Pragmatism (full audiobook)

Pragmatism (1907) contains a series of public lectures held by William James in Boston 1906-7. James provides a popularizing outline of his view of philosophical pragmatism while making highly rhetorical and entertaining lashes towards rationalism and other competing schools of thought. James is especially concerned with the pragmatic view of truth. True beliefs should be defined as, according to James, beliefs that can successfully assist people in their everday life. This is claimed to not be relativism. That reality exists is argued to be a fact true beyond the human subject. James argues, nevertheless, that people select which parts of reality are made relevant and how they are understood to relate to each other.

Pragmatism (1907), by William James

From an introduction to the book by Bruce Kuklick:

James went on to apply the pragmatic method to the epistemological problem of truth. He would seek the meaning of 'true' by examining how the idea functioned in our lives. A belief was true, he said, if it worked for all of us, and guided us expeditiously through our semihospitable world. James was anxious to uncover what true beliefs amounted to in human life, what their "cash value" was, and what consequences they led to. A belief was not a mental entity which somehow mysteriously corresponded to an external reality if the belief were true. Beliefs were ways of acting with reference to a precarious environment, and to say they were true was to say they were efficacious in this environment. In this sense the pragmatic theory of truth applied Darwinian ideas in philosophy; it made survival the test of intellectual as well as biological fitness.

In the section 'What Pragmatism Means', James wrote that the central point of his doctrine of truth is that "Truth is the function of the beliefs that start and terminate among them."

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy :: LINK

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy :: LINK

William James Studies (org): HERE

the legacy of William James in American politics?

William James may be the greatest influence on my attempts at thinking outside of Nietzsche. I always return to his concepts and arguments when I need reminding what philosophy can be in practice, and how to think about things sensibly. I will be posting a boat load of stuff about that guy going forward.

The following informative but extremely boringly lecture was delivered on May 26, 2007 by one James Kloppenberg, a Professor of American History at Harvard University. Apparently he's all about "theories of democracy" and American philosophy in society. Fancy. He the author of A Companion to American Thought (Blackwell, 1995).