james - essays-136, książki, Philosphy
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Essays in Radical EmpiricismbyWilliam James(1842-1910) American Philosopher & Psychologist,Founder of PragmatismHere follows the (almost) complete work of William James' Essays in RadicalEmpiricism, transcribed by Phillip McReynolds. [ Not included is the lastchapter, "La Notion de Conscience," since the chapter is completely inFrench and I could not be bothered to type it in at present. I willprobably scan it in sooner or later and am working on a translation.Expect updates accordingly.]Page numbers are from the Longmans, Green and Co. edition of Essays inRadical Empiricism and A Pluralistic Universe in one volume, publishedin 1943. Underscores bewteen words indicate italics in the original.To the best of my knowledge this work is now in the public domain as itwas copyrighted 1912 by Henry James, who died in 1916.There are probably mistakes here. If you let me know about them, I'llattempt to correct them. In any case, no warranty is issuedas to the correctness or completeness of this work norconcerning its suitability to any purpose whatsoever. If you acceptthese conditions you may freely use and distribute this transcription asyou like, provided that you don't try to sell it or otherwise make aprofit off of my work.Phillip McReynoldsMCREYNPA@CTRVAX.VANDERBILT.EDU---[Table of Contents]viiVOLUME I. ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISMI. DOES 'CONSCIOUSNESS' EXIST? 1II. A WORLD OF PURE EXPERIENCE 39III. THE THING AND ITS RELATIONS 92IV. HOW TWO MINDS CAN KNOW ONE THING 123V. THE PLACE OF AFFECTIONAL FACTS IN A WORLDOF PURE EXPERIENCE 137VI. THE EXPERIENCE OF ACTIVITY 155VII. THE ESSENCE OF HUMANISM 190VIII. LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE 2061IDOES 'CONSCIOUSNESS' EXIST?'THOUGHTS' and 'things' are names for twosorts of object, which common sense will alwaysfind contrasted and will always practicallyoppose to each other. Philosophy, reflectingon the contrast, has varied in thepast in her explanations of it, and may beexpected to vary in the future. At first,'spirit and matter,' 'soul and body,' stood fora pair of equipollent substances quite on a parin weight and interest. But one day Kant underminedthe soul and brought in the transcendentalego, and ever since then the bipolarrelation has been very much off its balance.The transcendental ego seems nowadays inrationalist quarters to stand for everything, inempiricist quarters for almost nothing. In thehands of such writers as Schuppe, Rehmke,Natorp, Munsterberg -- at any rate in his2earlier writings, Schubert-Soldern and others,the spiritual principle attenuates itself to athoroughly ghostly condition, being only aname for the fact that the 'content' of experience_is_known_. It loses personal form and activity-- these passing over to the content --and becomes a bare _Bewusstheit_ or _Bewusstsein__uberhaupt_ of which in its own right absolutelynothing can be said.I believe that 'consciousness,' when once ithas evaporated to this estate of pure diaphaneity,is on the point of disappearing altogether.It is the name of a nonentity, and has no rightto a place among first principles. Those whostill cling to it are clinging to a mere echo, thefaint rumor left behind by the disappearing'soul' upon the air of philosophy. During thepast year, I have read a number of articleswhose authors seemed just on the point of abandoningthe notion of consciousness,(1) and substitutingfor it that of an absolute experiencenot due to two factors. But they were not---1 Articles by Bawden, King, Alexander, and others. Dr. Perry isfrankly over the border---3quite radical enough, not quite daring enoughin their negations. For twenty years past Ihave mistrusted 'consciousness' as an entity;for seven or eight years past I have suggestedits non-existence to my students, and tried togive them its pragmatic equivalent in realitiesof experience. It seems to me that the houris ripe for it to be openly and universally discarded.To deny plumply that 'consciousness' existsseems so absurd on the face of it -- for undeniably'thoughts' do exist -- that I fear somereaders will follow me no farther. Let me thenimmediately explain that I mean only to denythat the word stands for an entity, but to insistmost emphatically that it does stand for afunction. There is, I mean, no aboriginal stuffor quality of being, contrasted with that ofwhich material objects are made, out of whichour thoughts of them are made; but there is afunction in experience which thoughts perform,and for the performance of which this4quality of being is invoked. That function is_knowing_. 'Consciousness' is supposed necessaryto explain the fact that things not onlyare, but get reported, are known. Whoeverblots out the notion of consciousness from hislist of first principles must still provide in someway for that function's being carried on.IMy thesis is that if we start with the suppositionthat there is only one primal stuff ormaterial in the world, a stuff of which everythingis composed, and if we call that stuff'pure experience,' the knowing can easily beexplained as a particular sort of relationtowards one another into which portions ofpure experience may enter. The relation itselfis a part of pure experience; one if its 'terms'becomes the subject or bearer of the knowledge,the knower,(1) the other becomes the objectknown. This will need much explanationbefore it can be understood. The best way to---1 In my _Psychology_ I have tried to show that we need no knowerother than the 'passing thought.' [_Principles of Psychology, vol. I,pp. 338 ff.]---5get it understood is to contrast it with the alternativeview; and for that we may take therecentest alternative, that in which the evaporationof the definite soul-substance has proceededas far as it can go without being yetcomplete. If neo-Kantism has expelled earlierforms of dualism, we shall have expelled allforms if we are able to expel neo-kantism in itsturn.For the thinkers I call neo-Kantian, the wordconsciousness to-day does no more than signalizethe fact that experience is indefeasibly dualisticin structure. It means that not subject,not object, but object-plus-subject is the minimumthat can actually be. The subject-objectdistinction meanwhile is entirely different fromthat between mind and matter, from that betweenbody and soul. Souls were detachable,had separate destinies; things could happen tothem. To consciousness as such nothing canhappen, for, timeless itself, it is only a witnessof happenings in time, in which it plays nopart. It is, in a word, but the logical correlativeof 'content' in an Experience of which the6peculiarity is that _fact_comes_to_light_ in it, that_awareness_of_content_ takes place. Consciousnessas such is entirely impersonal -- 'self' and itsactivities belong to the content. To say that Iam self-conscious, or conscious of putting forthvolition, means only that certain contents, forwhich 'self' and 'effort of will' are the names,are not without witness as they occur.Thus, for these belated drinkers at the Kantianspring, we should have to admit consciousnessas an 'epistemological' necessity, even ifwe had no direct evidence of its being there.But in addition to this, we are supposed byalmost every one to have an immediate consciousnessof consciousness itself. When theworld of outer fact ceases to be materially present,and we merely recall it in memory, orfancy it, the consciousness is believed to standout and to be felt as a kind of impalpable innerflowing, which, once known in this sort of experience,may equally be detected in presentationsof the outer world. "The moment we tryto fix out attention upon consciousness and tosee _what_, distinctly, it is," says a recent writer,7"it seems to vanish. It seems as if we had beforeus a mere emptiness. When we try to introspectthe sensation of blue, all we can see isthe blue; the other element is as if it were diaphanous.Yet it _can_ be distinguished, if welook attentively enough, and know that thereis something to look for."(1) "Consciousness"(Bewusstheit), says another philosopher, "isinexplicable and hardly describable, yet all consciousexperiences have this in common thatwhat we call their content has a peculiar referenceto a centre for which 'self' is the name,in virtue of which reference alone the contentis subjectively given, or appears.... Whilein this way consciousness, or reference to aself, is the only thing which distinguishes a consciouscontent from any sort of being thatmight be there with no one conscious of it, yetthis only ground of the distinction defies allcloser explanations. The existence of consciousness,although it is the fundamental fact ofpsychology, can indeed be laid down as certain,can be brought out by analysis, but can---1 G.E. Moore: _Mind_, vol. XII, N.S., [1903], p.450.---8neither be defined nor deduced from anythingbut itself."(1)'Can be brought out by analysis,' thisauthor says. This supposes that the consciousnessis one element, moment, factor -- call itwhat you like -- of an experience of essentiallydua...
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