His father, Henry, independently wealthy, was a friend of Emerson and Thoreau and wrote for the Atlantic Monthly. William James came from a distinguished and privileged family. MS Am 1092.2 (54), Houghton Library, Harvard University Who was this man? Why is he relevant today? Alfred North Whitehead believed James was as significant a thinker as Plato, Aristotle, and Leibniz. At the end of his life, he wrote The Varieties of Religious Experience, legitimizing faith for an age dominated by reason and science. In widely read essays, such as “What Makes A Life Significant,” he extolled optimism and empathy. In Talks to Teachers on Psychology he took the insights of psychology to the classroom. He popularized pragmatism, a distinctly American way of thinking that argues we must test our beliefs and decisions by results. Throughout his life, James wrote essays and books that transformed psychology and philosophy. Historian Jacques Barzun declared it a classic and likened it to Moby-Dick. Sprinkled with anecdotes and personal examples and written in energetic prose, The Principles of Psychology, published in 1890, was praised in America and Europe both by academics and lay readers. Writing was harder for him than speaking at conferences or climbing mountains. In 1878 he signed a contract to write a psychology textbook in two years. Du Bois wrote, “He was my friend and guide to clear thinking.” In his biography of James, Robert Richardson says, “William James was one of America’s great teachers.” Conversation with James, Walter Lippmann recalled, was “the greatest thing that has happened to me in my college life.” W. James claimed he did not like teaching, particularly to listless Harvard undergraduates. His lectures were spontaneous and rambling, unlike those of his more logical, organized colleagues. Characteristically dressed in a colorful shirt and a Norfolk jacket with a boutonniere, he must have seemed slightly bohemian. On a late September morning in 1891, William James walked reluctantly to his class in Harvard College’s Sever Hall.
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