/tag/william%20james

2 quotes tagged 'william james'

The Denial of Death
Author: Ernest Becker
Publisher: Free Press (1975)
321

I think the whole question of what is possible for the inner life of man was nicely summed up by Suzanne Langer in the phrase “the myth of the inner life.”37 She used this term in reference to the experience of music, but it seems to apply to the whole metaphysic of the unconscious, of the emergence of new energies from the heart of nature. But let us quickly add that this use of the term “myth” is not meant to be disparaging or to reflect simple “illusion.” As Langer explained, some myths are vegetative, they generate real conceptual power, real apprehension of a dim truth, some kind of global adumbration of what we miss by sharp, analytic reason. Most of all, as William James and Tillich have argued, beliefs about reality affect people’s real actions: they help introduce the new into the world. Especially is this true for beliefs about man, about human nature, and about what man may yet become. If something influences our efforts to change the world, then to some extent it must change that world.


The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Author: Julian Jaynes
Publisher: University of Toronto Press (1978)
11

It is William James who has given the best discussion of the conscious automaton theory*. His argument here is a little like Samuel Johnson's downing philosophical idealism by kicking a stone and crying, 'I refute it thus!' It is just plain inconceivable that consciousness should have nothing to do with a business which it so faithfully attends. If consciousness is the mere impotent shadow of action, why is it more intense when action is most hesitent? And why are we least conscious when doing something most habitual? Certainly this seesawing relationship between consciousness and actions is something that any theory of consciousness must explain. \r\n \r\n\r\nWilliam James, Principles of Psychology (New York: Holt, 1890), Vol. I, Ch. 5