William James and the metaphysics of experience / David C. Lamberth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lamberth, David C., author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in religion and critical thought ; 5.

Cambridge studies in religion and critical thought ; 5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

James, William, 1842-1910.

James, William.

Experience (Religion).

Metaphysics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 256 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

William James & the Metaphysics of Experience

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

William James is frequently considered one of America's most important philosophers, as well as a foundational thinker for the study of religion. Despite his reputation as the founder of pragmatism, he is rarely considered a serious philosopher or religious thinker. In this new interpretation David Lamberth argues that James's major contribution was to develop a systematic metaphysics of experience integrally related to his developing pluralistic and social religious ideas. Lamberth systematically interprets James's radically empiricist world-view and argues for an early dating (1895) for his commitment to the metaphysics of radical empiricism. He offers a close reading of Varieties of Religious Experience; and concludes by connecting James's ideas about experience, pluralism and truth to current debates in philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and theology, suggesting James's functional, experiential metaphysics as a conceptual aid in bridging the social and interpretive with the immediate and concrete while avoiding naive realism.

Contents:

James's radically empiricist Weltanschauung

Radical empiricism: a philosophy of pure experience

The methodological thesis of radical empiricism

The factual thesis of radical empiricism

The metaphysical thesis of pure experience

The functional account of direct acquaintance

The functional account of knowledge about

The pragmatic conception of truth

The thesis of pluralistic panpsychism

From psychology to religion: pure experience and radical empiricism in the 1890s

Psychology as a natural science

James's shifting interest: from psychology into metaphysics

"The knowing of things together": the formal break with dualism

Pure experience, the field theory, and the 1895-6 seminar "The Feelings"

Pure experience and Richard Avenarius

The field theory

The Varieties of Religious Experience: indications of a philosophy adapted to normal religious needs

Spiritual visions and bodily limitations: the composition of Varieties

Remnants of the plan for the philosophical course

Varieties: the basic argument

Method and procedure

Hypothetical beginnings

Descriptions of the life of religion

James's model of religion in act

Varieties and radical empiricism

Squaring logic and life: making philosophy intimate in A Pluralistic Universe

From Varieties to A Pluralistic Universe

Adequate philosophy: intimacy, foreignness, and rationality

The arguments against the absolute

The problem of the compounding of consciousness

Pluralistic panpsychism.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 242-247) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-11387-3

0-511-00661-6

1-280-41865-6

0-511-17197-8

0-511-14967-0

0-511-30979-1

0-511-48843-2

0-511-05393-2

OCLC:

437250270