: William James
: The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
: Dead Dodo Education
: 9781518319747
: 1
: CHF 0.80
:
: Allgemeines, Lexika
: English
: 386
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
The work of William James contributed greatly to the burgeoning fields of psychology, particularly in the areas of education, religion, mysticism and pragmatism. The brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James, William wrote several powerful essays expressing his ideas on the pragmatic theory of truth, sentience, and human beings' right to believe. In 'The Will to Believe', James suggests that what a person holds to be true or attainable may exist through that person's belief in them, regardless of a lack of physical evidence. In a sense, he advocates the theory of self-fulfilling prophesies. 'Human Immortality' was a speech delivered during the annual Ingersoll Lectureship, given in memory of George Goldthwait Ingersoll, in 1897 at Harvard University. These works are a prime example of the powerful influence William James has had on modern psychology, and are still recognized today for their brilliance and revolutionary impacts on the field.

IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?[1]


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WHEN MR. MALLOCK’S BOOK WITH this title appeared some fifteen years ago, the jocose answer that “it depends on the liver“ had great currency in the newspapers. The answer which I propose to give to-night cannot be jocose. In the words of one of Shakespeare’s prologues,—

“I come no more to make you laugh; things now, That bear a weighty and a serious brow, Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,"—

must be my theme. In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly; and I know not what such an association as yours intends, nor what you ask of those whom you invite to address you, unless it be to lead you from the surface-glamour of existence, and for an hour at least to make you heedless to the buzzing and jigging and vibration of small interests and excitements that form the tissue of our ordinary consciousness. Without further explanation or apology, then, I ask you to join me in turning an attention, commonly too unwilling, to the profounder bass-note of life. Let us search the lonely depths for an hour together, and see what answers in the last folds and recesses of things our question may find.

I.


With many men the question of life’s worth is answered by a temperamental optimism which makes them incapable of believing that anything seriously evil can exist. Our dear old Walt Whitman’s works are the standing text-book of this kind of optimism. The mere joy of living is so immense in Walt Whitman’s veins that it abolishes the possibility of any other kind of feeling:—

“To breathe the a