Read the article of William James entitled "What Makes a Life Significant?" then reflect on his views regarding life. Begin your essay by introducing the article. Who is William James? Discuss his background, then summarize the article. What are the things that you have learned after reading his essay?
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William James (1842-1910), perhaps the most prominent American philosopher and psychologist, Early in his life, James studied art, but later his curiosity turned to a number of scientific fields. After graduation from Harvard Medical College, James, intellectual pursuits broadened to include literary criticism, history, and philosophy. He read widely and contributed to many different academic fields. The year following graduation, James accompanied Louis Agassiz on an expedition to Brazil.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., an independently wealthy and notoriously ecentrics wedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day.
he became the most famous living American psychologist and later the most famous living American philosopher of his time. Avoiding the logically tight systems typical of European rationalists, such as the German idealists, he cobbled together a psychology rich in philosophical implications and a philosophy enriched by his psychological expertise.
Summarization:
Why do we hear the complaint so often that social life in New England is either less rich and expressive or more fatiguing than it is in some other parts of the world? To what is the fact, if fact it be, due unless to the over-active conscience of the people, afraid of either saying something too trivial and obvious, or something insincere, or something unworthy of one's interlocutor, or something in some way or other not adequate to the occasion? How can conversation possibly steer itself through such a sea of responsibilities and inhibitions as this? On the other hand, conversation does flourish and society is refreshing, and neither dull on the one hand nor exhausting from its effort on the other, wherever people forget their scruples and take the brakes off their hearts, and let their tongues wag as automatically and irresponsibly as they will. After being imprisoned Peter, of Tolstoy's War and Peace, learn that man is meant for happiness, and that this happiness is in him, in the satisfaction of the daily needs of existence, and that unhappiness is the fatal result, not of our need, but of our abundance. The good of all the artificial schemes and fevers fades and pales; and that of seeing, smelling, tasting, sleeping, and daring and doing with one's body, grows and grows.
I am sorry for the boy or girl, or man or woman, who has never been touched by the spell of this mysterious sensorial life, with its irrationality, if so you like to call it, but is vigilance and its supreme felicity.
In God's eyes, the differences of social position, of intellect, of culture, of cleanliness, of dress, which different men exhibit, and all the other rarities and exceptions on which they so fantastically pin their pride, must be so small as practically, quite to vanish; and all that should remain is the common fact that here we are, a countless multitude of vessels of life, each of us pent in to peculiar difficulties, with which we must severally struggle by using whatever of fortitude and goodness we can summon up. The exercise of the courage, patience, and kindness, must be the significant portion of the whole business; and the distinctions of position can only be a manner of diversifying the phenomenal surface upon which these underground virtues may manifest their effects.
Lessons I've Learn:
The first thing I've learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours. No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, and the trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep.
Ann Mel Rose D. Espartero
BSA-1
1.
* In his Talks to Students, 2 James presents three lectures to students—two of them, being “The Gospel of Relaxation,” and “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings.” The third talk is the one presented here. His second, “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,” has as its
* About the author. . . .William James (1842-1910), perhaps the most prominent American philosopher and psychologist, was an influential formulator and spokesperson for pragmatism. Early in his life, James studied art, but later his curiosity turned to a number of scientific fields. After graduation from Harvard Medical College, James’ intellectual pursuit’s broadened to include literary criticism, history, and philosophy. He read widely and contributed to many different academic fields. The year following graduation, James accompanied Louis Agassiz on an expedition to Brazil.1 AS a Harvard professor in philosophy and psychology, James achieved recognition as one of the most outstanding writers and lecturers of his time.
*
James spent almost his entire academic career at Harvard. He was appointed instructor in physiology for the spring 1873 term, instructor in anatomy and physiology in 1873, assistant professor of psychology in 1876, assistant professor of philosophy in 1881, full professor in 1885, endowed chair in psychology in 1889, return to philosophy in 1897, and emeritus professor of philosophy in 1907.
James studied medicine, physiology, and biology, and began to teach in those subjects, but was drawn to the scientific study of the human mind at a time when psychology was constituting itself as a science. James's acquaintance with the work of figures like Hermann Helmholtz in Germany and Pierre Janet in France facilitated his introduction of courses in scientific psychology at Harvard University. He taught his first experimental psychology course at Harvard in the 1875–1876 academic year
*
LAILA R. REMOT
5110073
1.William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., an independently wealthy and notoriously eccentric Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf. He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end. Two younger brothers, Garth Wilkinson (Wilky) and Robertson (Bob), fought in the Civil War. The other three siblings (William, Henry, and Alice James) all suffered from periods of invalidism.
2.Writing is one of the most important ways to express yourself. The course of advanced composition was based in writing. It was very interesting because we learn how to write an excellent essay. Organization was very important because it makes that the essays look better, and understandable. In the class, we learn how to write a giving instructions essay, cause or effect essay, and comparison and contrast essay; moreover, we learn how to make responses to essays and to movies. Making responses to movies and essays was other way to express what we think about the thinking of others.
LAILA R. REMOT
5110073
1.William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., an independently wealthy and notoriously eccentric Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf. He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end. Two younger brothers, Garth Wilkinson (Wilky) and Robertson (Bob), fought in the Civil War. The other three siblings (William, Henry, and Alice James) all suffered from periods of invalidism.
2.Writing is one of the most important ways to express yourself. The course of advanced composition was based in writing. It was very interesting because we learn how to write an excellent essay. Organization was very important because it makes that the essays look better, and understandable. In the class, we learn how to write a giving instructions essay, cause or effect essay, and comparison and contrast essay; moreover, we learn how to make responses to essays and to movies. Making responses to movies and essays was other way to express what we think about the thinking of others.
Mary Lare Alexine M. Rivera
BSA - 1
Answers:
You may also make their own life that are relevant by external viewing. We have interests in need of social, religious and other ethics. Not everyone is perfect because people have mistaken it with each other. we have different opinions about life and events like the news, experiences and more.
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., an independently wealthy and notoriously eccentric Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics. James spent almost his entire academic career at Harvard. He was appointed instructor in physiology for the spring 1873 term, instructor in anatomy and physiology in 1873, assistant professor of psychology in 1876, assistant professor of philosophy in 1881, full professor in 1885, endowed chair in psychology in 1889, return to philosophy in 1897, and emeritus professor of philosophy in 1907.
James studied medicine, physiology, and biology, and began to teach in those subjects, but was drawn to the scientific study of the human mind at a time when psychology was constituting itself as a science. James's acquaintance with the work of figures like Hermann Helmholtz in Germany and Pierre Janet in France facilitated his introduction of courses in scientific psychology at Harvard University. He taught his first experimental psychology course at Harvard in the 1875–1876 academic year.
William James wrote voluminously throughout his life. A non-exhaustive bibliography of his writings, compiled by John McDermott, is 47 pages long.
He gained widespread recognition with his monumental Principles of Psychology, totaling twelve hundred pages in two volumes, which took twelve years to complete. Psychology: The Briefer Course, was an 1892 abridgement designed as a less rigorous introduction to the field. These works criticized both the English associationist school and the Hegelianism of his day as competing dogmatisms of little explanatory value, and sought to re-conceive the human mind as inherently purposive and selective.
Mary Lare Alexine M. Rivera
BSA - 1
Answers(continuation):
Every Jack sees in his own particular Jill charm and perfection to the enchantment of which we stolid onlookers are stone-cold. And which has the superior view of the absolute truth, him or us? For Jack realizes Jill concretely, and we do not. He struggles toward a union with her inner life, divining her feelings, anticipating her desires, understanding her limits as manfully as he can, and yet inadequately, too; for he is also afflicted with some blindness, even here. The moment one treads that sacred enclosure; one feels one's self in an atmosphere of success. Sobriety and industry, intelligence and goodness, orderliness and ideality, prosperity and cheerfulness, pervade the air. It is a serious and studious picnic on a gigantic scale. And yet what was my own astonishment, on emerging into the dark and wicked world again, to catch myself quite unexpectedly and involuntarily saying: "Ouf! What a relief! There are the heights and depths, the precipices and the steep ideals, the gleams of the awful and the infinite; and there is more hope and help a thousand times than in this dead level and quintessence of every mediocrity. What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness; with heroism, reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death. Sweat and effort, human nature strained to its uttermost and on the rack, yet getting through alive, and then turning its back on its success to pursue another more rare and arduous still—this is the sort of thing the presence of which inspires us, and the reality of which it seems to be the function of all the higher forms of literature and fine art to bring home to us and suggest.
I learned to read it would be fun comes during the summer because many accessible we can go any place. As children, we are occurring not only satisfaction we will be lesson religion. We all have different sorts happening in our world. We must be wary of our nature. If you need to go to historical places, should be disciplined to see because we need the country.
BSBA1
5110143
Tamagos, Sarah A.
Read the article of William James entitled "What Makes a Life Significant?" then reflect on his views regarding life. Begin your essay by introducing the article. Who is William James? Discuss his background, then summarize the article. What are the things that you have learned after reading his essay?
Mr. William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who were trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life.
From his article in what makes a life significant I have summaries about it.mr William said in his article that No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, and the trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep. P.2
And he said that Life is with values and meanings which we fail to realize because of our external and insensible point of view. w. The meanings are there for the others, but they are not there for us. There lies more than a mere interest of curious speculation in understanding this.
About this article Mr. William focus on his life to do this and this article is a thesis that worth of things depends upon the feelings we have toward them.
I learned that observing all the things that had been done and wrote it is one of the best ways to tell to them and every people who read what was happened about what was the observation all about.
PAGKALIWAGAN ZAIDAN O
5110067
BSA 1
ANSWER
“What makes a life significant?” — the title of a lecture James delivered at Harvard in 1900. (The answer, in sum, was to be awake to the significance of other people, and to escape that “great cloud bank of ancestral blindness” that leads to intolerance and cruelty.)
William James (1842-1910), perhaps the most prominent American philosopher and psychologist, was an influential formulator and spokesperson for pragmatism. Early in his life, James studied art, but later his curiosity turned to a number of scientific fields. After graduation from Harvard Medical College, James’ intellectual pursuits broadened to include literary criticism, history, and philosophy. He read widely and contributed to many different academic fields. The year following graduation, James accompanied Louis Agassiz on an expedition to Brazil. As a Harvard professor in philosophy and psychology, James achieved recognition as one of the most outstanding writers and lecturers of his time.
William James, the oldest child in a celebrated American family and a pioneer in psychology and philosophy, was apparently a famous ditherer. James was a man of restless intelligence. While teaching at Harvard, he explored medicine, the mind, religion, and all the big questions that still beset people.
PAGKALIWAGAN ZAIDAN O
BSA 1
Continuation:
Life is with values and meanings which we fail to realize because of our external and insensible point of view. The meanings are there for the others, but they are not there for us. There lies more than a mere interest of curious speculation in understanding this. It has the most tremendous practical importance. I wish that I could convince you of it as I feel it myself. It is the basis of all our tolerance, social, religious, and political. The forgetting of it lies at the root of every stupid and sanguinary mistake that rulers over subject-peoples make. The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours. No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, and the trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep.
We cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to you that, as a matter of fact, certain persons do exist with an enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight in other people’s lives; and that such persons know more of truth than if their hearts were not so big. The vice of ordinary Jack and Jill affection is not its intensity, but its exclusions and its jealousies. Leave those out, and you see that the ideal I am holding up before you, however impracticable to-day, yet contains nothing intrinsically absurd.
If any of you have been readers of Tolstoï, you will see that I passed into a vein of feeling similar to his, with its abhorrence of all that conventionally passes for distinguished, and its exclusive deification of the bravery, patience, kindliness, and dumbness of the unconscious natural man.
Where now is our Tolstoï, I said, to bring the truth of all this home to our American bosoms, fill us with a better insight, and wean us away from that spurious literary romanticism on which our wretched culture-as it calls itself-is fed? Divinity lies all about us, and culture is too bide-bound to even suspect the fact. Could a Howells or a Kipling be enlisted in this mission? or are they still too deep in the ancestral blindness, and not humane enough for the inner joy and meaning of the laborer’s existence to be really revealed? Must we wait for some one born and bred and living as a laborer himself, but who, by grace of Heaven, shall also find a literary voice?
The exercise of the courage, patience, and kindness, must be the significant portion of the whole business; and the distinctions of position can only be a manner of diversifying the phenomenal surface upon which these underground virtues may manifest their effects. At this rate, the deepest human life is everywhere, is eternal. And, if any human attributes exist only in particular individuals, they must belong to the mere trapping and decoration of the surface-show.
The lesson that I learned about William’s article was his view in that “Life is with values and meanings which we fail to realize because of our external and insensible point of view. The meanings are there for the others, but they are not there for us. There lies more than a mere interest of curious speculation in understanding this. It has the most tremendous practical importance.” And I also learned about his couragement of every person.
RICHELLE F. CAMMAGAY
BSBA-1
5110063
1.
William James was born born on January 11, 1842 in New York City. He was born into an affluent family. His father was deeply interested in philosophy and theology and strove to provide his children with a rich education.
The James children traveled to Europe frequently, attended the best possible schools, and were immersed in culture and art, which apparently paid off - William James went on to become one of the most important figures in psychology, while brother Henry James became one of the most acclaimed American novelists.
Early in school, James expressed an interest in becoming a painter. While Henry James Sr. was known as an unusually permissive and liberal father, he wanted William to study science or philosophy. Only after William persisted in his interest did Henry permit his son to formally study painting.
After studying painting with the artist William Morris Hunt for more than a year, James abandoned his dream of being a painter and enrolled at Harvard to study chemistry. While two of James' brothers enlisted to serve in the American Civil War, William and Henry did not due to health problems.
James begins the essay describing a trip to Chautauqua, NY--the nineteenth-century middle-class center for arts and education in upstate, New York. He is quite taken by this place--the music, athletics, religious services, and soda fountains, lack of poverty, drunkenness, and crime. James spends a week in Chautauqua, but no more. He realizes that this lakeside paradise, for all its security, intelligence, humanity and order, is missing something. He finally realizes what it is.
James begins the second part of his essay by considering the case when “two conceptions [are] equally fit to satisfy the logical demand” for fluency or unification. At this point, he holds, one must consider a “practical” component of rationality. The conception that “awakens the active impulses, or satisfies other aesthetic demands better than the other, will be accounted the more rational conception, and will deservedly prevail” (WB 66). James puts the point both as one of psychology — a prediction of what will occur — and as one of judgment, for he holds that it will prevail “deservedly.”
Loriely Salaysay
BSBA 1
About William James (1842-1910), perhaps the most prominent American philosopher and psychologist, was an influential formulator and spokesperson for pragmatism. Early in his life, James studied art,
but later his curiosity turned to a number of scientific fields. After graduation from Harvard Medical College, James’ intellectual pursuits broadened
to include literary criticism, history, and philosophy. He read widely and
contributed to many different academic fields. The year following graduation, James accompanied Louis Agassiz on an expedition to Brazil.as a Harvard professor in philosophy and psychology, James achieved recognition as one of the most outstanding writers and lecturers of his time.
James presents three lectures
to students—two of them, being The Gospel of Relaxation and On a
Certain Blindness in Human Beings. The third talk is the one presented
here. His second, On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings.Has it is
thesis that the worth of things depends upon the feelings we have toward
them. Read it online as a companion piece to this reading at the William
James Website noted below in the section entitled “Related Ideas.
Potencio Glenda S.
5110100
bachelor science in business administration
Answer:
- All of us have had a teacher who has made a profound difference in our lives—someone who changed our lives, made us think more deeply, set our feet on the right path. Perhaps it was a teacher we met in a classroom, but it could just have easily been a coach, a youth group leader, a family or community elder, or religious leader. In this project, students write a tribute to such a teacher, someone who has taught them an important lesson that they still remember. The personal essays that students write for this lesson are then published in a class collection. Because writing about someone who has been a significant influence is a typical topic for college application essays, the lesson’s extensions include resources for writing more traditional, formal papers.
- Fitz-James Stephen wrote many years ago words to this effect more eloquent than any I can speak: "The 'Great Eastern,' or some of her successors," he said, "will perhaps defy the roll of the Atlantic, and cross the seas without allowing their passengers to feel that they have left the firm land. The voyage from the cradle to the grave may come to be performed with similar facility. Progress and science may perhaps enable untold millions to live and die without a care, without a pang, without an anxiety. They will have a pleasant passage and plenty of brilliant conversation. They will wonder that men ever believed at all in clanging fights and blazing towns and sinking ships and praying bands; and, when they come to the end of their course, they will go their way, and the place thereof will know them no more. But it seems unlikely that they will have such a knowledge of the great ocean on which they sail, with its storms and wrecks, its currents and icebergs, its huge waves and mighty winds, as those who battled with it for years together in the little craft, which, if they had few other merits, brought those who navigated them full into the presence of time and eternity, their maker and themselves, and forced them to have some definite view of their relations to them and to each other."
In this solid and tridimensional sense, so to call it, those philosophers are right who contend that the world is a standing thing, with no progress, no real history. The changing conditions of history touch only the surface of the show. The altered equilibriums and redistributions only diversify our opportunities and open chances to us for new ideals. But, with each new ideal that comes into life, the chance for a life based on some old ideal will vanish; and he would needs be a presumptuous calculator who should with confidence say that the total sum of significances is positively and absolutely greater at any one epoch than at any other of the world.
I am speaking broadly, I know, and omitting to consider certain qualifications in which I myself believe. But one can only make one point in one lecture, and I shall be well content if I have brought my point home to you this evening in even a slight degree. There are compensations: and no outward changes of condition in life can keep the nightingale of its eternal meaning from singing in all sorts of different men's hearts. That is the main fact to remember. If we could not only admit it with our lips, but really and truly believe it, how our convulsive insistencies, how our antipathies and dreads of each other, would soften down! If the poor and the rich could look at each other in this way, sub specie æternatis, bow gentle would grow their disputes! what tolerance and good humor, what willingness to live and let live, would come into the world!
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologistand philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience andmysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry Jamesand of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., an independently wealthy and notoriously eccentric Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández,Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James received an eclectic trans-Atlantic education, developing fluency in both German and French. Education in the James household encouraged cosmopolitanism. The family made two trips to Europe while William James was still a child, setting a pattern that resulted in thirteen more European journeys during his life. His early artistic bent led to an apprenticeship in the studio of William Morris Huntin Newport, Rhode Island, but he switched in 1861 to scientific studies at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University.
James spent almost his entire academic career at Harvard. He was appointed instructor in physiology for the spring 1873 term, instructor inanatomy and physiology in 1873, assistant professor of psychology in 1876, assistant professor of philosophy in 1881, full professor in 1885, endowed chair in psychology in 1889, return to philosophy in 1897, and emeritus professor of philosophy in 1907.
James studied medicine, physiology, and biology, and began to teach in those subjects, but was drawn to the scientific study of the human mind at a time when psychology was constituting itself as a science. James's acquaintance with the work of figures like Hermann Helmholtzin Germany and Pierre Janet in France facilitated his introduction of courses in scientific psychology at Harvard University. He taught his firstexperimental psychology course at Harvard in the 1875–1876 academic year.[4]
During his Harvard years, James joined in philosophical discussions with Charles Peirce, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Chauncey Wright that evolved into a lively group informally known as The Metaphysical Club in 1872. Louis Menand speculates that the Club provided a foundation for American intellectual thought for decades to come.
Charlina Dawn H. Carbonilla
BSBA - I
What Makes a Life Significant?
This article wrote by William James an American Philosopher.
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., an independently wealthy and notoriously eccentric Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James (1842-1910), perhaps the most prominent American philosopher and psychologist, was an influential formulator and spokesperson for pragmatism. Early in his life, James studied art, but later his curiosity turned to a number of scientific fields. After graduation from Harvard Medical College, James's intellectual pursuits broadened to include literary criticism, history, and philosophy. He read widely and contributed to many different academic fields. The year following graduation, James accompanied Louis Agassiz on an expedition to Brazil. As a Harvard professor in philosophy and psychology, James achieved recognition as one of the most outstanding writers and lecturers of his time.
IN my previous talk, “On a Certain Blindness,” I tried to make you feel
how soaked and shot-through life is with values and meanings which we
fail to realize because of our external and insensible point of view. The
meanings are there for the others, but they are not there for us. There lies
more than a mere interest of curious speculation in understanding this. It
has the most tremendous practical importance. I wish that I could convince
you of it as I feel it myself. It is the basis of all our tolerance, social, religious, and political. The forgetting of it lies at the root of every stupid and
sanguinary mistake that rulers over subject-peoples make. The first thing
to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere
by violence with ours. No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should
presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them
in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, and the
trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep.
Every Jack sees in his own particular Jill charms and perfections to the
enchantment of which we stolid onlookers are stone-cold. And which has
the superior view of the absolute truth, he or we? Which has the more vital
insight into the nature of Jill’s existence, as a fact? Is he in excess, being in
2 Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction“What Makes a Life Significant?” by William James
this matter a maniac? or are we in defect, being victims of a pathological
anæsthesia as regards Jill’s magical importance? Surely the latter; surely to
Jack are the profounder truths revealed; surely poor Jill’s palpitating little
life-throbs are among the wonders of creation, are worthy of this sympathetic interest; and it is to our shame that the rest of us cannot feel like
Jack. For Jack realizes Jill concretely, and we do not. He struggles toward
a union with her inner life, divining her feelings, anticipating her desires,
understanding her limits as manfully as he can, and yet inadequately, too;
for he is also afflicted with some blindness, even here.
Whilst we, dead
clods that we are, do not even seek after these things, but are contented
that that portion of eternal fact named Jill should be for us as if it were
not. Jill, who knows her inner life, knows that Jack’s way of taking it—so
importantly—is the true and serious way; and she responds to the truth
in him by taking him truly and seriously, too. May the ancient blindness
never wrap its clouds about either of them again! Where would any of us
be, were there no one willing to know us as we really are or ready to repay
us for our insight by making recognizant return? We ought, all of us, to
realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way. If any of you have been readers of Tolstoï, you will see that I passed into
a vein of feeling similar to his, with its abhorrence of all that conventionally passes for distinguished, and its exclusive deification of the bravery,
patience, kindliness, and dumbness of the unconscious natural man.
Where now is our Tolstoï, I said, to bring the truth of all this home to our
American bosoms, fill us with a better insight, and wean us away from that
spurious literary romanticism on which our wretched culture-as it calls
itself-is fed? Divinity lies all about us, and culture is too bide-bound to
even suspect the fact. Could a Howells or a Kipling be enlisted in this mission? or are they still too deep in the ancestral blindness, and not humane
enough for the inner joy and meaning of the laborer’s existence to be really
revealed? Must we wait for some one born and bred and living as a laborer
himself, but who, by grace of Heaven, shall also find a literary voice?
And there I rested on that day, with a sense of widening of vision, and
with what it is surely fair to call an increase of religious insight into life.
In God’s eyes the differences of social position, of intellect, of culture,
of cleanliness, of dress, which different men exhibit? and all the other
rarities and exceptions on which they so fantastically pin their pride, must
be so small as practically quite to vanish; and all that should remain is
the common fact that here we are, a countless multitude of vessels of life,
each of us pent in to peculiar difficulties, with which we must severally
struggle by using whatever of fortitude and goodness we can summon up.
The exercise of the courage, patience, and kindness, must be the significant
portion of the whole business; and the distinctions of position can only
be a manner of diversifying the phenomenal surface upon which these
underground virtues may manifest their effects. At this rate, the deepest
human life is everywhere, is eternal. And, if any human attributes exist
only in particular individuals, they must belong to the mere trapping and
decoration of the surface-show. The things that I’ve learned here is that Life is full of challenges and pain but it is also beautiful and amazing.. SIMPLICITY IS IMPORTANT ..LIVE YOUR LIFE AS SIMPLE AS YOU CAN :)
NATIVIDAD,CHERYN MARIZ
BSA-I
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologistand philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience andmysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry Jamesand of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., an independently wealthy and notoriously eccentric Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández,Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James received an eclectic trans-Atlantic education, developing fluency in both German and French. Education in the James household encouraged cosmopolitanism. The family made two trips to Europe while William James was still a child, setting a pattern that resulted in thirteen more European journeys during his life. His early artistic bent led to an apprenticeship in the studio of William Morris Huntin Newport, Rhode Island, but he switched in 1861 to scientific studies at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University.
James spent almost his entire academic career at Harvard. He was appointed instructor in physiology for the spring 1873 term, instructor inanatomy and physiology in 1873, assistant professor of psychology in 1876, assistant professor of philosophy in 1881, full professor in 1885, endowed chair in psychology in 1889, return to philosophy in 1897, and emeritus professor of philosophy in 1907.
James studied medicine, physiology, and biology, and began to teach in those subjects, but was drawn to the scientific study of the human mind at a time when psychology was constituting itself as a science. James's acquaintance with the work of figures like Hermann Helmholtzin Germany and Pierre Janet in France facilitated his introduction of courses in scientific psychology at Harvard University. He taught his firstexperimental psychology course at Harvard in the 1875–1876 academic year.[4]
During his Harvard years, James joined in philosophical discussions with Charles Peirce, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Chauncey Wright that evolved into a lively group informally known as The Metaphysical Club in 1872. Louis Menand speculates that the Club provided a foundation for American intellectual thought for decades to come.
NATIVIDAD, CHERYN MARIZ
BSA
IN my previous talk, “On a Certain Blindness,” I tried to make you feel
how soaked and shot-through life is with values and meanings which we
fail to realize because of our external and insensible point of view. The
meanings are there for the others, but they are not there for us. There lies
more than a mere interest of curious speculation in understanding this. It
has the most tremendous practical importance. I wish that I could convince
you of it as I feel it myself. It is the basis of all our tolerance, social, religious, and political. The forgetting of it lies at the root of every stupid and
sanguinary mistake that rulers over subject-peoples make. The first thing
to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere
by violence with ours. No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should
presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them
in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, and the
trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep.
Every Jack sees in his own particular Jill charms and perfections to the
enchantment of which we stolid onlookers are stone-cold. And which has
the superior view of the absolute truth, he or we? Which has the more vital
insight into the nature of Jill’s existence, as a fact? Is he in excess, being in
this matter a maniac? or are we in defect, being victims of a pathological
anæsthesia as regards Jill’s magical importance? Surely the latter; surely to
Jack are the profounder truths revealed; surely poor Jill’s palpitating little
life-throbs are among the wonders of creation, are worthy of this sympathetic interest; and it is to our shame that the rest of us cannot feel like
Jack. For Jack realizes Jill concretely, and we do not. He struggles toward
a union with her inner life, divining her feelings, anticipating her desires,
understanding her limits as manfully as he can, and yet inadequately, too;
for he is also afflicted with some blindness, even here.
NATIVIDAD,CHERYN MARIZ
BSA-I
Whilst we, dead
clods that we are, do not even seek after these things, but are contented
that that portion of eternal fact named Jill should be for us as if it were
not. Jill, who knows her inner life, knows that Jack’s way of taking it—so
importantly—is the true and serious way; and she responds to the truth
in him by taking him truly and seriously, too. May the ancient blindness
never wrap its clouds about either of them again! Where would any of us
be, were there no one willing to know us as we really are or ready to repay
us for our insight by making recognizant return? We ought, all of us, to
realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way. If any of you have been readers of Tolstoï, you will see that I passed into
a vein of feeling similar to his, with its abhorrence of all that conventionally passes for distinguished, and its exclusive deification of the bravery,
patience, kindliness, and dumbness of the unconscious natural man.
Where now is our Tolstoï, I said, to bring the truth of all this home to our
American bosoms, fill us with a better insight, and wean us away from that
spurious literary romanticism on which our wretched culture-as it calls
itself-is fed? Divinity lies all about us, and culture is too bide-bound to
even suspect the fact. Could a Howells or a Kipling be enlisted in this mission? or are they still too deep in the ancestral blindness, and not humane
enough for the inner joy and meaning of the laborer’s existence to be really
revealed? Must we wait for some one born and bred and living as a laborer
himself, but who, by grace of Heaven, shall also find a literary voice?
And there I rested on that day, with a sense of widening of vision, and
with what it is surely fair to call an increase of religious insight into life.
In God’s eyes the differences of social position, of intellect, of culture,
of cleanliness, of dress, which different men exhibit? and all the other
rarities and exceptions on which they so fantastically pin their pride, must
be so small as practically quite to vanish; and all that should remain is
the common fact that here we are, a countless multitude of vessels of life,
each of us pent in to peculiar difficulties, with which we must severally
struggle by using whatever of fortitude and goodness we can summon up.
The exercise of the courage, patience, and kindness, must be the significant
portion of the whole business; and the distinctions of position can only
be a manner of diversifying the phenomenal surface upon which these
underground virtues may manifest their effects. At this rate, the deepest
human life is everywhere, is eternal. And, if any human attributes exist
only in particular individuals, they must belong to the mere trapping and
decoration of the surface-show. The things that I’ve learned here is that Life is full of challenges and pain but it is also beautiful and amazing.. SIMPLICITY IS IMPORTANT ..LIVE YOUR LIFE AS SIMPLE AS YOU CAN :)
Charlina Dawn H. Carbonilla
BSBA - I
What Makes a Life Significant?
Summary:
The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours. No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, and the trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep.
To a certain extent we can. An ideal, for instance, must be something intellectually conceived, something of which we are not unconscious, if we have it; and it must carry with it that sort of outlook, uplift, and brightness that go with all intellectual facts. Secondly, there must be novelty in an ideal,—novelty at least for him whom the ideal grasps. Sodden routine is incompatible with ideality, although what is sodden routine for one person may be ideal novelty for another. This shows that there is nothing absolutely ideal: ideals are relative to the lives that entertain them. To keep out of the gutter is for us here no part of consciousness at all, yet for many of our brethren it is the most legitimately engrossing of ideals.
The significance of a human life for communicable and publicly recognizable purposes is thus the offspring of a marriage of two different parents, either of whom alone is barren. The ideals taken by themselves give no reality, the virtues by themselves no novelty. And let the orientalists and pessimists say what they will, the thing of deepest—or, at any rate, of comparatively deepest—significance in life does seem to be its character of progress, or that strange union of reality with ideal novelty which it continues from one moment to another to present. To recognize ideal novelty is the task of what we call intelligence. Not every one's intelligence can tell which novelties are ideal. For many the ideal thing will always seem to cling still to the older more familiar good. In this case character, though not significant totally, may be still significant pathetically. So, if we are to choose which is the more essential factor of human character, the fighting virtue or the intellectual breadth, we must side with Tolstoï, and choose that simple faithfulness to his light or darkness which any common unintellectual man can show.
In the solid and tridimensional sense, so to call it, those philosophers are right who contend that the world is a standing thing, with no progress, no real history. The changing conditions of history touch only the surface of the show. The altered equilibriums and redistributions only diversify our opportunities and open chances to us for new ideals. But, with each new ideal that comes into life, the chance for a life based on some old ideal will vanish; and he would needs be a presumptuous calculator who should with confidence say that the total sum of significances is positively and absolutely greater at any one epoch than at any other of the world.
I am speaking broadly, I know, and omitting to consider certain qualifications in which I myself believe. But one can only make one point in one lecture, and I shall be well content if I have brought my point home to you this evening in even a slight degree. There are compensations: and no outward changes of condition in life can keep the nightingale of its eternal meaning from singing in all sorts of different men's hearts. That is the main fact to remember. If we could not only admit it with our lips, but really and truly believe it, how our convulsive insistencies, how our antipathies and dreads of each other, would soften down! If the poor and the rich could look at each other in this way, how gentle would grow their disputes! what tolerance and good humor, what willingness to live and let live, would come into the world!
ANNA LUZ DAYNE CONDE
BSBA-1
WHAT MAKES A LIFE SIGNIFICANT?
Life is the most special gift that was bestowed on us by God. It is a wondrous thing, and in all God's gift it is one of the best. But there is something in the gift of life that draws us all in search for its real purpose and significance.
"What makes a life significant?" an article made by William James. This essay will help to inform us that life has values and meanings which we fail to realize.
William James was the most prominent
American philosopher and psychologist, was an influential formulator
and spokesperson for pragmatism. Early in his life, James studied art,
but later his curiosity turned to a number of scientific fields. After graduation
from Harvard Medical College, James’ intellectual pursuits broadened
to include literary criticism, history, and philosophy. He read widely and
contributed to many different academic fields. The year following graduation,
James accompanied Louis Agassiz on an expedition to Brazil. As
a Harvard professor in philosophy and psychology, James achieved recognition
as one of the most outstanding writers and lecturers of his time.
On his essay, his perception about life is that The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing,—the marriage,
namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity,
courage, and endurance; with some man’s or woman’s pains.—And, whatever
or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage
to take place.I can say that since marriage is one of the significant things for life, it must be honoured by all with no negative intentions to someone you will accept as your life time lover. James also said that one-half of our fellow countrymen remain
entirely blind to the internal significance of the lives of the other half. They
miss the joys and sorrows, they fail to feel the moral virtue, and they do not
guess the presence of the intellectual ideals. They are at cross-purposes all
along the line, regarding each other as they might regard a set of dangerously
gesticulating automata, or, if they seek to get at the inner motivation,
making the most horrible mistakes. Often all that the poor man can think
of in the rich man is a cowardly greediness for safety, luxury, and effeminacy,
and a boundless affectation. What he is, is not a human being, but a
pocket-book, a bank-account. And a similar greediness, turned by disappointment
into envy, is all that many rich men can see in the state of mind
of the dissatisfied poor. And, if the rich man begins to do the sentimental
act over the poor man, what senseless blunders does he make, pitying him for just those very duties and those very immunities which, rightly
taken, are the condition of his most abiding and characteristic joys! Each,
in short, ignores the fact that happiness and unhappiness and significance
are a vital mystery; each pins them absolutely on some ridiculous feature
of the external situation; and everybody remains outside of everybody
else’s sight. I can relate my personal life to this particular statement, sometimes i fail to feel the moral virtue, maybe because of the fact that no one's perfect, i commit mistakes sometimes, but it is said that we can learn more from our mistakes with much realizations at the end.
When i read the essay, i felt that there is nothing significant among the things here on earth except LIFE. Even if we long for the things that will make us happy, still we are blessed with the life that God gives us.
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