The rise of empiricism: William James, Thomas hill green, and the struggle over psychology

Abstract

For my Mother and Father,Whose own investigations Instigated these.And it is important for thinkers of all schools not to go on repeating things about experience and empirical method that have been proved factually false.… And were this the proper occasion, I think it could be shown that two contemporary schools, now exercising considerable influence, the British analytic school and the school of logical positivism, suffer greatly because of their dependence upon pre-Jamesian psychology.…Present-day biological, anthropological and psychological knowledge is required in order to purge the minds of philosophers of antiquated notionswhatever be the direct function of this knowledge in philosophy.… The significance of James for those who take their stand in philosophy upon experience [is that he] … pointed to a new way of analyzing and reporting it.And he did more than point.He opened up paths of access to nothing less than a revolutionary change in traditional empiricism.John Dewey (Dewey 1942, 54) ['the' del.] [intrl.marked by caret cut off] [illeg.word, poss.'microcosm'] cobwebs, *['lost' del.] gone like [ab.del.'burst through'] bubbles in the sun.['There' del.]Once heavy ['weights' del.] upon us, they ['now count no m' del.] weigh['s' del.] no more than air.[del.'We are free of them, we sing, we move, we ['float' del.] soar, *we sing [intrl., undel. in error]'] We are borne on a ['wave that overflows it glorious' del.] wave that ['rolls them under, their pressure is unfelt towers above them, *and [ab.del.'as it']' del.] rolls them ['under' del.] so easily *under its **volume ['v' ov.'gl'] [intrl.]that their very resistance is unfelt.['These superior levels of personal energy' del.]We are free of them, we move, we soar, we sing.This *sense of enfranchisement and ease [ab.del.'carolling and lyric['al' del.] quality' del.] characterize['s' del.] all these superior levels of personal energy and gives them *a glad & [ab.del.'the'] carolling ['and lyric' del.]

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