Biography of Wm James

I spent a good part of the T-Giving holiday time reading a wonderful new biography of William James, written by Robert Richardson (William James In the Maelstrom of American Modernism).

I regret to report that I managed to complete my PhD in psychology without reading much of James' actual writing (in "the original," as we say), but lately it has been impossible to miss the fact that he is enjoying a revival of sorts; contemporary writers and researchers in psychology are finding that what he wrote about many topics (especially attention, volition, and materialism) sounds amazingly fresh today.

For example, just in the past few days I linked a NY Times opinion piece about the viewpoint of science (or "scientism") as a type of faith, very much like religious faith (see links on this blog under del.icio.us). Wm James thought about this, and wrote about it, as well: Roberts writes in his biography of James, "Troubled now by a too easy use of the word 'science' as a simple synonym for 'truth,' and of 'scientist' to mean 'authority, [Wm James] said that such usage represented 'the mood of Faith, not Science.'"

Much more recently, the Dalai Lama wrote: "I have noticed that many people hold an assumption that the scientific view of the world should be the basis for all knowledge and all that is knowable. This is scientific materialism... This view upholds a belief in an objective world, independent of the contingency of its observers... these ideas do not constitute scientific knowledge; rather they represent a philosophical, in fact a metaphysical, position. The view that all aspects of reality can be reduced to matter and its various particles is, to my mind, as much a metaphysical position as the view that an organizing intelligence created and controls reality."

And (employing an approach akin to Wm James' own pragmatism), the Dalai Lama concludes that "One of the principal problems with a radical scientific materialism is the narrowness of vision that might ensue. Nihilism, materialism, and reductionism are above all problems... since they can potentially impoverish the way we see ourselves... whether we see ourselves as random biological creatures or as special beings endowed with the dimensions of consciousness and moral capacity will make an impact on how we feel about ourselves and treat others."

[These quotes are taken from The Universe in a Single Atom, by the Dalai Lama.]

As is frequently noted, specifically in regard to the question of human volition (and "free will"), it is inescapable that those who believe that all human action is determined by antecedents unrelated to the actual process of making choices (Daniel Dennett, et al.) are firm in their rigorously "scientific" and unsentimental beliefs... until lunch-time arrives, when they are confronted with a menu.