The principles of psychology / by William James.

James, William

doi:10.5962/bhl.title.47583

Cited by 327 publications

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“…"Sensations," says James, "first make us acquainted with innumerable things, and then are replaced by thoughts which know the same things in altogether other ways." 33 A few pages earlier he had said, more strongly: "We can only think or talk about the relations of objects with which we have acquaintance already" (first emphasis added). 34 For James, then-at least in these passages-we can never have thoughts about (or, consequently, have knowledge about) things with which we are not (and will never be) acquainted.…”

Section: Russell Against James On the Epistemology Of Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since James equates acquaintance with knowledge by means of sensations, we may take him to be maintaining that the knowledge we have in acquaintance is knowledge of those whats that we are thinking about in our "sensational" thoughts. 22 Since this remark occurs just two pages before Russell's formulation of the POA in KAKD, we can resolve our difficulty simply by supposing that in his gloss on that formulation Russell is using the word 'about' in the second, stricter way. In other words, he is claiming that when I make a judgment-for example, the judgment that aRb, where "a," "R," and "b" are genuine Russellian names-I must be acquainted with such constituents of the judgmental complex as he would previously (that is, when he still believed in propositions) have regarded as the constituents of the proposition judged-in our case, a, R, and b.…”

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Russellian Acquaintance Revisited

Proops¹

2014

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In Bertrand Russell's writings during the first two decades of the Twentieth Century there occur two rather different distinctions that involve his much-discussed, technical notion of acquaintance. The first is the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description; the second, the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge of truths. This article examines the nature and philosophical purpose of these two distinctions, while also tracing the evolution of Russell's notion of acquaintance in the first two decades of the twentieth century. It argues that, when he first expressly formulates his Principle of Acquaintance in 1903, Russell's chief concern is to appeal to the first distinction to argue against a certain tightly restrictive epistemology of understanding that he finds in the writings of William James. By contrast, when in 1911 he begins to place emphasis on the second distinction, his concern is to appeal to it in the course of defending his thesis that we are capable of having perfect knowledge (by acquaintance) of particulars. The defense is necessary because this thesis comes under attack from a certain argument Russell finds in the writings of the Monistic Idealists. Russell explicitly formulates distinction A for the first time in some study notes from 1903entitled "Points about Denoting" (hereafter cited as PAD). 6 These notes also contain his first explicit formulation of (some version of) the Principle of Acquaintance (hereafter cited as POA). Russell deploys distinctions A and B against two rather different targets. He appeals to distinction A-and to the thesis that we may know by description certain things with which we lack acquaintance-in the course of challenging the restrictive epistemology of understanding that is-or seems to be-espoused by James in his Principles of Psychology, and which James himself derives-or thinks he derives-from Locke. According to this epistemology, acquaintance-or in James's terminology "sensation"-is both an enabling condition of thought, and hence of knowledge, and the limiting condition of them. 9 In other words, for James we are able to think about anything with which we are-or can be-acquainted, but only about such things.Russell, I shall argue, seeks to replace James's epistemology of understanding with a view that resembles it insofar as it treats acquaintance as an enabling condition of thought and knowledge (of truths), but that also differs from it insofar as it denies that acquaintance sets limits to thought, and hence also to knowledge (of truths).The philosophical use to which Russell puts distinction B is altogether different. In the summer of 1911, in the course of writing POP, he formulates the doctrine that acquaintance with sense-data constitutes knowledge that is "perfect and complete" (POP, 46). He does so, I shall argue, not out of any attachment to a Cartesian version of foundationalism, but rather because he sees this thesis as a way to resist an argument for a certain holistic conception of kn...

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Section: Russell Against James On the Epistemology Of Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Russellian Acquaintance Revisited

Proops¹

2014

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“…As James writes, "Space means but the aggregate of all our possible sensations." 503 Consequently, the body becomes the site of these sensations, each and every one of which leaves a trace that makes it impossible for the body to undergo the same impression twice. 504 Its disposition is constantly changing with its environment.…”

Section: Bodies/buildingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…166 This is a view shared with William James, who maintains that habit condenses and simplifies the movements required to complete a particular task, thus habit "diminishes fatigue" by freeing up attention. 167 Habit, for James, is a material phenomenon that is registered both on and in our bodies. He holds that our repertoire of habits "depend[s] on sensations not attended to," which means that our "body's attitude" or proprioception subtends the series of movements which make up a given habitual action, like buttoning a shirt or brushing one's teeth.…”

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Plastic Bodies: Rebuilding Sensation After Phenomenology

Sparrow¹

2015

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The world is due for a resurgence of original speculative metaphysics. The New Metaphysics series aims to provide a safe house for such thinking amidst the demoralizing caution and prudence of professional academic philosophy. We do not aim to bridge the analyticcontinental divide, since we are equally impatient with nail-filing analytic critique and the continental reverence for dusty textual monuments. We favor instead the spirit of the intellectual gambler, and wish to discover and promote authors who meet this description. Like an emergent recording company, what we seek are traces of a new metaphysical 'sound' from any nation of the world. The editors are open to translations of neglected metaphysical classics, and will consider secondary works of especial force and daring. But our main interest is to stimulate the birth of disturbing masterpieces of twenty-first century philosophy. Tom Sparrow Plastic Bodies: Rebuilding Sensation After PhenomenologyLondon 2015 OPEN HUMANITIES PRESSOpen Humanities Press is an international, scholar-led open access publishing collective whose mission is to make leading works of contemporary critical thought freely available worldwide. More at http://openhumanitiespress.org Abbreviations Texts by Levinas EE Existence and Existents OB Otherwise than Being TI Totality and Infinity TO Time and the OtherTexts by Merleau-Ponty Translated by Mark Allan Ohm and Joel AndrepontThe body becomes worthy of philosophical examination when it is no longer a question of the body but of my body. Husserl introduces a fundamental distinction between Körper, the objective, anatomico-physiological body, andLeib, one's own body [le corps propre], the living body, the place of sensations and emotions, the "flesh." This distinction marks a decisive development in his thinking and saves the body from being merely an object of conceptual devaluation. By rejecting the methods of descriptive psychology in order to establish a transcendental phenomenology, Husserl grants a constitutive role to the "flesh" as lived body. My body must be considered in its individuality, its incarnation or embodiment (Verleiblichung), which amounts to considering the living corporeal body [le vécu corporel] in the purity of its manifestation.My body is a token of my own immediate worldly presence; it presents to the mind what Husserl calls hyletic data (the body's perceptual, sensory content, like touch, look, voice, kinaesthesia). In this way, the body becomes the worldly presence of an intentional subject's mental life.The phenomenological body stands in the sphere of immanence (the sensation that I have of my body's immediate presence in the world), a sphere which, after the epoché, is reduced to the presence of the thing itself.14 Catherine MalabouSensation means that the thing reveals itself in the flesh and stands there before our eyes as something given to itself and in actuality.The Husserlian analyses of the living corporeal body once again mark a major advancement in the history of philosophy. As a result of th...

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“…The psychologist William James, for example, famously compared the attempt to capture such fleeting subjectivity as that of grasping 'a spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the darkness looks'. 6 I agree that the aforementioned denigration of the authority of subjective experience may be traced to this long-standing issue of meta-cognition, and its absence during periods of mind wandering. However, James recognized a second impediment to introspection, which, until recently, has received little attention within mainstream psychology.…”

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Writing and Daydreaming

Morrison

2016

The Restless Compendium

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This chapter was conceived during an interdisciplinary psychological experiment, in which geographer Hazel Morrison asked participants to record and describe in face-to-face interviews their everyday experiences of mind wandering. Questions abound concerning the legitimacy of interviewee narratives when describing subjective experience, and the limits of language in achieving 'authentic' description. These concerns increase when looking at mind-wandering experiences, because of the absence of meta-cognition during periods of self-generated thought. Here, Hazel explores the tensions at play in twentieth-century discourses around the self, fantasy and expression.

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The principles of psychology / by William James.

Cited by 327 publications

References 0 publications

Russellian Acquaintance Revisited

Russellian Acquaintance Revisited

Plastic Bodies: Rebuilding Sensation After Phenomenology

Writing and Daydreaming

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