William James
Psychologist · 1842-1910 · Psychology, stage 3: Meet the psychologists
Wrote the book that taught America psychology, and argued that consciousness is a stream that exists because it is useful.
Overview
William James trained as a physician, taught physiology, psychology, and philosophy at Harvard, and wrote The Principles of Psychology over twelve years. The book is unusual in that it is still readable: it surveys the experimental work of its time while arguing against the structuralist attempt to decompose experience into elements, on the grounds that consciousness is felt as a continuous stream in which no element is ever encountered twice in the same context. His functionalist question, what a mental process is for, came directly from Darwin and set the direction of American psychology for a generation. He also proposed, with Carl Lange, that emotion is the perception of bodily change rather than its cause, a theory still argued about. James later moved into philosophy, where he is a founder of pragmatism, so his writing crosses between the two fields. Start with Psychology: Briefer Course, his own abridgement, before the two-volume Principles.
Where to start reading
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 1890
The founding American textbook, covering habit, the stream of thought, attention, and the self; long, but written to be read rather than consulted.
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 1890
The second volume, covering sensation, perception of space and time, reasoning, emotion, instinct, and will.
Psychology: Briefer Course 1892
James' own abridgement of the Principles, made for students and the best place to start.
The Varieties of Religious Experience 1902
A psychological study of conversion, mysticism, and saintliness, treating religious experience as data about minds rather than as a question about doctrine.
Part of
Sources
- William James Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- William James Wikipedia
- What Is an Emotion? Classics in the History of Psychology, York UniversityThe 1884 paper stating the theory that bodily change comes first and the felt emotion follows.
