Abstract
Future historians of philosophy will certainly agree that it was mainly the thought of three thinkers which helped to remodel the contemporary style of philosophizing: James, Bergson, and Husserl. Although from the beginning of their activity James and Bergson found themselves attracted to each other, entered into correspondence, and met personally several times, there is no reference in James’s books or in his correspondence to Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen (1900–1901). On the other hand, we know Husserl’s admiration for James’s Principles of Psychology, which he studied carefully with the intention of writing a critical review for a German philosophical journal — a project never realized. Certainly such a document from Husserl’s pen would have opened for all friends of James’s psychology the best approach to Husserl’s own thought.
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Reference
Preface to the Italian translation of Principles, quoted by Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James, Boston, 1935, Vol. II, p. 54.
The Principles of Psychology, New York, 1893, Vol. I, p. 185
Principles, Vol. I, p. 226.
As Professor John Dewey states in his impressive study, “ The Vanishing Subject in the Psychology of James” (Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XXXVII, 1940, pp. 589–599), “There is a double strain in the Principles of Psychology of William James. One strain is official acceptance of epistemological dualism. According to this view, the science of psychology centers about a subject which is ‘mental’ just as physics centers about an object which is material. But James’s analysis of special topics tends, on the contrary, to reduction of the subject to a vanishing point, save as ‘subject’ is identified with the organism, the latter, moreover, having no existence save in interaction with environing conditions. According to the latter strain, subject and object do not stand for separate orders or kinds of existence but at most for certain distinctions made for a definite purpose within experience” (op. cit., p. 589). Professor Dewey quotes different passages of James’s work, proving that both views can be found therein and that the equivocal account given by James of the nature of the self and our consciousness of it is, above all, the source of the controversy. It may be admitted that Professor Dewey’s interpretation leading to reduction of the subject to a vanishing point corresponds in a higher degree to James’s later philosophy than the dualistic view. But even Professor Dewey agrees that the important chapter on the “stream of consciousness” is verbally the most subjectivistic part of the whole book and he comments on this statement in a footnote as follows: “I say ‘verbally’ because it is quite possible to translate ‘stream of consciousness’ into [the ongoing], ‘course of experience’ [‘of experienced things’] and retain the substance of the chapter.” The present paper, limiting its topic to James’s concept of the stream of thought, neglects intentionally the second strain emphasized by Professor Dewey and deals exclusively with the first, the subjective one.
Principles, Vol. I, pp. 370, 400 f. Cf. footnote 4.
E. Husserl, “Phenomenology,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed.
Vol. I, p. 184.
E. Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, translated by Boyce Gibson, § 36.
Cf. for this problem, Husserl, Ideas, § 3 ff. (and see the author’s “Some Leading Concepts of Phenomenology,’’ Collected Papers, Vol. I.)
“Phenomenology,” op. cit.
Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James, Vol. II, p. 75–13 Principles, Vol. I, p. 240. In a specific footnote James refers here to the Psychology (Vol. I, pp. 219–220) of Franz Brentano (the teacher of Edmund Husserl) and says: “Altogether this chapter of Brentano’s on the unity of consciousness is as good as anything with which I am acquainted.”
Principles, Vol. I, p. 245. It must be remembered that James uses the term “feeling” as synonymous with “thought” and consciousness. Cf. Vol. I, p. 186.
In Husserl’s Erfahrung und Urteil (Part I, Chapter III) it is even treated under the caption “Experience and Relation.”
Principles, Vol. I, p. 221.
Principles, Vol. I, p. 459.
Cf. also Principles, Vol. I, p. 272: “Sameness in a multiplicity of objective appearances is thus the basis of our belief in realities outside of thought.”
Ideas, § 86.
Cf. Ideas, § 82. Professor Boyce Gibson, the English translator, has chosen the term “fringe” here for Husserl’s term “Horizont” (horizon) and has by this translation alone anticipated our whole topic.
Principles, Vol. I, pp. 608 ff.
Principles, Vol. I, pp. 259 ff.
Cf. R. B. Perry, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 75 ff.; Principles, Vol. I, pp. 275 ff.
We have neglected entirely, e. g., the function of the “topic” as “grammatical subject” and the problem of a general grammar based on the concept of fringes. According to James, a feeling of “and,” of “if,” of “by,” also pertains to the fringe relation (Principles, Vol. I, pp. 245 f.). * See Collected Papers, Vol. I, pp. 112–113, 274 ff.
Principles, Vol. I, p. 260.
Ibid., p. 271.
Ideas, pp. 118 f.
Principles, Vol. I, p. 472.
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© 1970 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Schutz, A. (1970). William James’s Concept of the Stream of Thought Phenomenologically Interpreted. In: Schutz, I. (eds) Collected Papers III. Phaenomenologica, vol 22. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-3456-7_1
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