Young William James, almost a philosopher

Abstract

The first steps of William James (1842–1910) into philosophy took place far from seminar rooms. His family upbringing immersed him in philosophical and religious questions, and he searched through a range of fields at Harvard University’s Lawrence Scientific and Medical Schools. This scientific work, combined with his early pursuit of psychology, encouraged his understanding of the interrelation of material and immaterial dimensions of life. From these insights, he added mediation of other dual contrasts ranging from science and religion to empiricism and idealism, with particular interest in the sources of different commitments. Self-taught in philosophy and persistently approaching its ideas as personal reflection and as ways to understand the meaning and implications of his science and psychology, he spent almost two decades at the beginning of his career as a scientist. Through the 1860s and 1870s, with his avocational reading and discussion of speculative issues, the young scientist James was almost a philosopher. Even after his appointment as professor of philosophy in 1880, he maintained an outsider’s perspective. That point of view, with his frank reporting on human experience and ability to express complicated issues in compelling form, contributed to his fame and influence even as the academic field around him became more professionalized. The concerns of his own early experiences, when he felt driven by philosophical questions, stayed with him. William James remained in the field of philosophy but not fully of it.