“William James” is nearly synonymous with radical empiricism and pragmatism. He influenced literary history by developing the stream of consciousness, and became a prolific philosopher and psychologist—teaching both subjects at Stanford University, one might ad. John distinguishes between pragmatism about linguistic meaning and pragmatism about truth. Pragmatism about linguistic meaning looks something like this: a camper is chasing a squirrel around the trunk of a tree. Do we say that he is running around the squirrel or not? It seems like there is no empirical evidence that could go one way or another, so we shouldn’t think that either description is definitively correct. Pragmatism about truth is the stronger claim that, roughly speaking, truth is what works for you.
Russell Goodman joins the discussion, and gives us a brief biographical portrait of James. James, much like the stream of consciousness, wandered around from being an artist, to studying chemistry and physiology, and ending up in philosophy and psychology. He never studied philosophy formally, and sometimes that shows in his loose, uncontrolled writing style.
James’ pragmatism is often seen as a very scientific philosophy, but it was dealt with the limits of science. It treats knowledge as a holistic system, and it’s not always easy to separate science, religion and ethics. John worries about consistency in James’ overall views, and Russell does his best to defend them (mostly). From here the conversation steers towards the question of whether pragmatism ends up being a fancy word for relativism. John, Ken and Russell talk about the relationship between James and other great thinkers, particularly Ludwig Wittgenstein, who was always equivocal about what he thought of pragmatism.
- Roving Philosophical Report(见5:47):朱莉·那不勒斯(Julie Napolin)与英国文学教授谈论威廉·詹姆斯(William James)引入“意识流”(stream of consciousness)对文学的贡献。詹姆斯认为，意识不是线性的，也不是逻辑的。相反，它会突然停下来，就像鸟儿在树枝间跳跃和飞行一样。这种层次分明的意识在文学界留下了深刻的印记，也许最显著的例子就是詹姆斯·乔伊斯。我们如何理解这种内部联想独白?所有超生的音乐排名从主题爆发你最近读过什么好书吗，雨确实洗了一切，不是吗?
- Conundrum(seek to 46:45) A listener from Vancouver, Washington asks, “Can someone who never lies really tell the truth? Can we live without lying? Is omission a lie? Is it ever right to lie?” John, Ken and Russell puzzle over these head scratchers, and suggest that in the end, you need to settle these ethical questions on a case-by-case basis.
