William James And Phenomenology

"This Handbook provides a structured overview of William James's intellectual work. James was a pioneer of the "new" physiological psychology of the late nineteenth century. He was also a founder of the pragmatist movement in philosophy and made influential contributions to metaphysics and to the study of religion as well. This Handbook's chapters are organized either around major themes in James's writing or around his conversations with interlocutors"--

" ... a universe unfinished, with doors and windows open to possibilities uncontrollable in advance." 1 A possibility which William James would certainly not have envisaged is a phenomenological reading of his philosophy. Given James's personality, one can easily imagine the explosive commen tary he would make on any attempt to situate his deliberately unsystematic writings within anyone philosophical mainstream. Yet, in recent years, the most fruitful scholarship on William James has resulted from a confrontation between his philosophy and the phe nomenology of Husserl. The very unlikelihood of such a comparison renders all the more fascinating the remarkable convergence of perspectives that comes to light when the fundamental projects of James and HusserI are juxtaposed. At first view, nothing could be more alien to the pragmatic mentality with its constant mistrust of any global system than a philosophy whose basic drive is to discover absolute knowledge and whose goal is to establish itself as a certain and universal science.

This is an unashamed collection of studies grown, but not planned before hand, whose belated unity sterns from an unconscious pattern ofwhich I was not aware at the time ofwriting. I call it "unashamed" not only because I have made no effort to patch up this collection by completely new pieces, but also because there seems to me nothing shamefully wrong about following up some loose ends left dangling from my main study of the Phenomenological Movement which I had to cut off from the body of my account in order to preserve its unity and proportion. This disc1aimer does not mean that there is no connection among the pieces he re assembled. They belong together, while not requiring consecutive reading, as attempts to establish common ground 1lnd lines of communication between the Phenomenological Movement and related enterprises in philo sophy. They are not put together arbitrarily, but because ofintrinsic affinities to phenomenology. This does not mean an attempt to blur its edges. But since they are growing edges, any boundaries cannot be drawn sharply without interfering with the phenomena. Nevertheless, in the end the figure of the Phenomenological Movement should stand out more distinctIy as the text against its surrounding context, ofwhich these studies are to provide some ofthe comparative and historical background. This is why I gave to this collection the titIe "The Context ofthe Phenomenological Movement" in contrast to the central "text" as contained in my historical introduction to this movement.