A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy
James, William, 1842-1910
English
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A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE
Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in
Philosophy
BY WILLIAM JAMES
1909
CONTENTS
LECTURE I
THE TYPES OF PHILOSOPHIC THINKING 1
Our age is growing philosophical again, 3. Change of tone since 1860, 4.
Empiricism and Rationalism defined, 7. The process of Philosophizing:
Philosophers choose some part of the world to interpret the whole by, 8.
They seek to make it seem less strange, 11. Their temperamental
differences, 12. Their systems must be reasoned out, 13. Their tendency
to over-technicality, 15. Excess of this in Germany, 17. The type of
vision is the important thing in a philosopher, 20. Primitive thought,
21. Spiritualism and Materialism: Spiritualism shows two types, 23.
Theism and Pantheism, 24. Theism makes a duality of Man and God, and
leaves Man an outsider, 25. Pantheism identifies Man with God, 29. The
contemporary tendency is towards Pantheism, 30. Legitimacy of our demand
to be essential in the Universe, 33. Pluralism versus Monism: The 'each-
form' and the 'all-form' of representing the world, 34. Professor Jacks
quoted, 35. Absolute Idealism characterized, 36. Peculiarities of the
finite consciousness which the Absolute cannot share, 38. The finite
still remains outside of absolute reality, 40.
LECTURE II
MONISTIC IDEALISM 41
Recapitulation, 43. Radical Pluralism is to be the thesis of these
lectures, 44. Most philosophers contemn it, 45. Foreignness to us of
Bradley's Absolute, 46. Spinoza and 'quatenus,'47. Difficulty of
sympathizing with the Absolute, 48. Idealistic attempt to interpret it,
50. Professor Jones quoted, 52. Absolutist refutations of Pluralism, 54.
Criticism of Lotze's proof of Monism by the analysis of what interaction
involves, 55. Vicious intellectualism defined, 60. Royce's alternative:
either the complete disunion or the absolute union of things, 61.
Bradley's dialectic difficulties with relations, 69. Inefficiency of the
Absolute as a rationalizing remedy, 71. Tendency of Rationalists to fly
to extremes, 74. The question of 'external' relations, 79. Transition to
Hegel, 91.
LECTURE III
HEGEL AND HIS METHOD 83
Hegel's influence. 85. The type of his vision is impressionistic, 87.
The 'dialectic' element in reality, 88. Pluralism involves possible
conflicts among things, 90. Hegel explains conflicts by the mutual
contradictoriness of concepts, 91. Criticism of his attempt to transcend
ordinary logic, 92. Examples of the 'dialectic' constitution of things,
95. The rationalistic ideal: propositions self-securing by means of
double negation, 101. Sublimity of the conception, 104. Criticism of
Hegel's account: it involves vicious intellectualism, 105. Hegel is a
seer rather than a reasoner, 107. 'The Absolute' and 'God' are two
different notions, 110. Utility of the Absolute in conferring mental
peace, 114. But this is counterbalanced by the peculiar paradoxes which
it introduces into philosophy, 116. Leibnitz and Lotze on the 'fall'
involved in the creation of the finite, 119. Joachim on the fall of
truth into error, 121. The world of the absolutist cannot be perfect,
123. Pluralistic conclusions, 125.
LECTURE IV
CONCERNING FECHNER 131
Superhuman consciousness does not necessarily imply an absolute
mind, 134. Thinness of contemporary absolutism, 135. The
tone of Fechner's empiricist pantheism contrasted with that of the
rationalistic sort, 144. Fechner's life, 145. His vision, the 'daylight
view,' 150. His way of reasoning by analogy, 151. The whole universe
animated, 152. His monistic formula is unessential, 153. The
Earth-Soul, 156. Its differences from our souls, 160. The earth as
an angel, 164. The Plant-Soul, 165. The logic used by Fechner,
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