Essays in Radical Empiricism [Paperback]

William James (Author), Ralph Barton Perry (Preface), Ellen Kappy Suckiel (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1996 | ISBN-10: 0803275897 | ISBN-13: 978-0803275898

Essays in Radical Empiricism shows William James concerned with ultimate reality and moving toward a metaphysical system. The twelve essays originally appeared in journals between 1904 and 1906. James himself collected them to illustrate what he called “radical empiricism,” but this volume was not published until 1912, two years after his death. Included are such seminal essays as “Does Consciousness Exist?” and “A World of Pure Experience.” The distinguished scholar and biographer Ralph Barton Perry, who edited this volume, called the essays essential to an understanding of James’s writings.

Radical empiricism takes us into a “world of pure experience.” In the essays, as introducer Ellen Kappy Suckiel notes, “James inquires into the metaphysically basic reality underlying the common-sense objects of our world. It is here that he defends his view that ‘experience’ is the sole and ultimate reality.” The essays deal with the applications of this “pure” or “neutral” experience: the general problem of relations, the role of feeling in experience, the nature of truth. Horace M. Kallen observed: “The fundamental point of these essays is that the relations between things, holding them together or separating them, are at least as real as the things themselves . . . and that no hidden substrata are necessary to account for the clashes and coherences of the world.”

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Though not technically out of print, both of these titles are only available in hardcover editions selling for well over $100 apiece. These thrifty paperbacks make them much more accessible.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English, French

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Product Details

• Paperback: 283 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (March 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803275897
• ISBN-13: 978-0803275898
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,085,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Radical Excursion into Extreme Empiricism, May 1, 2002

By 

J.W.K (Nagano, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essays in Radical Empiricism (Paperback)

For the serious James scholar, this book is indispensible. For those of you who are not too familiar with Jame's ideas and their background, this book is probably too much - and too boring at that. Even for scholars of epistemology, this book can be rather frustrating. Originally written for his grad students at Harvard, the book lacks much in the way of context, and it is completely theoretical. Furthermore, it is filled with many untranslated passages, from German to Latin. I gave the book four stars because it could use some editing. This is the modern era: Latin is dead - even for the most serious philosopher - and German is no longer the language of Philosophy. The passages should be translated, and some of the more abstract essays should come with introductions. That said, the book is still a valuable contribution to empirical epistemology, laying out James of view of "radical empiricism" - where subjects and objects collide. Indeed, the book itself is a pure experience!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It's Missing Some Material, August 20, 2011

By 

R. Pfau (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This General Books version is missing the Table of Contents and the Index. The content is also printed on pages that don't match the original (i.e., 90 pages versus 282 pages). The BiblioLife reprint of the book that I ordered after receiving this version seems to be an authentic reproduction of the original James book and costs about the same.