Young William James Thinking Read online

  The result is examination of mature work, Erikson explains, in terms of the

  “infantile in the adult,” with the proposition that these later creations result

  from “preservation of those earlier energies,” adapted to adult language and

  work settings. For example, Martin Luther’s personal tensions “in the period

  between puberty and adulthood” generated his personal changes that would

  lead to his revolutionary impact in the Eu ro pean Christian Reformation;

  “with this new person,” Erikson summarizes, “a new generation, and with

  that, a new era.” Similarly, this book connects the young and mature James

  to show relations between the less refined expressions of early thought and

  his more famous theorizing. However, in developmental biography, the vec-

  tor is reversed: while Erikson explains later insights in terms of earlier iden-

  tity, the method of this work is future oriented. Rather than emphasize

  22  Young William James Thinking

  youthful issues lingering in mature work, this book depicts themes of grow-

  ing importance— inchoate, still groping— beginning with his early explora-

  tions. The mingling here of biography and theory employs “culminology”

  for attention to the role of culminating theories in earlier work rather than

  the role of original psychological conditions persisting in later thought. This

  method also avoids another privileging of origins, the impulse to detect later

  theories already pres ent in early thought. Instead, developmental biography

  offers assessment of direction emerging from choices made at each juncture,

  with no prior plan or guaranteed future; like adaptive purposes, personal

  and intellectual developments address the needs and hopes of each moment,

  with the later emergence only one possibility among others. The method of

  developmental biography coincides with James’s own philosophical orien-

  tation, already articulated in the 1870s in his theory of mind as “an essen-

  tially teleological mechanism.” With theories functioning “for the sake of

  ends” in each immediate setting,” this outlook avoids the idealistic or reli-

  gious teleology of prior perfect plans manifesting within the mundane

  world in favor of teleological purpose gradually taking shape, in Darwinian

  terms, with direction emerging from choices made at each juncture—or, as

  he put it in his youth, choices made without guarantee for any long- term

  future. 22

  The method of developmental biography also reflects the growth of at-

  tention to the relation of body and mind, literally, in evaluation of biography

  and theory, for an account of a phi los o pher in formation. Previous evalua-

  tion of James’s youth has put less emphasis on his intellectual life than on

  his personal issues; he did indeed have plenty of trou bles that readily com-

  mand attention. And studies of the mature James have tended to treat his

  early life as merely personal, with little theoretical significance. The con-

  ventional wisdom about James in his youth includes a picture of a young

  man weathering so many prob lems that his early life seems unconnected to

  the energetic work of the mature intellectual. That gulf between youth and

  maturity constitutes a puzzle addressed in this book through a combination

  of biographical storytelling and theoretical evaluation. James the mature

  psychologist himself explained that “by the age of thirty” character and

  thought have “set like plaster, and will never soften again.” Inquiry here

  into what he was learning through his mid- thirties shows the thinking that

  set his own directions toward his mature commitments and theories. This

  work on James’s early intellectual development resembles what Thomas

  Sönderqvist calls an “existential proj ect,” with the life story presenting an

  Almost a Phi los o pher  23

  “embodied mind,” suggesting “the possibilities for action offered by a par-

  tic u lar set of contexts,” and with attention to the mature culminations of

  ideas first emerging in his early development. 23 Young William James Think-

  ing offers a case study into the roots of accomplished adulthood in youthful

  development, with a portrait of a life lived while theory thought: these

  chapters offer an opportunity to examine James before the familiar James,

  with that James as a possibility, still in formation and full of live and diffi-

  cult choices.

  Before James’s contributions to diff er ent disciplines, he had not yet made

  contributions to any field. His thinking was still an undifferentiated mass— a

  disciplinary version of what he would call “pure experience,” not yet con-

  ceptually parsed out into psy chol ogy, philosophy, religious thought, social

  commentary, and other fields— sometimes even laced with forlorn worry

  that he would not ever actually find any vocational direction at all. The per-

  spective from young James’s own point of view can reap rewards for under-

  standing James’s mature theories because in their roots his ideas readily

  display interconnections that would not be as apparent in their vivid branches.

  Young adulthood is a moratorium period in anyone’s life, and James is fa-

  mous for taking longer in that phase of life than most; he was indeed a late

  bloomer, and his early sprouts are related to and can help explain his later

  blooms. The connections presented in this developmental biography sug-

  gest possibilities for further research from looking at the many parts of his

  life in relation: his private and public writing, his little- known texts and

  canonical works, his alternative and professional commitments, his roles as

  seeker and as scientist, and his affiliations with other psychologists, phi los-

  o phers, and religious thinkers, along with his legacy in a range of fields into

  our own time; and there are surely more insights to be gleaned from the

  main terrain of this book integrating biography and theory, pointing to the

  relation of youth and maturity, and his integrations of science and religion,

  and of material and immaterial realms of life. 24 A bass note of these pages is

  not only that the many Jameses vividly illustrate his pluralism— and the

  power of his discourse to reach diff er ent audiences— but also that his own

  pluralistic parts are interrelated once understood in the contexts of his de-

  velopment, with stories serving as theories in formation, and theories man-

  ifesting as the morals of the stories.

  James’s influential theories took time to mature before he was a figure of

  influence, which further underscores the significance of his extended period

  of young adulthood. Each chapter of this book exhibits the long reach of his

  24  Young William James Thinking

  education in science and religion, with his reflections on material and im-

  material ingredients of natu ral life. In addition, the chapters show his array

  of interests on his own model of the active mind spontaneously pursuing its

  interests, which he would soon describe as key ingredients of conscious-

  ness. The range of ideas covered, each exhibiting James wrestling with ma-

  terial and immaterial dimensions of experience, emerges directly from his
/>
  own interests.

  A chronological approach would allow for more orderly reporting of life

  events in sequence (see the chronology), but the thematic focus here puts

  stories in the ser vice of theoretical illumination. This thematic approach

  has allowed for more thorough attention to his engagement with par tic u lar

  theories as he lived through them, and it offers more depth of contextual-

  ization. The sharp focus in this book on particulars year by year, and even

  sometimes month by month, shows James with no clear or certain line of

  development toward the later figure we know better. Instead, he jolted in

  diff er ent directions, sometimes in apparent repetition while he worked out

  subtleties of thought, and with hesitations along with deliberate goals, as

  his mature outlooks only gradually emerged. In place of stories removed

  from his theoretical development or familiar theories emerging with artifi-

  cial speed because delivered without attention to his contexts while think-

  ing, readers will find here fulsome descriptions of his theories in formation

  and in their contexts, as this phi los o pher famous for theories of free choice

  made his own choices. The thematic chapters show his keen immersion in

  each of these topics: his science education, his understanding of medicine,

  his fascination with the ancients, and his own personal trou bles.

  The James of chapter 1 first encountered professional science with his

  work in laboratories, his study of cutting- edge texts, his natu ral history

  exploring, and his circulation with the philosophical assumptions of au-

  thoritative advocates for the influence of science. While sharing widespread

  enthusiastic expectations that science could explain ever- more workings of

  the world, he responded with an alternative vision for the future of science,

  one with a thorough commitment to natu ral facts, but also with a human-

  ist’s humility about the limits of scientific ability ever to understand nature

  completely. Chapter 2 shows James studying scientific medicine while he

  also supported alternative sectarian practices and even used them to man-

  age his own health. With this diverse background, he gained a thorough

  knowledge of human physiology and of its actions during mental opera-

  tions, and he also gained an appreciation for the potential interaction of

  Almost a Phi los o pher  25

  body and mind. This set him on a path toward continued advocacy of plu-

  ralism in general, and of other theories enlisting material and immaterial

  ingredients in relation. Chapter 3 finds James escaping from his scientific

  studies into the art and philosophy of the ancient world, with special inter-

  est in Greek worldviews and in Stoic philosophy before the dominance of

  mono the ism. He found in the ancients’ serene ac cep tance of nature’s ways,

  and their artful coping with perennial human dilemmas, an elegant com-

  plement to the comforts of the Christian message of salvation beyond this

  world. As chapter 4 shows, by the late 1860s James suffered from tensions

  that grew from familial and societal expectations, vocational indecision,

  frequent ill health, awkwardness with women, clouds of depression, and

  uncertainty about his philosophical commitments, including the respective

  appeals of scientific and religious ways of looking at the world. However,

  just as sectarian medicine welcomed crises as stages toward healing, James

  during his troubled times continued his avid learning; his prob lems became

  opportunities for growth, with seeds set for later theoretical insights. Cop-

  ing with the intertwining complexities of his prob lems constituted an inter-

  disciplinary education, even as his memories of trou bles provided a well of

  sympathy for his later audiences. Taken by chapter, this is a book about

  James’s engagement with distinct themes that concerned him most as a

  young man; taken together, his engagement with these topics point to a

  budding phi los o pher embarking on the first steps toward his lifelong com-

  mitment to capture concreteness, conciliate differences, and find the rela-

  tion of immaterial and material dimensions of life.

  The stories here pres ent a chance to meet James again for the first time.

  Just as these chapters focus on James’s early experiences and his search for

  reconciliation of contrasts, so the later chapters of his life would continue

  such mediation with variations on his ongoing commitment to science and

  to spirituality. In each of his theoretical inquiries, he recognized diff er ent

  sides of debate generally showing commitment to material or immaterial

  parts of life, he evaluated their tangible purposes and contributions, and he

  emerged with an alternative that integrated their respective contributions.

  The ambivalence of his youth, and his difficulty in making choices, stayed

  with him through his last years when he found it difficult even to decide

  whether to retire or not. From the fall of 1905, he declared “Resign” over a

  dozen times in his diary, often with multiple exclamation points; even on a

  day when teaching went well, after which he proudly recorded, “gave good

  lecture,” he added, “but must resign! Resign.” Then on other days, he wrote

  26  Young William James Thinking

  the key word of his difficult choice but crossed it out, adding “ Don’t Re-

  sign!” This ambivalence would continue for two years, when he fi nally retired

  from teaching to become professor of philosophy, emeritus, in 1907. The type

  of indecision he had already experienced in his early years was a direct

  result of keen awareness of relations; and those impulses would become, as

  he had noticed by the end of his youth, the “philosophic . . . habit of always

  seeing an alternative.” Those early burdens became preparation for his

  mature achievement of conciliations, with deep appreciation of the merits

  within far- flung propositions. James was indeed a “ great phi los o pher of

  the cusp,” in Charles Taylor’s elegant phrase expressing the conventional

  wisdom about James; to Taylor, these traits mean compromising built on

  such “wide sympathy” that he remained “open” and therefore uncommit-

  ted to any par tic u lar position.25 A close look at his youth shows James refining the burdens of his indecisions in his development of a decisive ambivalence,

  a decisiveness within his ambivalence, in the creation of perspectives boldly

  integrating contrasts.

  Q

  Approaching William James’s theories through his biographical develop-

  ment can display both the halting steps in their formation and the depths of

  his commitment to avoiding abstract theoretical categories or one- sided

  choices. With his decisive ambivalence, each diff er ent orientation would

  serve as a potentially useful expression of intellectual, temperamental, or

  cultural impulses deeply grounded within the representatives of humanity

  supporting that position, even as he also recognized limits within each posi-

  tion. His theories have roots in his life, and his life has roots in his youth, when

  he had not yet separated his interests and insights into vari ous publications

  distributed to diff er ent
fields; also, his example and his thought can in turn

  address ongoing cultural and intellectual issues since his time. All these

  paths begin with his own stories, in context and in development when

  young James was making his own life choices without knowing any of this

  future impact.

  Chapter One

  First Embrace of Science

  Few will deny that a current seems setting from every quarter of

  Science, . . . which may be briefly described as declaring the Self-

  Competency of Nature. . . . Grant that the [the scientific view of

  nature] . . . is but a partial synthesis,— grant that at pres ent it turns its

  back upon the Super natural,— may it not nevertheless serve an excellent

  purpose, and in the end . . . prove to be a necessary step in the way to a

  larger purer view of the Super natural?

  William James, 1865

  William James did not fight in the American Civil War. At the firing of the first

  shots in April 1861, he was nineteen years old, prime age for enlistment, but

  through four brutal years, he never got directly involved in the war. He showed

  some inclinations to sign up for military ser vice or to work in the South with

  freed African American slaves, but he never took action on those impulses. In

  the early 1860s, he was already showing the ambivalence that he would carry

  for the rest of his life, but he had not yet figured out how to deal with this cen-

  tral temperamental trait. His intellectual curiosity and sense of responsibility

  amplified the burdens at moments of indecision. In 1863, while watching a

  dress parade of troops ready to ship South for combat, he felt so “gnawed by

  questions as to my own duty of enlisting or not” that he simply “shrank back . . .

  from being recognized. ” 1 That type of indecision would hamper his choices for another de cade.

  James’s tendencies to see the significance of diff er ent positions met their

  first adult test in the early 1860s when his attention was pul ed to deep consider-

  ation of many issues that gnawed at him: the raging war and his own education,

  the call of patriotism and of moral purpose, the appeal of art and of science, and

  his interest in psy chol ogy and the lack of jobs in that vocation. In 1860–61,

  James was still living at home, studying painting at the studio of William Mor-