Tuesday, January 09, 2018

Hmm …

… The Thinker Who Believed in Doing | Humanities. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I am a great admirer of William James and there is much in this piece worth being reminded of. But connecting James with contemporary political fads and fancies cheapens him. And it is impossible to imagine James not being opposed to much that is happening on college campuses these days, such as trigger warnings, etc.
What James was really the forerunner of is phenomenology. He believed that our ideas should be weighed in the balance of experience, not our experience in the balance of our ideas.

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