http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1400195

Selected Papers on Philosophy. (With introduction by Professor C.M. Bakewell.)

"This volume serves as a compilation of some of the principal philosophical works by William James. The papers reprinted in this book are derived from multiple sources. One does not think of James as a man with a philosophy, but rather as one who cleared the decks for all future philosophising. At very rare intervals in the history of philosophy there have appeared thinkers who, like William James, are too real to be readily classified-thinkers who cut under the distinctions that divide men into schools. When they appear they always speak the language of the people for the simple reason that they are interpreting life as real men live it with a freshness of vision unknown in the schools. The influence of William James has probably travelled further and gone deeper than that of any other American scholar. Into the languages of all civilised peoples his works have been translated, and everywhere they have met with instant recognition. Perhaps the chief reason for the popularity of James's philosophy is the sense of freedom it brings with it. It is the philosophy of open doors; the philosophy of a new world with a large frontier and, beyond, the enticing unexplored lands where one may still expect the unexpected; a philosophy of hope and promise, a philosophy that invites adventure, since it holds that the dice of experience are not loaded. The older monistic philosophies and religions present by contrast stuffy closed systems and an exhausted universe. They seem to pack the individual into a logical strait-jacket and to represent all history as simply the unfolding of a play that was written to its very last line from the dawn of creation. These old absolutisms go with the old order of things. James, however, is an interpreter of the new order of democracy"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

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