1. Chapter 6: William James
A History of Psychology
(3rd Edition)
John G. Benjafield

2. William James (1842–1910) Family wealth; liberal, democratic values
Childhood: family visited Europe often
: studied at Harvard
First atudied chemistry; later medicine
1872: taught physiology at Harvard

3. The Principles of Psychology
1878: began writing; took 12 years to complete
Each of its two volumes is almost 700 pages long
Principles is a central work in the history of psychology

4. Habit People are largely creatures of habit
Formation of habits depends on plasticity
Plasticity: the ability of an organism to alter its behaviour as circumstances change
Habit = ‘the great flywheel of society’

5. Habit: Practical Suggestions
Important to ‘make automatic and habitual, as early as possibly, as many useful actions as we can’
When first acquiring a habit, be consistent
Form useful habits

6. James’ Approach Consider every issue in an open-minded fashion
Introspection: ‘looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover’
Not perfect, readily prone to error
Indispensable source of data

7. Phenomenology James as a precursor to phenomenology?
Method that follows from Brentano and Husserl
James did not impose a prior set of categories on experience
Psychologist’s fallacy: to confuse one’s standpoint with that of the mental fact about which one is make a report
Psychology = a natural science
Not an experimentalist but acknowledged experimental and comparative methods

8. Use of Metaphor Characteristic feature of James’ method
Not just a literary device
Convey overall complexity without necessarily specifying precision
Ex. The stream of thought

9. The Stream of Thought ≠ only intellectual events
‘Thought’ = all of our experiences
Later renamed ‘the stream of consciousness’
Vs. ‘train of thought’ or ‘chain of thought’

10. The Stream of Consciousness
Characteristics:
‘Every thought tends to be part of a personal consciousness’
‘With each personal consciousness thought is always changing’
‘Within each personal consciousness thought is sensibly continuous’
‘Consciousness always appears to deal with objects independent of itself’
‘It is interested in some parts of these objects to the exclusion of others, and welcomes or rejects all the while’

11. Consciousness is like a bird’s life…
‘alternation of flights and perchings’
Places where the stream flows at different rates
Substantive parts: places were the stream flows slowly
Transitive parts: places where the stream flows quickly
Language better suited to describing substantive parts

12. Fringe of Consciousness
Stream of consciousness does not have a well-defined edge
Difficulty to say where it ends and begins
James discussed events beyond the fringe of consciousness
Ex. Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

13. The Consciousness of Self
Self divided into two parts:
1. I: knows things, including oneself
= Pure ego
2. Me: what I know about myself
= Empirical self

14. The Pure Ego
Can we say anything about a self that exists over and above our experiences?
James’ conclusion:
Nothing of the pure ego we can observe
If it exists, pure ego cannot observe itself

15. The Empirical Self Divided into three parts: The Material Self
= All those things you would call yours
The Social Self
= Tied to those occasions when other people recognize us
The Spiritual Self
= A person’s inner or subjective being (≠ Soul)

16. Attention
Descriptions of attention still cited by theorists 100 years after the publication of Principles
Appreciated the complexity of attention
Inattention: the process by which we do not pay attention to what we are doing
Very common
Automatic Writing

17. Memory Primary memory: of the present moment
= Immediate memory
Tends to be quickly forgotten without rehearsal
Permits us to recall recent experiences immediately and accurately
Secondary memory: of the past

18. The Emotions James-Lange Theory of Emotions
Called Lange because similar viewpoint advanced independently by C.G. Lange
The theory appears to have been systematically misinterpreted for decades
Critic: Walter B. Cannon

19. Will
1870: James resolved bout of depression partly by choosing to believe in free will
We cannot freely choose to do anything whatsoever
But our will can make a difference when we are in conflict situation
Preoccupaton with will power
Supported self-help movements

20. Other Topics in Principles
Parapsychology
Religious experience

21. Distinctions between People
Tough-mindedness: tends to place great store in facts and is materialistic, pessimistic, and skeptical
Tender-mindedness: tends to believe in principles and is idealistic, optimistic, and religious

22. James on Freud James met Freud in America in 1909:
‘…I have always wished that I might be as fearless as he was in the face of approaching death’
‘The future of psychology belongs to your work’