Bentley


TO ALWAYS SEE ALL WEEKS' THREADS SELECT VIEW ALL

by Louis Menand


REMEMBER NO SPOILERS ON THE WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREADS - ON EACH WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREAD - WE ONLY DISCUSS THE PAGES ASSIGNED OR THE PAGES WHICH WERE COVERED IN PREVIOUS WEEKS. IF YOU GO AHEAD OR WANT TO ENGAGE IN MORE EXPANSIVE DISCUSSION - POST THOSE COMMENTS IN ONE OF THE SPOILER THREADS. THESE CHAPTERS HAVE A LOT OF INFORMATION SO WHEN IN DOUBT CHECK WITH THE CHAPTER OVERVIEW AND SUMMARY TO RECALL WHETHER YOUR COMMENTS ARE ASSIGNMENT SPECIFIC. EXAMPLES OF SPOILER THREADS ARE THE GLOSSARY, THE BIBLIOGRAPHY, THE INTRODUCTION AND THE BOOK AS A WHOLE THREADS.

Notes:

It is always a tremendous help when you quote specifically from the book itself and reference the chapter and page numbers when responding. The text itself helps folks know what you are referencing and makes things clear.

Citations:

If an author or book is mentioned other than the book and author being discussed, citations must be included according to our guidelines. Also, when citing other sources, please provide credit where credit is due and/or the link. There is no need to re-cite the author and the book we are discussing however.

If you need help - here is a thread called the Mechanics of the Board which will show you how:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

Glossary - SPOILER THREAD

Remember there is a glossary thread where ancillary information is placed by the moderator. This is also a thread where additional information can be placed by the group members regarding the subject matter being discussed.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Bibliography - SPOILER THREAD

There is a Bibliography where books cited in the text are posted with proper citations and reviews. We also post the books that the author used in his research or in his notes. Please also feel free to add to the Bibliography thread any related books, etc with proper citations. No self promotion, please. And please do not place long list of books on the discussion threads. Please add to the bibliography thread where we love to peruse all entries. Make sure you properly cite your additions to make it easier for all.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts - SPOILER THREAD

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Table of Contents and Syllabus:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

by Louis Menand

Welcome folks to the discussion of The Metaphysical Club.

Message One - on each non spoiler thread - will help you find all of the information that you need for each week's reading.

For Week Four - for example, we are reading and discussing the following:

Week Four - July 15th - July 21st- Part Two -Chapter Four
The Man of Two Minds (73 - 96)

Please only discuss Chapter Four through page 96 on this thread. However from now on you can also discuss any of the pages that came before this week's reading - including anything in the Preface or Introduction or anything in Chapter One, Chapter Two, and/or Chapter Three. However the main focus of this week's discussion is Chapter Four.

This is a non spoiler thread.

But we will have in this folder a whole bunch of spoiler threads dedicated to all of the pragmatists or other philosophers or philosophic movements which I will set up as we read along and on any of the additional spoiler threads - expansive discussions about each of the pragmatists/philosophers/philosophic movements can also take place on any of these respective threads. Spoiler threads are also clearly marked.

If you have any links, or ancillary information about anything dealing with the book itself feel free to add this to our Glossary thread.

If you have lists of books or any related books about the people discussed, or about the events or places discussed or any other ancillary information - please feel free to add all of this to the thread called - Bibliography.

If you would like to plan ahead and wonder what the syllabus is for the reading, please refer to the Table of Contents.

If you would like to write your review of the book and present your final thoughts because maybe you like to read ahead - the spoiler thread where you can do all of that is called Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts. You can also have expansive discussions there.

For all of the above - the links are always provided in message one.

Always go to message one of any thread to find out all of the important information you need.

Bentley will be moderating this book and Kathy will be the backup.

Make sure that you are familiar with the HBC's rules and guidelines and what is allowed on goodreads and HBC in terms of user content. Also, there is no self promotion, spam or marketing allowed.

Here are the rules and guidelines of the HBC:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...

Please on the non spoiler threads: a) Stick to material in the present week's reading.

Also, in terms of all of the threads for discussion here and on the HBC - please be civil.

We want our discussion to be interesting and fun.

Make sure to cite a book using the proper format.

You don't need to cite the Menand book, but if you bring another book into the conversation; please cite it accordingly as required.

Now we can begin week four...

Chapter Summaries and Overview

Chapter Four: The Man of Two Minds

Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds

Part 2, Chapter 4 The Man of Two Minds, Section 1

The reader is introduced to the next person who was instrumental in changing the thoughts and views of America after the Civil War. We are introduced to William James and we learn of his quirks and challenges. It also describes how he uses these weaknesses as strengths to build his life and career. He has problems with his father, Henry James, Sr., but everyone likes him. The reader may assume that his indecisiveness is the result of his father indulging every whim for education and artistic training William desires.

Part 2, Chapter 4 The Man of Two Minds, Section 2

There were two events in Henry Sr.'s life that changed him. The first was that he had most of his right leg amputated because of an accident. The other was the fact that his father had disinherited him to a point. Henry Sr. sued the estate.

His relationship with Emerson was uncharacteristic. He was impulsive and Emerson was solitary. Emerson introduced Henry Sr. to the Transcendentalist Movement, but Henry Sr. was not welcomed with open arms.

Part 2, Chapter 4 The Man of Two Minds, Section 3

This gives the reader an overview of the life of William James' father, Henry James Sr.

This section also explains that Emerson was a good friend of the James.' The two men both disliked institutionalization and systems. However, that is about as far as their agreements went, even though their respect for one another went much further.

Part 2, Chapter 4 The Man of Two Minds, Section 4

Louis Menand uses this section to give the reader a basic understanding of the kind of man William James' father was. By having this background, the reader had a better understanding of why William acted as he did.

William was raised in a strict anti-institutionalized religious home, where women and blacks were considered inferior, other religions were viewed as superstitions and moral law was unnecessary.

In spite of his upbringing William james was extremely religious and he felt that his "pragmatism" helped science and religion come together instead of being separate. This was the main reason for his development of "pragmatic" thought. It seems to be the one ideal he never changed his mind about during his life.

Part 2, Chapter 4 The Man of Two Minds, Section 5

The author gives the reader a little background of Swedenborgism, as well as an account of the relationship between Swedenborgism and other religious trends of the time. It is helpful for the reader to understand the fact that Swedenborgism began with a drunken man hallucinating.

This is the religion of Henry James Sr.; however, he never believed in the spiritualism that many people used in Swedenborgism. He acknowledged the spirits, but viewed them as bad. The reader realizes that William James uses his father's views as a reason to believe in Spiritualism.

Part 2, Chapter 4 The Man of Two Minds, Section 6

None of the James children had a formal education.

We understand what a great accomplishment it was for William James to create pragmatism. He had no formal training in philosophy and yet his ideas were the backbone of American thought from the end of the Civil War until the beginning of the Cold War.

Most folks want to know right off the bat - what is the title about? Here is a good posting explaining that.

The Metaphysical Club

by John Shook

The Metaphysical Club was an informal discussion group of scholarly friends, close from their associations with Harvard University, that started in 1871 and continued until spring 1879.

This Club had two primary phases, distinguished from each other by the most active participants and the topics pursued.

The first phase of the Metaphysical Club lasted from 1871 until mid-1875, while the second phase existed from early 1876 until spring 1879. The dominant theme of first phase was pragmatism, while idealism dominated the second phase.

Pragmatism - First Phase:

The "pragmatist" first phase of the Metaphysical Club was organized by Charles Peirce (Harvard graduate and occasional lecturer), Chauncey Wright (Harvard graduate and occasional lecturer), and William James (Harvard graduate and instructor of physiology and psychology).

These three philosophers were then formulating recognizably pragmatist views. Other active members of the "Pragmatist" Metaphysical Club were two more Harvard graduates and local lawyers, Nicholas St. John Green and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who were also advocating pragmatic views of human conduct and law.

Idealist - Second Phase:

The "idealist" second phase of the Metaphysical Club was organized and led by idealists who showed no interest in pragmatism: Thomas Davidson (independent scholar), George Holmes Howison (professor of philosophy at nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and James Elliot Cabot (Harvard graduate and Emerson scholar). There was some continuity between the two phases.

Although Peirce had departed in April 1875 for a year in Europe, and Wright died in September 1875, most of the original members from the first phase were available for a renewed second phase.

By January 1876 the "Idealist" Metaphysical Club (for James still was referring to a metaphysical club in a letter of 10 February 1876) was meeting regularly for discussions first on Hume, then proceeding through Kant and Hegel in succeeding years.

Besides Davidson, Howison, and Cabot, the most active members appear to be William James, Charles Carroll Everett (Harvard graduate and Dean of its Divinity School), George Herbert Palmer (Harvard graduate and professor of philosophy), and Francis Ellingwood Abbott (Harvard graduate and independent scholar).

Other occasional participants include Francis Bowen (Harvard graduate and professor of philosophy), Nicholas St. John Green, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and G. Stanley Hall (Harvard graduate and psychologist).

The Metaphysical Club was a nine-year episode within a much broader pattern of informal philosophical discussion that occurred in the Boston area from the 1850s to the 1880s.

Chauncey Wright, renowned in town for his social demeanor and remarkable intelligence, had been a central participant in various philosophy clubs and study groups dating as early as his own college years at Harvard in the early 1850s.

Wright, Peirce, James, and Green were the most active members of the Metaphysical Club from its inception in 1871.

By mid-1875 the original Metaphysical Club was no longer functioning; James was the strongest connection between the first and second phases, helping Thomas Davidson to collect the members of the "Idealist" Metaphysical Club.

Link to the Hegel Club:

James also was a link to the next philosophical club, the "Hegel Club", which began in fall 1880 in connection with George Herbert Palmer's seminar on Hegel. By winter 1881 the Hegel Club had expanded to include several from the Metaphysical Club, including James, Cabot, Everett, Howison, Palmer, Abbott, Hall, and the newcomer William Torrey Harris who had taken up residence in Concord.

This Hegel Club was in many ways a continuation of the St. Louis Hegelian Society from the late 1850s and 1860s, as Harris, Howison, Davidson, and their Hegelian students had moved east.

The Concord Summer School of Philosophy (1879-1888), under the leadership of Amos Bronson Alcott and energized by the Hegelians, soon brought other young American scholars into the orbit of the Cambridge clubs, such as John Dewey.

The "Pragmatist" Metaphysical Club met on irregular occasions, probably fortnightly during the Club's most active period of fall 1871 to winter 1872, and they usually met in the home of Charles Pierce or William James in Cambridge.

This Club met for four years until mid-1875, when their diverse career demands, extended travels to Europe, and early deaths began to disperse them. The heart of the club was the close bonds between five very unusual thinkers on the American intellectual scene.

Chauncey Wright and Charles Sanders Peirce shared the same scientific interests and outlook, having adopted a positivistic and evolutionary stance, and their common love for philosophical discussion sparked the club's beginnings. Wright's old friend and lawyer Nicholas St. John Green was glad to be included, as was Peirce's good friend William James who had also gone down the road towards empiricism and evolutionism. William James brought along his best friend, the lawyer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who like Green was mounting a resistance to the legal formalism dominating that era. Green brought fellow lawyer Joseph Bangs Warner, and the group also invited two philosophers who had graduated with them from Harvard, Francis Ellingwood Abbott and John Fiske, who were both interested in evolution and metaphysics.

Other occasional members were Henry Ware Putnam, Francis Greenwood Peabody, and William Pepperell Montague.

Activities of the "Pragmatist" Metaphysical Club were recorded only by Peirce, William James, and William's brother Henry James, who all describe intense and productive debates on many philosophical problems.

Both Peirce and James recalled that the name of the club was the "Metaphysical" Club. Peirce suggests that the name indicated their determination to discuss deep scientific and metaphysical issues despite that era's prevailing positivism and agnosticism. A successful "Metaphysical Club" in London was also not unknown to them. Peirce later stated that the club witnessed the birth of the philosophy of pragmatism in 1871, which he elaborated (without using the term 'pragmatism' itself) in published articles in the late 1870s. His own role as the "father of pragmatism" should not obscure, in Peirce's view, the importance of Nicholas Green. Green should be recognized as pragmatism's "grandfather" because, in Peirce's words, Green had "often urged the importance of applying Alexander Bain's definition of belief as 'that upon which a man is prepared to act,' from which 'pragmatism is scarce more than a corollary'." Chauncey Wright also deserves considerable credit, for as both Peirce and James recall, it was Wright who demanded a phenomenalist and fallibilist empiricism as a vital alternative to rationalistic speculation.

The several lawyers in this club took great interest in evolution, empiricism, and Bain's pragmatic definition of belief.

They were also acquainted with James Stephen's A General View of the Criminal Law in England, which also pragmatically declared that people believe because they must act. At the time of the Metaphysical Club, Green and Holmes were primarily concerned with special problems in determining criminal states of mind and general problems of defining the nature of law in a culturally evolutionary way.

Both Green and Holmes made important advances in the theory of negligence which relied on a pragmatic approach to belief and established a "reasonable person" standard. Holmes went on to explore pragmatic definitions of law that look forward to future judicial consequences rather than to past legislative decisions.
(Source: http://www.pragmatism.org/research/me...)

Discussion Ideas and Themes of the Book

While reading the book - try to take some notes about the ideas presented along the following lines:

1. Science
2. Religion
3. Philosophy
4. Psychology
5. Sociology
6. Evolution
7. Pragmatism

There are very good reasons why this book is not only called The Metaphysical Club but also after the colon: A Story of Ideas in America and the purpose of our discussion of this book is "to discuss those ideas".

Don't just read my posts - but jump right in - the more you post and the more you contribute - the more you will get out of the conversation and the read.

Discussion Ideas:

Remember we are discussing major ideas and events right off the bat:

Ideas:
a) Metaphysics
b) Pragmatiism
c) Transcendalism
d) The Metaphysical Club
e) The Transcendentalist Club
f) Slavery
g) Jobbism
h) Swedenborgianism
i) Spiritualism
j) Platonist
k) Brahminism
l) Calvinism
m) Sandemanism

Events:
The American Civl War
The Battle of Wilderness
Battle of Glendale
Second Great Awakening - 1800 to eve of the Civil War

People:
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Unionists and the North
Confederacy and the South
Abolitionists
Copperheads (also known as Peace Democrats and Butternuts)
Henry James Sr
William James
Swedenborg
Charles Russell Lowell (Beau Sabreur - A gallant warrior; a handsome or dashing adventurer)
Josephine Shaw
James Jackson Lowell
John Brown
Henry L. Abbott
Matthew Brady - one of the most celebrated 19th century American photographers, best known for his portraits of celebrities and his documentation of the American Civil War. He is credited with being the father of photojournalism
Alexis de Tocqueville
Henry David Thoreau
Robert Sandeman
Bronson Alcott

Groups
Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers

Government:
The Constitution
Bill of Rights

Places
Pottawatomie
Burned Over District/Infectious District - 1830's - Western New York State

Chapter Abstracts - Chapter Four

Chapter abstracts are short descriptions of events that occur in each chapter.

They highlight major plot events and detail the important relationships and characteristics of characters and objects.

The Chapter Abstracts that I will add can be used to review what you have read, and to prepare you for what you will read.

These highlights can be a reading guide or you can use them in your discussion to discuss any of these points. I add them so these bullet points can serve as a "refresher" or a stimulus for further discussion.

Here are a few:

New Abstracts:

Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 1 and Section 2

* William James spent his life changing his mind.

* James wanted to be a scientist and then an artist, and then back again.

* William was ashamed he did not participate in the war.

* Henry Sr. did everything his father abhorred.

Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 3 and Section 4

* Henry wrote many newspaper columns and books.

* Henry Sr. was a Platonist.

* Swedenborg created his religion after hallucinating in a tavern.

* Henry James Sr. attacked everything about spiritualism.

Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 5 and Section 6

* Henry Sr. viewed education with distrust.

* William ended up teaching philosophy and psychology at Harvard, though he was not educated in either.

Discussion Questions for Chapter Four - think about some of these questions while you are reading:

New Questions:

1 What were the two occupations between which William James kept having troubles making up his mind?

2. . What were the two events in Henry Sr.'s life which seem to have changed him and his actions?

3. Why were many of Henry's writings published for the public to see in books and in newspapers?

4. How was it said that Swedenborg created his religion, later becoming a religious leader?

5. Why did William Henry Sr. always feel that he was at a disadvantage in his life?

Some quotes from Chapter Four that might be the basis for discussion. Feel free to do a copy and paste and then post your commentary about each or any of them below. Be civil and respectful and discuss your ideas. Also read what your fellow readers are saying and comment on their posts if you agree or disagree and cite sources that help substantiate your point of view.

a) " Many biographers have blamed Williams' indecisiveness on mixed signals from Henry Senior." Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 1

b) "Henry Senior was certainly a dizzy enough role model for anybody; but his eldest sone had an aversion to making up his mind that was all his own." Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 1

c) "He (William James) worked most of his life to defend simultaneously held world views - modern science and religious faith - that most people regard as mutually exclusive, and he ended up inventing a philosophy, pragmatism that is supposed to make good choices among philosophical options." Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 1

I was debating whether to bring over the Transcendentalist entry and since we are still discussing relationship(s) to Emerson and now the James' - I have decided to repost it again for easy access:

Transcendentalism:

Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement that was developed during the late 1820s and 1830s in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest to the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School.

Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the "inherent goodness of both people and nature".

Transcendentalists believed that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupted the purity of the individual.

They had faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent.

It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed.

Origins
Transcendentalism first arose among New England congregationalists, who differed from orthodox Calvinism on two issues.

They rejected predestination, and they emphasized the unity instead of the trinity of God.

Following the skepticism of David Hume, the transcendentalists took the stance that empirical proofs of religion were not possible.

Transcendentalism developed as a reaction against 18th Century rationalism, John Locke's philosophy of Sensualism, and the predestinationism of New England Calvinism. It is fundamentally a variety of diverse sources such as Hindu texts like the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, various religions, and German idealism.

Emerson's Nature
The publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1836 essay - Nature is usually considered the watershed moment at which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement.

Emerson wrote in his 1837 speech "The American Scholar": "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds... A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men."

Emerson closed the essay by calling for a revolution in human consciousness to emerge from the brand new idealist philosophy:

So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. ...Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.

The Transcendental Club
In the same year, transcendentalism became a coherent movement with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 8, 1836, by prominent New England intellectuals including George Putnam (1807–78; the Unitarian minister in Roxbury), Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederick Henry Hedge. From 1840, the group published frequently in their journal The Dial, along with other venues.

Second Wave of Transcendentalists
By the late 1840s, Emerson believed the movement was dying out, and even more so after the death of Margaret Fuller in 1850.

"All that can be said", Emerson wrote, "is that she represents an interesting hour and group in American cultivation".

There was, however, a second wave of transcendentalists, including Moncure Conway, Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Samuel Longfellow and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn.

Notably, the transgression of the spirit, most often evoked by the poet's prosaic voice, is said to endow in the reader a sense of purposefulness. This is the underlying theme in the majority of transcendentalist essays and papers—all of which are centered on subjects which assert a love for individual expression.

Major Transcendentalist Figures
The major figures in the movement were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Margaret Fuller and Amos Bronson Alcott.

Other prominent transcendentalists included Louisa May Alcott, Charles Timothy Brooks, Orestes Brownson, William Ellery Channing, William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Christopher Pearse Cranch, Walt Whitman, John Sullivan Dwight, Convers Francis, William Henry Furness, Frederic Henry Hedge, Sylvester Judd, Theodore Parker, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, George Ripley, Thomas Treadwell Stone, Emily Dickinson, and Jones Very.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcen...

More:
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu
http://www.transcendentalists.com
http://womenshistory.about.com/bltran...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/tra...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tra...
Jones Very (no photo)
George Ripley (no photo)
Thomas Treadwell Stone (no photo)
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (no photo)
Frederic Henry Hedge (no photo)
William Henry Furness (no photo)
Convers Francis (no photo)
John Sullivan Dwight (no photo)
James Freeman Clarke (no photo)
William H. Channing (no photo)
William E. Channing (no photo)
Orestes Brownson (no photo)
Charles Timothy Brooks (no photo)
Moncure Conway (no photo)
Octavius Brooks Frothingham (no photo)
Samuel Longfellow (no photo)
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (no photo)
George Putnam (no photo)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emily Dickinson
Theodore Parker
Sylvester Judd
John Muir
Walt Whitman
Christopher Pearse Cranch
Louisa May Alcott
Henry David Thoreau
Margaret Fuller
Amos Bronson Alcott
David Hume
both by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some quotes from Chapter Four that might be the basis for discussion. Feel free to do a copy and paste and then post your commentary about each or any of them below. Be civil and respectful and discuss your ideas. Also read what your fellow readers are saying and comment on their posts if you agree or disagree and cite sources that help substantiate your point of view.

"There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains greater influence over the souls of men than in America", wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, and the remark has been cited many times since as a rebuke to peoples who prefer to see a secular morality prevail in American public life." Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 2

"Henry James Sr" was a Platonist. He believes (following Swedenborg) that there are two realms, a visible and an invisible, and that the invisible realm, which he named the realm of Divine Love, is the real one." Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 3

"Pragmatism belongs to a disestablishmentarian impulse in American culture - an impulse that drew strength from the writings of Emerson, who attacked institutions and conformity, and from the ascendancy, after the Civil War, of evolutionary theories, which drew attention to the contingency of all social forms." Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 3

All, "we are open for discussion of Chapter Four" - busy week this week - feel free to begin discussion on any aspect of Chapter Four.

At this point we can also discuss any aspect that came before in the Preface, Chapters One, Two, Three as well as Chapter Four since these pages were previously discussed in the non spoiler threads that came before.

Please also feel free to bring up also your own topics of discussion on the assigned reading material or any material that came before.

So what were you first thoughts about William James? An American philosopher and psychologist who had trained as a physician who also had the distinction of being "the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States."


James wrote influential books on pragmatism, psychology, educational psychology, the psychology of religious experience, and mysticism. Brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. Married Alice Gibbens. Son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics. His godfather was Ralph Waldo Emerson (the Transcendentalist and he was the godfather of William James Sidis. In 1882 he joined the Theosophical Society

During his Harvard years, James joined in philosophical discussions with Charles Peirce, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Chauncey Wright that evolved into a lively group informally known as The Metaphysical Club in 1872. Louis Menand speculates that the Club provided a foundation for American intellectual thought for decades to come.

William James wrote: "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" which was an essay which he first delivered as a lecture to the Yale Philosophical Club, in 1891.

It was later included in the collection, The Will to Believe and other Essays in Popular Philosophy.

He drew a distinction between three questions in ethics: psychological, metaphysical, casuistic.

"The psychological question asks after the historical origin of our moral ideas and judgments.

The metaphysical question asks what the very meaning of the words 'good,' 'ill,' and 'obligation' are.

The casuistic question asks what is the measure of the various goods and ills which men recognize, so that the philosopher may settle the true order of human obligations."

Here is the text of The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life.

http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldr...

Feel free to discuss any elements or ideas or question any elements or ideas in the above essay.

by William James

Note: For those of you who might think I spelled a word wrong (smile) - here is some additional information -

Casuistry /ˈkæʒuːɨstri/, or case-based reasoning, is a method in applied ethics and jurisprudence, often characterised as a critique of principle- or rule-based reasoning. The word "casuistry" derives from the Latin casus (meaning "case").

Casuistry is reasoning used to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from particular instances and applying these rules to new instances.

The term is also commonly used as a pejorative to criticize the use of clever but unsound reasoning (alleging implicitly the inconsistent—or outright specious—misapplication of rule to instance), especially in relation to moral questions (see sophistry).

The agreed meaning of "casuistry" is in flux. The term can be used either to describe a presumably acceptable form of reasoning or a form of reasoning that is inherently unsound and deceptive.

Most or all philosophical dictionaries list the neutral sense as the first or only definition. On the other hand, the Oxford English Dictionary states that the word "[o]ften (and perhaps originally) applied to a quibbling or evasive way of dealing with difficult cases of duty."

Its textual references, except for certain technical usages, are consistently pejorative ("Casuistry‥destroys by Distinctions and Exceptions, all Morality, and effaces the essential Difference between Right and Wrong").

Most online dictionaries list a pejorative meaning as the primary definition before a neutral one, though Merriam-Webster lists the neutral one first.[9] In journalistic usage, the pejorative use is ubiquitous and examples of the neutral usage are not found.

(Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuistry)

President Jimmy Carter - Address to the Nation on Energy - uses William James as a source:

President Jimmy Carter asks Americans to sacrifice for the sake of greater energy conservation and independence. He puts forth several initiatives to push the nation towards greater energy independence.

It is remembered as the speech where he compared the energy crisis with the "moral equivalent of war".

Carter gave 10 principles for the plan, but did not list specific actions. He said the goal was to reduce dependence on oil imports and "Cut in half the portion of United States oil which is imported, from a potential level of 16 million barrels to six million barrels a day."

A transcription of the speech is available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/f... and can be watched on YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tPePpMxJaA

The phrase has became so well known, it is referenced in literature and even used as the title of a book chapter.

Carter may have used the phrase "moral equivalent of war" from the classic essay "The Moral Equivalent of War" derived from the last speech given by American psychologist and philosopher William James, delivered at Stanford University in 1906, in which "James considered one of the classic problems of politics: how to sustain political unity and civic virtue in the absence of war or a credible threat..." and "...sounds a rallying cry for service in the interests of the individual and the nation."

Ideas mirrored much later in much of Carter's philosophy.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Eq...)

Here is the video of that speech (delivered by Carter) which was delivered on April 18, 1977.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tPePp...

by William J. Bennett

Time Magazine Article written by Jimmy Carter which identifies his source:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/art...

Introduction

by Jon Roland

to The Moral Equivalent of War by William James

This classic essay by philosopher William James, published in 1910, was based on a speech he delivered at Stanford University in 1906.

James considered one of the classic problems of politics: how to sustain political unity and civic virtue in the absence of war or a credible threat.

The standard solution for the problem of sustaining political unity and civic virtue has been either war or a credible external or internal threat, and to make the threat credible it has often been necessary to actually go to war.

Moreover, the actions taken by nations to create credible threats has often led them to be attacked by others, or to stumble into wars no one wants.

World War I was to become the classic example of this tragedy, and this essay can be read as anticipating that conflict.

It can also be read as anticipating "the use by political leaders of imagined internal or external threats to achieve and maintain their power and the political unity that would discourage opposition to them".

The twentieth century was to see not only internecine international wars, but genocidal civil wars, pogroms, the Nazi and Cambodian holocausts, and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.

The traditional way in the United States and a few other countries like Switzerland to achieve and maintain civic bonding was the militia system, but by 1906 this traditional institution had declined in the United States for lack of external or internal enemies.

The institution had suffered a critical setback from the Civil War, because the core of the militia traditionalists had been killed, wounded, or demoralized during that conflict.

In contemplating a system that would function like the militia to foster social unity, James, a strong opponent of war of any kind, sought an alternative that would function like a militia but be motivated by threats of an impersonal kind.

This led him to propose a form of national service that would conduct "warfare against nature".

This concept is regarded by some as the origin of the idea of organized national service.

The line of descent can be traced directly from this address to the depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, to the Peace Corps, VISTA, and AmeriCorps.

Though some phrases grate upon modern ears, particularly the assumption that only males can perform such service, several racially-biased comments, and the now discredited notion that "nature" should be treated as an enemy, it still sounds a "rallying cry for service in the interests of the individual and the nation".

The solution to the problem remains an open question, now that "nature" is not to be regarded as an "enemy". The real "enemy" is our own darker human nature, and no one has found a good way to oppose that without slipping into opposition to individuals or groups seen as embodying that darker nature. It would appear that the traditional militia system remains the best solution anyone has found, provided a way can be found to revive support for it, when the main remaining threats are crime, governmental abuse, and natural or manmade disasters.

(Source: http://www.constitution.org/wj/meow.htm)

The Essay itself by William James:

http://www.constitution.org/wj/meow.htm

by William James

More Discussion Questions:

a) What did you think of the James' clan after reading this chapter?

b) How did Ralph Waldo Emerson differ from Henry James Sr. and to a certain extent William James in philosophical and religious outlooks and how does one account for their unlikely friendship and relationships?

c) What accounts for William James' likeability and fickleness all at the same time? (Note: I realize that some folks probably are not too pleased at some of his ideas about women and other subjects - but according to Menand he was still a populat man - so you have to consider the mores and climate at that time)

d) Why do you think that William James had such a difficult time finding his calling?

e) After reading - The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life by William James (a link posted in message 15) - how do you think that William James assessed good, evil, morality, human obligations and accountability?

f) Did the chapter shock you in any way in terms of that time period's beliefs and William James' view of women and his statements about them. For example, Menand wrote: "But their inferiority, James thought, is precisely what makes women attractive to men, so that any "great development of passion or intellect in women is sure to prejudice "male attention." "Would any man fancy a woman after the pattern of Daniel Webster," - end of quote. ?

g) What are your impressions of William James - good and bad?

h) After listening to the speech that Jimmy Carter gave (see posts 16 and 17 on this thread) regarding energy and after reading the speech that William James had delivered at Stanford in 1906 - what are your impressions of the essay by William James on The Moral Equivalent of War and also how Carter chose to use that equivalent and source.

i) I thought that Boland's introduction made interesting reading too when he said the following:

It can also be read as anticipating "the use by political leaders of imagined internal or external threats to achieve and maintain their power and the political unity that would discourage opposition to them".

In recent times have political leaders used war as a means to maintain and keep their power and discourage opposition to them?

Some quotes from Chapter Four that might be the basis for discussion. Feel free to do a copy and paste and then post your commentary about each or any of them below. Be civil and respectful and discuss your ideas. Also read what your fellow readers are saying and comment on their posts if you agree or disagree and cite sources that help substantiate your point of view.

More quotes:

"James's idealization of brotherhood was apparently also consistent, in his mine, with a belief in the natural inferiority of black people. He regarded them as "among the lowest persons intellectually, persons in whom the sensuous imagination predominates, and he declined, even as late as 1863, to join the abolitionists rather than as a principle……The practical working of the institution has been on the whole, I doubt not, favorable to the slave in a moral point of view; it is only the
master who from recent developments seems to have been degraded by it."
Part 2, Chapter 4 - The Man of Two Minds, Section 3

Folks, I have completed all of the input and questions and posts for this chapter - sorry for the delay on getting this up but we are all volunteers and have families, busy professional lives, and other obligations that sometimes come knocking. Additionally, the folks who do all of this set up work for you are also volunteers and we are not employees of goodreads - so when there is a lot to do on the site - we can at times get behind.

The thread is open and this chapter from my viewpoint was highly controversial so I do hope to read your posts soon but I am moving on to the next chapter at this time in terms of set up.

So the thread is open and please begin catching up and posting your ideas and opinions about James and this chapter.

Happy Reading.

I struggled with this last section on reading. Had to reread parts to keep what the father and son believed in separate. The peripatetic life style that William led as a child I think does lead to one not having any firm foundations in any type of faith. No question his father was very emphatic in his beliefs but it seems this did not wear off on the son but only made him more rebellious. The lack of training in one doctrine may have really helped him to see things in a more pragmatic way. He did not have to fight through childhood indoctrination. I am looking forward to further readings. I am not sure if I am sufficiently versed in philosophy and psychology to be much help in this book but I will try. A thought that occurred to me is how much influence if any did Freud have. Did they read each other works etc.

I thought some folks might have and I will come back and break it down even more but I was waiting for the first post to hear whether that was the case. It was the most dense chapter thus far and a departure in style from the Holmes account - I thought. Yes, there seem to be a lot of issues between fathers and sons which we will have to discuss now and in the future discussions of this book. I agree that maybe he had developed freedom in his thinking processes because he did not have that educational structure to begin with.

Nobody has to be an expert - just post your thoughts and opinions as you have them and tackle some of the questions that I have posted which may stimulate more discussion of those ideas which need to be made clearer.

I think they did and I think they were influenced by each other as in the case of Holmes, James, Ralph Waldo Emerson although Emerson seemed to march to his own drum and knew his course. Also, it was a completely different social structure than we have today - no computers, no television, no email or iPhones - no malls or movie theaters - so folks had to talk to each other for enjoyment and they did - they use to get together for social and discussion clubs in their homes and at Harvard and talk up a storm. They would write letters to each other and all of the above we value so much today in terms of our study of historic figures.

Not sure about Freud. He wasn't born until May 6, 1856. What would he have been about 4 years old (smile).

Also in general - I tell folks when they hit a dense chapter to just plow through - 20 pages - then do three pages a day if need be and don't look back. Just keep moving forward and ask questions and we will try to help out or steer folks in the right direction.

It was interesting to get more background info on the second of the four people listed in the purpose of this book. I've read very little of William James before this . . . I was surprised to learn of how disruptive his early life was . . .

To quote Menand,
He worked most of his life to defend simultaneously held worldviews--modern science and religious faith--that most people regard as mutually exclusive, and he ended up inventing a philosophy, pragmatism, that is supposed to enable people to make good choices among philosophical options. p.154/1223 iBook eBook Ed.

His ambivalence shows in his inability to make a decision about much of anything as evidenced by his completing medical school and getting his MD degree and then never practicing his profession.

I am amazed that someone with essentially no formal education in philosophy could come up with a philosophy that according to the author was still influencing people into the next century!

So I've come to two premises here:
CERTITUDE LEADS TO VIOLENCE - Holmes
CERTAINTY WAS MORAL DEATH - W. James

This seems to suggest that these are two viewpoints that would produce a laid-back attitude that wouldn't encourage wanting to make a decision about anything . . . so I'm waiting to read how these two beliefs are going to play out in the formation of the metaphysical club.

We have to understand that the amount of formal structured education does not equal the level of intelligence or somebody's IQ - in fact the most brilliant and innovative often cannot stand structure and are bored with it and some surprisingly enough are college or high school drop outs. Somehow even with all of my education, I guess I might wish some days that I could have been a Bill Gates.

James did manage to get his MD degree - but what surprises me more was that he could not make a decision about what he liked most and wanted to do with his life.

I wondered if he wanted to sample it all. You have made an interesting premise about him (smile). We will have to see how all of these - "on the surface" dissimilar views come together.

My general impression at the end of the chapter was that Menand either didn't much care for William James, or was perhaps a bit confused by James's history and had a difficult time putting all the pieces together.

If I remember correctly, I believe it is mentioned that W. James attended one or more different schools every year for most of his education. That meant that each year in his school-life W. James was faced with meeting new schoolmates, new procedures, new teachers with different methods, and new social dynamics. That means there was no continuity in most of the areas of W. James's school-life, including friendships, mentorships, or educational points of view.

Having been exposed to so many different personality & behaviorial types among peers and teachers, as well as differing teaching methods and emphasis, might have produced in W. James a kind of 'witnessing' of a much bigger picture of life and life's choices -- what Menands says W.James called a "pluriverse." This could also be a valuable insight for someone interested in psychology.

I'm not ready to decide that W. James just couldn't make up his mind about anything. I could, however, accept the idea that he had a restless mind, and why wouldn't he if the one constant during his boyhood was constant change -- new faces, new places, new ideas, new experiences... all this had come to be expected. He was trained to experience differences and newness. It might also be added that he never had the opportunity to commit to any group or friendship.

Another possibility for his changeableness might source from his ability to synthesize many different points of view, something he would have had to learn to do in order to make any sense of his kaleidoscopic world at all. This mirrors his philosophy, and explains why any one choice could be as good as some other choice... and unless you try, how would you know?

f) Did the chapter shock you in any way in terms of that time period's beliefs and William James' view of women and his statements about them. For example, Menand wrote: "But their inferiority, James thought, is precisely what makes women attractive to men, so that any "great development of passion or intellect in women is sure to prejudice "male attention." "Would any man fancy a woman after the pattern of Daniel Webster," - end of quote. ?

I don't imagine W. James's attitude is shocking to most women who read this considering the generally negative reaction many men today have to intelligent, passionately dedicated women who are feminists. I'd say that James isn't too far off-base in his assessment of men's "attention." Too bad he subscribed to his own theory, but I grant that his chauvinism could be chalked up to ignorance of the times. The same excuse does not apply to men in this current age.

Hello Janice -

Have to agree that WJ did change schools frequently and the lack of continuity cannot be denied. Not sure how Menand felt about James other than what he wrote in this book.

Very true Janice - James had a unique view of things. (pluriverse)

Interesting take on his vacillation - you would at least agree that he vacillated? You see him as a sampler and I guess that is true - he did sample all sorts of drugs. The Atlantic Monthly called him The Nitrous Oxide Philosopher. They considered him the first American psychedelic. In fact James himself published an article that he wrote in The Atlantic Monthly anonymously in 1874:

"The article, which was in fact written by James, reviewed The Anaesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy, a pamphlet arguing that the secrets of religion and philosophy were to be found in the rush of nitrous oxide intoxication. Inspired by this thought, James experimented with the drug, experiencing extraordinary revelations that he immediately committed to paper." Also in 1898 he published an article titled "Consciousness Under Nitrous Oxide" in the Psychological Review ; in 1902 he recounted the experience in his greatest work, The Varieties of Religious Experience ; and in 1910, in the last essay he completed, he implied that nitrous oxide had had an abiding influence on his thinking.
(Source: The Atlantic Monthly)

"James's experiences with nitrous oxide helped to crystallize some of the major tenets of his philosophy. His writings emphasize, for instance, the notion of pluralism, according to which "to the very last, there are various 'points of view' which the philosopher must distinguish in discussing the world." Nitrous oxide had revealed in the most dramatic way possible the existence of alternate points of view."
(Source: The Atlantic Monthly)

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/...

The above article also claims the following:

James's philosophy was based on the thought that the good life--for society and, by extension, for an individual as well--involves a plurality of perspectives, of which the mystical and the scientific are only two. Equally important to the mature Jamesian outlook was the thought that religious experiences are psychologically real--powerful and palpable events that can have important long-term consequences whether the beliefs to which they give rise are true or not . (Source: The Atlantic Monthly)

It was an interesting article and might clarify some of the ideas that you so aptly extracted from the reading. Good analysis.

Regarding discussion question f - Hillary Clinton came to mind as an accomplished woman who James might have been discussing. And in some ways times have not changed although we are moving in the right direction - but not nearly fast enough for minorities. We do have a minority President but he is still male.

Great points as always Janice. Take a look at the article.

As I was reading about William James and his trouble with making and keeping a decision, it made me think about assessments that are in use today to identify personality types and tendencies.

Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as an example, I thought that James demonstrated an extreme preference for the Perceiving function, meaning that when confronted with a decision, he preferred to keep his options open, postpone decisions, or just change his mind.

Whether this personality preference was inherent or shaped by his father's actions or both - who knows? Looks like nitrous oxide helped him finally get to a conclusion about some things.

As for women, he didn't seem to have any problem coming to a conclusion about them. I concur with Janice. Today, all around the world, women often face the kind of bigotry exhibited by James.

Very true Mary and it would be nice to have the result of the Myers-Briggs for WJ but I think that we could probably guess how it would come out.

There was obvious father/son friction here as there was with Holmes and his father.

You made me smile that the one thing that James seemed to have certitude about was women - for a man who supposedly wanted to view all facets of every situation and every nuance - you have to wonder if part of what he did and relayed wasn't partly some kind of pose or reaction to his childhood and his father.

This was an article which discussed William James and his attitudes on a lot of things including teaching. I have added it below:

"William James was the American philosopher whose work in psychology established that science as an important element in the revision of social and philosophical doctrines at the turn of the nineteenth century. Thereafter it was no longer possible to erect systems in purely deductive fashion. All thought must take account of the deliverances of current natural science, and particularly the branch relating to man's mind. This respect for the organized experience of the laboratory inevitably influenced educational theory and practice, then still known by their proper name of pedagogy.

But James was not merely a scientist in psychology and a proponent of scientific rigor in moral philosophy, including education. He was a philosophical genius–the greatest that America has produced–who touched upon every department of life and culture and who ranks as a chief architect of the reconstruction in Western thought that took place in the 1890s. In the company of Nietzsche, Dilthey, Renouvier, Bergson, Mach, Vaihinger, and Samuel Butler, he led the revolt against orthodox scientism, Spencerism, and materialism and contributed to that enlargement of outlook that affected the whole range of feeling and opinion and has since earned the name of Neo-Romanticism. Every academic discipline and every art was involved in the change; and, in each, thinkers of uncommon scope laid the foundation for the new systems of ideas on which the twentieth century still lives.

William James was in a favored position for adding something unique to the movement: He possessed the American experience as his birth-right and was early acclimated to European ways, British and Continental. He studied in Germany and was fluent in both German and French, and his family circumstances were propitious. He was the eldest son of Henry James Sr., son of the original William James who had emigrated from Ireland to this country and made a fortune. Henry Sr. could devote himself to study and did so. His original ideas on religion and society won no acceptance in his day, but they have been found important by modern scholars, and they certainly influenced the two geniuses who were his sons, William the philosopher and Henry the novelist.

William James's own intellectual career is marked by his father's easy unconventionality, which as will be seen permitted long exploration before "settling down." Every shift in his own development is caught up in, and contributory to, his mature work. James wanted at first to become a painter, but he had the critical sense to see that his talent was insufficient. Next he took up chemistry at Harvard, went on to study physiology in response to his interest in living things, and wound up preparing for a medical degree. He interrupted his course to spend a highly formative year as one of Louis Agassiz's assistants in the Thayer expedition to Brazil. He then went abroad, where he read literature, attended university lectures, and became acquainted with the new psychology, which the Germans had made experimental and exact. He returned to take his Harvard M.D. in 1869 and after further study abroad began to teach anatomy and physiology.

It was not long before his inquiring spirit led him to offer courses in the relations of psychology to physiology, for which he soon established the first psychology laboratory in America. After the publication of his great book, The Principles of Psychology, in 1890, James's work exhibited the flowering of an intellect that had from the beginning been haunted by the enigmas of life and mind: He gave himself exclusively to metaphysics, morals, and religion.

By an oddity of academic arrangements, James was a professor of philosophy four years before he was made a professor of psychology, but nomenclature is irrelevant: His beginnings in the psychology laboratory were very soon followed by his offering of a course in philosophy. In other words, the subjects for him commingled and he was always a philosophical writer and teacher. Those were the great days of the Harvard department of philosophy, and during his thirty-five years of teaching James's direct influence spread over a wide range of students, as disparate as George Santayana and Gertrude Stein.

To the end of the century James, despite his new goals, continued to write and lecture on the subject that had first brought him fame. He pursued his research on the newest topics of abnormal psychology, he read Freud and helped bring him over for a lectureship at Clark University. And what is more to the point of the present entry, between 1892 and 1899, James delivered at a number of places the Talks to Teachers, which were an offshoot of the Psychology and which constitute his important contribution to educational theory.

In any such theory, the assumptions made about the human mind are fundamental and decisive. If "the mind"–which for this most practical of purposes is the pupil's mind–is imagined as a sensitive plate merely, then teaching can take the simple form of making desired impressions on the plate by attending chiefly to the choice and form of those impressions. The rest is done by setting the child to take these in by rote, by repeating rules, by watching and remembering contrived experiments. In other words, the teacher points the camera and pushes the button for a snapshot or time exposure.

No pedagogy has ever been quite so simple, of course, for the least gifted or attentive teacher is aware that the child must exert some effort, be in some way active and not photographically passive, before he can learn the set verses or the multiplication table. So, to start the machinery, a system of rewards and punishments is established, which will by mechanical association strengthen the useful acts of mind or hand and discourage the useless or harmful. In this primitive pedagogy, the pupil's acquirements are deemed a resultant of essentially mechanical forces, and the teacher serves as the manipulator of a wholly environmentalist scheme.

It is unlikely that any good teacher has ever adhered strictly to that role or thought of himself or herself as operating that sort of invisible keyboard. If it were so, no child would ever have learned much of value from any schooling whatever. But it is also true that educational practice always tends toward the crude mechanics just described. And the reasons are obvious: sheer incompetence in many teachers and weariness in the rest. For the two great limitations on classroom performance under any theory are (1) the scarcity of born teachers; and (2) the strenuousness of able and active teaching (which means that even the best teachers can sustain the effort for only a given number of hours at a time).

The state of affairs which James and other school reformers of the 1890s found and sought to remedy was a result of these several deficiencies. The movement of Western nations toward providing free, public, and compulsory education was, it must be remembered, an innovation of the nineteenth century. The inherent difficulties of this new social and cultural goal were great. It made unprecedented demands–on children, parents, administrative systems, and (most important) on the national resources of teaching talent, which are not expandable at will. Theory, too, was wanting for the supervision and teaching of teachers themselves. The confusion that ensued was therefore to be expected. Only a few points were clear: the older pedagogies were too mechanical in their view of the mind; the number of inadequate teachers was excessive; and the exploitive use of the good ones was a danger to the trying-out of mass education.

It was high time, therefore, that psychology put in its word on the subject it supposedly knew all about–the mind. Unfortunately, the mechanical view of the mind existed in two forms–one, as the view natural to ignorant or indifferent persons and, two, as the view that the prevailing scientific metaphor of the time seemed to justify. The universe, according to the Darwin-Spencer philosophy, was a vast machine, and its elements, living or dead, were also moved by the great push-pull of matter like the parts of a machine. The prophets of science–T. H. Huxley, John Tyndall, John Fiske–held audiences spellbound with illustrations of this principle, which everyone was sure could be demonstrated in the laboratory. The newest science, German born and bred, was psychophysics, a name which alone was enough to show that the operations of the mind bore the universal character of mechanism. Man was no exception to the law exemplified by the collision of billiard balls or (in more refined form) by the effect of light on a photographic plate.

To be sure, these scientific interpreters of nature would not have subscribed to a simplistic pedagogy if they had ever turned the full force of their minds on the problem of teaching. One of them, Herbert Spencer, did write a fairly sensible tract on education. And the psychophysicists did not entirely blot out the influence of earlier and richer pedagogies, notably that of the German psychologist Johann Herbart, who died in 1841. But on the whole the situation of the schools in the decades of the nineteenth century was critical, and the strictures and exhortations of the reformers tell us very precisely in what ways.

James, with his encyclopedic knowledge of psychology, theoretical and experimental, his mastery of the art of teaching, and his genius for diagnosis in the study of human feeling, was in an ideal position for showing up the false principles, old and new, and propounding the true ones. The root of the matter was to consider the pupil as an active being–not merely a mind to be filled, but complex and growing organism, of which the mind was but one feature. That feature, in turn, was not a receptacle, but an agent with interests, drives, powers, resistances, and peculiarities which together defined a unique person. Nothing can be imagined farther removed from this than a machine built to a pattern and responding passively to external prods and prizes.

Rather, as one marks the difference, the familiar outline appears of the child who presides over the child-centered school of the Progressives–the men and women who came to dominate theory and practice thirty years after James. But it is only the outline of that child, for James was much too wise a philosopher to suppose that doing the opposite of whatever is done will correct present abuses. His Talks to Teachers (1899) fill but a small volume, yet they contain an extremely subtle and complex set of precepts–precepts, not commandments. To follow the precepts one must–alas–use intelligence and judgment, not because James is not clear and definite, but because the teaching situation is infinitely variable–like its object, the child.

To begin with, James does not reject the associationist principle that was the mainstay of the earlier pedagogy. It is a sound principle, but it is not simple or automatic as was once thought. Associations impress the mind not in a one-to-one arrangement, but in groups or constellations, some members of which fight or inhibit each other. Moreover, the structure of the particular mind favors or excludes certain kinds and ranges of associations. It follows that to reach–and teach–any mind, the teacher must multiply the number of cues that will bring to full consciousness in the pupil the points he should retain or remember. The reason for this method, which is in fact less a method than a call to exert the imagination, is that the same reality can be cognized by any number of psychic states. It is accordingly a field theory of thought that James substitutes for the linear-mechanical and would have the teacher act upon.

(Page 83) James Sr. on describing Emerson, "I tried assiduously during the early days of our intimacy to solve intellectually the mystery of his immense fascination." James wrote about Emerson many years later. "But what the magic actually was, I could not at all divine, save that it was intensely personal, attaching much more to what he was in himself or by nature, than to what he was in aspiration or by culture. I often found myself in fact thinking: if this man were a woman, I should be sure to fall in love with him."

Emerson was a major influence on New England during this time period, and had a lasting influence on so many. I think James sums up Emerson's charisma well. Not only was he an influential lecturer, writer, but people seemed to be drawn to him as a person.

I haven't read that much on Emerson, mostly just in histories, but not a biography. I think that may be next on my things to study list. I am not sure that I fully appreciate his place in history just yet. More to learn.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am really enjoying how Menand writes. Although we are reading history so we know what is coming (or we should), I love his "cliff hanger" at the end of the chapter.

(page 95)
"And his disinclination to pledge academic allegiance was one of the things that made it possible for him to sign up for an expedition led by the most famous of the many enemies of Charles Darwin."

This makes me think of mystery and I am ready to continue. Nice touch I thought.

Kathy wrote: "(Page 83) James Sr. on describing Emerson, "I tried assiduously during the early days of our intimacy to solve intellectually the mystery of his immense fascination." James wrote about Emerson many..."

Yes, interestingly - all of the folks around Emerson seem to be drawn to him in some way - I do suspect that what we know about Emerson has been idealized in some way because it does appear that he was somewhat of a rabble rouser in school and promoted Rebellion at the Rebellion Tree at Harvard. I do like his writing.

Kathy wrote: "I am really enjoying how Menand writes. Although we are reading history so we know what is coming (or we should), I love his "cliff hanger" at the end of the chapter.

(page 95)
"And his disinclin..."

Menand likes to tell a good story (smile)

I think Emerson's youthful rebellion and his association with innovative writers and people who were willing to experiment with life style choices adds much to his appeal. Otherwise he would just seem like an stuffy, outdated writer who wrote and spoke words people wanted to hear anyway and became well off from his writing career.

Bentley wrote: "This was an article which discussed William James and his attitudes on a lot of things including teaching. I have added it below:
...
"But it is only the outline of that child, for James was much too wise a philosopher to suppose that doing the opposite of whatever is done will correct present abuses. His Talks to Teachers (1899) fill but a small volume, yet they contain an extremely subtle and complex set of precepts–precepts, not commandments. To follow the precepts one must–alas–use intelligence and judgment, not because James is not clear and definite, but because the teaching situation is infinitely variable–like its object, the child.
..."

Fascinating article, Bentley, thank you (I have yet to read the article mentioning his drug experimentation, but I will definitely get to it... alternative realities indeed).

I had no idea James had anything to do with American educational system practices, and this fascinates me. I've downloaded his (free for Kindle) Talks for Teachers and hope to have the time to at least flip through it.

I'm currently taking a Coursera course entitled New History for the New China, and it has focussed on the history of education in China. Not surprisingly, China's 3-tiered public civil examinations pre-dated Western culture's public education, and in fact became a sort of model for education in the West. I've taken our free public education in America for granted, and didn't realize how short is its history.

by William James

Janice, I am learning a lot about these folks too and it is very interesting.

Let us know what you think of it and thanks for the tip on the course.

He worked most of his life to defend simultaneously held worldviews--modern science and religious faith--that most people regard as mutually exclusive, and he ended up inventing a philosophy, pragmatism, that is supposed to enable people to make good choices among philosophical options.

To find out more about this I am willing to keep reading this book.

James just seems weird to me. And considering his family you can't make an arguement either way for nature vs nurture.

Yes he did Patricrk - well I think he used drugs which may have contributed to his weirdness. His family had some unique ideas on things too.