Why is William James, who died almost a hundred years ago, still important today?
William James has three big claims on our attention. First, he was one of the founders of modern, physiology-based psychology. Second, he is a key figure in American philosophy, giving us both pragmatism and radical empiricism. Third, he made religion possible for educated moderns by his insistence that real religion is not churches, creeds, scriptures, and priests, but the personal religous experience of the individual. Taken as a whole, his work is a major underpinning of American individualism. He was also a great teacher and a great writer, though in a way entirely different from his famous novelist brother, Henry.” It begins to sound like William James means something to you personally. How? He is one of the people I go to for help, for guidance, for strength to get through a bad day. Like Marcus Aurelius, Samuel Johnson, Thoreau and Emerson and Erik Erikson, William James is someone I read when things get tough, when I get confused, depressed, or lost. To borrow a phrase from the
