At the turn of the twentieth century, William James was America's most
widely read philosopher. In addition to being one of the founders of
pragmatism, however, he was also a leading psychologist and author of
the seminal work, The Principles of Psychology (1890). While scholars
argue that James withdrew from the study of psychology after 1890,
Eugene Taylor demonstrates convincingly that James remained preeminently
a psychologist until his death in 1910.Taylor details James's
contributions to experimental psychopathology, psychical research, and
the psychology of religion. Moreover, Taylor's work shows that out of
his scientific study of consciousness, James formulated a sophisticated
metaphysics of radical empiricism. In light of historical developments
in psychology, as well as the current philosophic implications of the
neuroscience revolution related to the biology of consciousness, Taylor
argues that both the subject matter of James's investigations and his
metaphysics of radical empiricism are just as important for psychology
today as James believed they were in his own time.This book represents a
major new contribution both to James scholarship and to the history of
American psychology. Although philosophers have analyzed radical
empiricism, this book is the first to trace the development of radical
empiricism as a metaphysics addressed to psychologists. It is also the
first to show James's involvement in depth-psychology and
psychotherapeutics and to trace historical continuity between James's
work on consciousness and subsequent developments in psychoanalysis,
personality theory, and humanistic psychology.
