Abstract
Among the philosophers and psychologists, who, at the end of the nineteenth-century, started to challenge the theories of classical British empiricism, William James holds a preeminent place. In the school of classical British empiricism, that general conception of consciousness was prevalent which Hume had established when he compared the mind to a “kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.”
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- 1.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge (Oxford, 1896), pp. 252 ff.
- 2.
Ibid., p. 259; see also p. 636 “… all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences … the mind never perceives any real connection among distinct existences.”
- 3.
William James, “On some Omissions of Introspective Psychology,” Mind, vol. 9, 1884.
- 4.
Cf. William James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1 (New York, 1905), p. 245. “If there be such things as feelings at all, then so surely as relations between objects exist in rerum natura, as surely, and more surely, do feelings exist to which these relations are known.”
- 5.
In our article “William James’s Theory of the Transitive Parts of the Stream of Consciousness,” especially Section 7 (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 3, 1943), we have brought out the double function which the “transitive parts” fulfill in James’s theory: first, they are experiences of the temporal continuity of the stream of consciousness; secondly, they stand for imageless thought of every description. SPP, Chapter XII.
- 6.
Cf. William James, Essays in Radical Empiricism (New York, 1912), pp. 44 ff.
- 7.
Cf. William James, “Does Consciousness Exist?” Essays in Radical Empiricism.
- 8.
Cf. Ralph B. Perry, Present Philosophical Tendencies (New York, 1912). Appendix 3.
- 9.
Ernst Mach, Die Analyse der Empfindungen (Jena, 1922), I.
- 10.
G. Berger, Recherches sur les Conditions de la Connaissance (Paris, 1941), pp. 124 ff.
- 11.
William James, Essays in Radical Empiricism, p. 42.
- 12.
Cf. James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, p. 245; Essays in Radical Empiricism, pp. 42 ff., 51, 62, 95: A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 279 ff. The importance of this thesis for radical empiricism has been emphasized by Perry, loc. cit., pp. 365 ff.
- 13.
Cf. James, “A World of Pure Experience,” Section 6; “The Thing and Its Relations,” Section 3; “How Two Minds Can Know One Thing,” Essays in Radical Empiricism.
- 14.
James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, pp. 158 ff. and 172 ff.
- 15.
Such qualification is exemplified by James’s account of the “shock of difference” or the “shock of likeness,” which we shall discuss later (The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, pp. 497 ff. and 528 f.). As to the connection between James’s theory of the “transitive parts” and his repudiation of the “Mind-Stuff Theory,” see our article “William James’s Theory of the ‘Transitive Parts’ of the Stream of Consciousness,” Chapter XII, Section 6, loc. cit. reprinted in SPP, Chapter XII, Section VI.
- 16.
Cf. R. B. Perry, The Thought and Character of William James, vol. 2 (Boston, 1935), pp. 393 ff. and 588 ff.; see also V. Lowe, “William James’s Pluralistic Metaphysics of Experience,” In Commemoration of William James (New York, 1942), pp. 168 ff.
- 17.
Cf. selections from James’s notebook, 1905–1908, published by Perry, loc. cit. vol. 2, Appendix 10.
- 18.
James, A Pluralistic Universe (New York, 1909), pp. 207 ff.
- 19.
Cf. James’s notes on “Philosophical Problems of Psychology,” published by Perry, loc. cit., vol. 2, pp. 368 ff.
- 20.
James, Essay in R. E., pp. 49 ff.
- 21.
James, Talks to Teachers (New York, 1899), pp. 17 ff.
- 22.
In our article “Phänomenologie der Thematik und des reinen Ich,” (Psychologische Forschung, vol. 12, 1929) (“Phenomenology of Shematics and of the Pure Ego,” Chapter X in SPP), we have analyzed and distinguished from each other several phenomena which traditionally have indiscriminately been grouped under the heading of “variations of attention.”
- 23.
James, A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 282 ff., in regard to his indebtedness to Bergson, cf. pp. 214 ff.
- 24.
Ibid., pp. 286 ff.
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Gurwitsch*, A. (2010). The Problem of Dimensional Differences Between Conjunctions of Phases of Experience. In: Zaner, R. (eds) The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901-1973). Phaenomenologica, vol 194. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3346-8_2
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