William James in Focus Willing to Believe [Paperback]

William James (1842-1910) is a canonical figure of American pragmatism. Trained as a medical doctor, James was more engaged by psychology and philosophy and wrote a foundational text, Pragmatism, for this characteristically American way of thinking. Distilling the main currents of James's thought, William J. Gavin focuses on latent and manifest ideas in James to disclose the notion of will to believe, which courses through his work. For students who may be approaching James for the first time and for specialists who may not know James as deeply as they wish, Gavin provides a clear path to understanding Jamess philosophy even as he embraces Jamess complications and hesitations.

[Gavin] . . . offers, in one hundred pages, a concise and mostly effective sketch of James' arc of thought, in which the theme of the impressive and engaging nature of James' philosophical 'outline' is expressly tackled.

Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
1. James's Life: Will to Believe as Affirmation
2. The Will to Believe : Policing versus Free-Roaming
3. The Principles of Psychology: Consciousness as a Constitutive Stream
4. The Varieties of Religious Experience: Mysticism as a Vague Exemplar
5. Pragmatism: Corridor as Latent and The Will to Believe
6. Metaphysics: Radical Empiricism and Pure Experience
7. Pure versus Impure Experience: Examples of Pure Experience
8. Challenges to The Will to Believe
Conclusion: Pragmatism, Death, and The Will to Believe
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Gavin has produced a bold and provocative introduction to Jamess philosophy that will be of interest to many scholars of American philosophy, especially those who see deep and important affinities between the views of American philosophers like James and Dewey and those of figures in the Continental tradition.This praiseworthy volume presents a viewpoint on James that brings the novice reader into conversation and rel“.