Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life [Paperback]

From the author ofAmerican Philosophy: A Love Story, a compelling introduction to the life-affirming philosophy of William James

In 1895, William James, the father of American philosophy, delivered a lecture entitled Is Life Worth Living? It was no theoretical question for James, who had contemplated suicide during an existential crisis as a young man a quarter century earlier. Indeed, as John Kaag writes, Jamess entire philosophy, from beginning to end, was geared to save a life,hislifeand thats why it just might be able to save yours, too.Sick Souls, Healthy Mindsis an absorbing introduction to Jamess life and thought that shows why the founder of pragmatism and empirical psychology can still speak so directly and profoundly to anyone struggling to make a life worth living.

USJohn Kaag,the author ofAmerican Philosophy: A Love StoryandHiking with Nietzsche, is professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Twitter @JohnKaag Characteristically elegant. John Williams,New York Times Book Review

James would have liked this book. . . . Jamess ideas have rippled through the past century more powerfully than those of any other American thinker. Kaags little book reminds us why.James T. Kloppenberg,Washington Post

An excellent introduction to William James and his philosophy.John Banville,Literary Review

Pithy and exacting.Heller McAlpin,Wall Street Journal

[A] lucid and absorbing book.Andrew Stark,Times Literary Supplement Finalist for the PROSE Award in Philosophy, Association of American Publishers One of Next Big Idea Club's Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of Spring