Young William James Thinking Read online

  getting down to more serious business. These are impor tant qualities, but we

  can make more use of James, not just for his charming phrases, but also for his

  deep insights with potential to shed light on some of our most nettlesome cul-

  tural and intellectual puzzles, especially since he pres ents his philosophizing

  with clear writing and evocative imagery.

  “Philosophies paint pictures,” James said, with words that describe his abil-

  ity to find simple and sharp words for big ideas. He offers explanations about

  connections where most see separation or tension, in religion and science,

  mind and body, spirit and nature, freedom and order, ac cep tance and strug gle,

  and truth and change; each is a big player in human life, and James shows

  their common sources in the material and immaterial flows of experience. And

  he sheds light into often- hidden corners of human thoughts and interactions,

  including the elusiveness of certainties even as we crave them nonetheless, the

  ability of nonrational thoughts to seize and shape our reason, the formation of

  contrasting worldviews even among those who examine the same facts, and

  the opportunities to learn from our trou bles. To tap these deeper veins, readers

  can do no better than to go to The Works of William James , 19 volumes, and

  The Correspondence of William James , 12 volumes. My first thanks go to the

  editors, teams of scrupulous scholars coordinated by Frederick Burkhardt and

  Freson Bowers, and by John McDermott, Ignas Skrupskelis, and Elizabeth

  Berkeley, respectively, and to Harvard University Press and the University

  Press of Virginia for producing these large trea sure troves of his words.

  xviii  Acknowl edgments

  Young William James Thinking is a one- volume guide to the emerging

  themes that would make their way into his mature theories. The young adult

  James expressed his ideas with less sophistication, but with more directness,

  unguarded by disciplinary expectations. This book is a prologue to the better-

  known James. Here, readers can go to the sources of his intellectual develop-

  ment—to find out how William James became the William James of confi-

  dence, high reputation, influence, charm, and cultural and intellectual debate.

  And for experts in his mature theories in psy chol ogy, philosophy, religious

  studies, history of science, and cultural studies, the explanations and stories

  here pres ent a chance to meet James again for the first time. In writing this

  book, I also ran into some of the insights and wisdom of this psychologist and

  phi los o pher while he was in formation in ways I never could have imagined.

  Q

  Writing about a young person in development brings to mind my own

  life in development during the many years of producing this book. William

  James has been a welcome companion. His profound theories and clever

  turns of phrase became not just topics of research but also points of inspira-

  tion. This came home to me most strikingly in December 2002. That season,

  I had been working on chapter 2, on James’s medical practices, but for the

  previous few weeks, blurry vision in my left eye was making reading a little

  difficult. My eye doctor did some tests and asked for an MRI, “just to rule

  some things out.” A few days later, the doctor called to say that the MRI

  results could now explain my blurry vision; I had a tumor near my pituitary

  gland that was pushing on my optic nerve. After immediately imagining the

  worst, and getting advice on next steps, within a few hours, I was back at

  my writing desk, revising the paragraph I had written the day before.

  Despite my personal woes, I was immersing myself in the words of Wil-

  liam James, about his medical education no less. One par tic u lar phrase

  jumped out at me. In the late 1860s, when he was in a slough of discourage-

  ment about his own career and his personal prospects, he had an insight

  that grew from his reading of ancient philosophy, from his wrestling with

  current physiological psy chol ogy, and from the crucible of his own trou bles:

  “Results shd. not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of.” Like

  James, I too was discouraged, but also, like him, letting go of results had a

  “potent effect in my inner life.” Without knowing my medical fate, I contin-

  ued my small daily pegging. My medical adventure made any final results of

  my work irrelevant; there was no planning for publication or even for just

  completing the book. But there was the pro cess, the doing, and that was

  Acknowl edgments  xix

  what mattered. I had read his words about the challenges he endured, about

  his utter discouragement, even as he continued learning and working; but

  now I had knowledge by acquaintance, as he would say about realizations

  that surge from lived experience, about the firm resolve he forged in his

  youth to continue growing, to continue his efforts, as goals in and of them-

  selves without any idea of what they would lead to, if anything. By the end

  of his years as a student and then as a teacher of science, from 1861 to 1877,

  when he was searching for direction in his vocation, philosophical orienta-

  tion, and personal life, he didn’t solve the prob lems of his youth; he worked

  around them, and he worked through them, without expecting results. This

  was a freeing mental posture that allowed him to take his “first act of free

  will” in 1870.

  So I want to thank my audacious visitor, the craniopharyngioma brain

  tumor, which, in the com pany of a confused young science student a century

  and a half ago, helped to teach me how ideas take on a vital real ity and how

  a phi los o pher comes of age. At the end of his youth, in 1878, James embarked

  on writing a psy chol ogy text; it would take so many years that he called it

  his “dropsical mass.” I learned to appreciate his patience and stick- to-

  itiveness, as my mother would say, since I took an even longer time on the

  pres ent work after publication of my previous book, Eclipse of Certainty, on

  the contexts in science and religion surrounding William James. A tumor

  was just one of many parts of life’s happenings that shaped plans, by day

  and by year, while the book grew, like filling a bathtub with an eye dropper.

  Little could I know the gifts in each distraction. The tumor brought aware-

  ness of physical finality and a prod to gratitude. Helping students hone their

  skills and improve their understanding taught me to hone my own arts of

  explanation; writing for newspapers and blogs taught me to write with

  clarity and concision. Friends and colleagues provided a comfortable home

  base for the work of a teacher- scholar; and family, that microcommunity of

  people at once intimate and “diff er ent from yourself,” as James said of his

  own birth family, offered a soul school of joy surpassing words and of chal-

  lenges to patience, all knit together by the enduring power of love. I thank

  them all for all their gifts, even when they didn’t know they were giving.

  When reviewing my path toward this book, I offer still more thanks for

  the gifts of people linked to it by wide spans of time and proximity. Al-

  though many years
have passed since my own formal education, I thank the

  dedication of my O’Connell High School teachers, especially Tom McNichol

  for his tough love, and the rigorous work of professors at Georgetown

  xx  Acknowl edgments

  University, especially Emmett Curran for his deliberate passion. From days

  in gradu ate school at Brown University, I continue to benefit from the pro-

  found inspirations of Wendell Dietrich, Mary Gluck, William McLoughlin,

  James Patterson, Joan Richards, Barton St. Armand, John Thomas, Sumner

  Twiss, and Gordon Wood, and from the exuberant brilliance of John E.

  Smith at Yale University. Their model scholarship and teaching provided a

  rich platform for launching a career.

  After brief stopovers teaching for two few years back at Georgetown,

  then at Rollins College, I have made a career in DeLand, Florida, at Stetson

  University. On this personal and intellectual journey, I offer special thanks

  to Sam Crane and Mo Strype, Bill and Lori Francis, Julie Billingsley and

  John McNeill, Jack Lane and Gary Williams, and all the faculty at Stetson,

  who sustain a welcoming intellectual home. Thanks also to deans Gary

  Maris, Grady Ballenger, and Karen Ryan for steady support of research. I

  send out special thanks to the late John Hague, who was a model of intel-

  lectual curiosity and gentlemanly grace, to Emily Mieras, trusted collabo-

  rator in American studies and the arts of teaching, and to Phillip Lucas and

  Bob Sitler for friendships so refined.

  In the broader orbits of academia, I thank the many scholars who have

  read and commented on aspects of this book and its ideas in pro gress

  through correspondence and conference sessions: Catherine Albanese,

  Randall Albright, Ermine Lawrence Algaier IV, Stephen Alter, William

  Barnard, Andrea Birch, Tony Birch, Daniel Bjork, Francesca Bordogna,

  Michael Brady, Lynn Bridgers, Kyle Bromhall, Rosa Calcaterra, Charles

  Capper, Ramón del Castillo, Mary Cayton, Deborah Coon, George Cotkin,

  Henry Cowles, Donald Crosby, Pamela Crosby, Anthony DeStefanis, Ann

  Douglas, James Duban, Marilyn Fischer, Norris Frederick, Steve Gillon,

  Richard Hall, Anders Hallengren, David Hollinger, Carol Holly, José Jatuff,

  Hans Joas, Amy Kittelstrom, Alexander Klein, Louise Knight, Eric Kur-

  lander, John Lachs, David Lamberth, Paul Lauritzen, Jackson Lears, Sarin

  Marchetti, Erin McKenna, Jay Mechling, Mark Moller, Jill Morawski, Les

  Muray, Jim Pawelski, Robert Perkins, Sylvia Perkins, Scott Pratt, Hilary

  Putnam, Michael Raposa, Joan Richardson, Daniel Rinn, Jon Roberts,

  Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Roberta Sheehan, Linda Simon, Jeff Sklansky,

  Larry Smith, Dennis Soelch, Flavia Stara, David Steigerwald, Paul Stob,

  Emma Sutton, Ann Taves, Eugene Taylor, James Turner, Claudio Viale, Pe-

  ter Walker, Celia Watson, Robb Westbrook, Jane Williams- Hogan, Ulf

  Zackariasson, Leila Zenderland, and Devin Zuber. Each contact has been a

  Acknowl edgments  xxi

  learning experience. In addition, Logi Gunnarsson, Jim Kloppenberg,

  David Leary, Bob Richardson, and Richard Cándida Smith read earlier

  drafts of the entire manuscript and offered learned and astute advice; I can

  only hope that the final version of this work lives up to their high standards.

  Thanks also to Carlin Romano for suggesting the title.

  Librarians are the great information organizers in our era of information

  explosion. I am grateful to the outstanding librarians at Harvard’s Hough-

  ton and Pusey Libraries, for directing me through sometimes- arcane ar-

  chival paths, and at Stetson’s DuPont- Ball Library for their quick work with

  book orders, interlibrary loan requests, and a steady stream of research

  questions. I have benefited from all their excellent work, and I offer a spe-

  cial thanks to Sims Kline, who could transform an inquiry into a magical

  trea sure hunt.

  Institutions and individuals have granted permission to quote from manu-

  script material. In par tic u lar, for use of the William James Papers (bMS Am

  1092.9–1092.12), the James Family Papers (bMS Am 1094), and the James

  Family Publication Accounts and Correspondence, 1890–1923 (MS Am

  1435), I thank Bay James and the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  These materials have enabled some of the most intimate inquiries of this

  book.

  It has been a plea sure to work with Johns Hopkins University Press,

  which lives up to its reputation for commitment to sound cultural and intel-

  lectual history and for cutting- edge savvy. And for her crisp insights on the

  world of books, from the intellectual nuances of historical contexts to the

  business of publishing, many thanks to Elizabeth Demers.

  My warmest thanks go to my family. I am only sorry that my parents did

  not live to see this product of my academic work that they so keenly encour-

  aged; they were models of devotion to each other and to their children, with

  unstinting love expressed pragmatically, in action. Thanks too for the steady

  support of my siblings, Andrea and Tony, and John and Margaret. I am also

  grateful to Ann Jerome for support during the early phases of this proj ect

  and throughout the medical challenges, and I am grateful that the tumor

  came and went allowing me to carry on with work, family, and life in gen-

  eral. And I thank my children, Peter and Elizabeth, for their intellectual

  curiosity, intuitive awareness, and humane sympathies. They have been a

  grounding presence in my life and for my work, pointing out when I “com-

  plexify” things and doing their best to “coolify” me. I dedicate this book to

  them with love, with thanks, and with hopes for the future— their futures,

  xxii  Acknowl edgments

  and the contributions they are already making to the world’s future. James’s

  son remembered that his father was “perennially ‘keen’ about new things

  and future things, about beginnings and possibilities.” As with young

  William James, the lives of Elizabeth and Peter point to the “validity of

  possibility.”

  Young Wil iam James Thinking

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  An In vitation

  In his young adulthood, William James guarded his private thoughts,

  preserving them in his personal notebooks or doling them out in letters to

  friends. His coming of age was prolonged and often troubled, but that rarely

  stopped him from writing down his thoughts and feelings. He had the obses-

  sions of an intellectual: What about this idea? That’s an in ter est ing new

  fact. What are the implications of that feeling? And even, as he wrote in an

  April 1868 diary entry, “Look it up!” Now, a century after his death, and

  more than a century and a half after he first started trying out his ideas on pa-

  per, this book offers an invitation to witness young William James thinking.

  Welcome to the private intellectual world of young man James, begin-

  ning with a page from a personal notebook he started during his twenty-

  first year. He was in his third semester of scientific study and, as these earnest

  comments show, was also wondering about his next steps—in his career, in

  his philosophy of life, in his h
ealth, and in his personal relations with his

  family and friends. In other words, he was muddled and exploring. And

  through his trou bles, he was also finding his future direction.

  [Notebook 3], October 1, 1862, William James papers, bMS Am 1092.9 (4497) , p. [2].

  Courtesy of Bay James and the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  A Splendid Cure for Melancholy at the Water Cure in Divonne, France.

  William James papers, bMS Am 1092.2 (28). Courtesy of Bay James and the Houghton

  Library, Harvard University.

  Even when studying mainstream medicine on his way to earning his M.D. in 1869,

  young James regularly used hydropathy, the alternative healing practice also known

  as water cure, but did not rely on it exclusively—he even sometimes grew impatient

  with its slow impact. While studying physiology and psy chol ogy in Eu rope in

  1867–68, James also often grew discouraged about his vocational indecision and

  single state, and he visited water cures for his mental and physical health. At

  Divonne, he found the “water- works . . . excellent” (letter to his physiologist friend

  Henry Bowditch, CWJ, 4:339), but he imagined a still more “vortrefflich gegen

  Melancholie” (splendid [cure] for melancholy) by presuming, despite his social

  awkwardness, that he could actually attract the attention of a small crowd of

  admiring women.

  Introduction

  Almost a Phi los o pher

  The exaggerated dignity and value that phi los o phers have claimed for

  their solutions: . . . This is why so few human beings truly care for

  Philosophy. . . . theoretic rationality is but one of a thousand human

  purposes.

  William James, 1879

  In August 1868, William James was eager to remedy his single state. At age

  twenty- six, he had generally lived at home, but now he was on his own in Eu rope,

  seeking to improve his scientific credentials and his health. His postponed

  vocational commitment and his frequent eye, back, and digestive prob lems,

  punctuated by periods of utter discouragement, did not boost his confidence in

  relating with women. But in Dresden he had met a fellow American, Catherine

  Havens, who was also in Eu rope seeking improved health. He was clearly smit-

  ten, but he felt awkward. In their “forced separation,” when he was in Divonne,