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The American psychologist and philosopher William James drew inspiration from British evolutionary theory, neurology, psychiatry, psychology and philosophy. Trained in anatomy, physiology and medicine, he developed a physiological psychology that offered acute analyses of consciousness and of the relations between mind and brain, habit and thought, cognition and emotion and other aspects of psychology. One of his insights, regarding the relation between attention and will, was based upon his own experience of panic anxiety, which was resolved through his reading of several British authors. The story of his psychiatric experience, practical response and later theoretical conclusion offers a potential contribution to contemporary therapeutic practice.

What did William James mean when he claimed that the history of philosophy is “to a great extent” a “clash of human temperaments”? Did this mean that philosophers, in his estimation, are bound to represent one or the other type, or orientation, associated with various generalized philosophical positions? Did it mean that philosophers were necessarily, in his terminology, either “tender-minded” or “tough-minded”? And if philosophical arguments are, in fact, expressions of physiological factors, through what means do these factors achieve expression? What, in sum, did James mean to imply when he invoked the concept of “temperament” and used the related notion of categorical “type”? How are we to understand and apply whatever insights he had to offer?

It is widely recognized that William James had a profound and pervasive impact upon literary writers, works, styles, and genres, not to mention upon the encompassing frameworks of modernism and post-modernism, throughout the 20th century. Much less recognized is the impact of literature upon James's life and work, whether in psychology or philosophy. This article looks at the influence of one particular author, William Wordsworth, primarily through his long 1814 poem The Excursion, from which James drew \"authentic tidings\" that helped him weather some early storms and create his distinctive way of thinking about the human mind and its place in nature.

This article, the second in a two-part sequence, will cast new light on the strong possibility that John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress played a previously unrecognized role in inspiring James's means of defense against the frightening hallucination and panic fear that characterized his well-known personal crisis in the early 1870s. It will also present an argument about the influence of his defensive measures upon his subsequent views on the nature and importance of attention and will in human life. Along the way, it will identify James's specific, newly discovered copy of Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and the specific, newly discovered Bible through which he developed familiarity with the scriptural phrases that helped him get through his ordeal. The first article in this sequence presented an argument and evidence regarding the previously unrecognized role of Arthur Schopenhauer's thought in shaping and intensifying the way that James experienced his personal crisis. It also related Schopenhauer's influence to prior issues that had concerned James, and in an appendix it provided an overview of other areas in which Schopenhauer seems to have influenced James, both during and after his personal crisis.

This article, the first in a two-part sequence, will cast new light on the well-known \"crisis of William James\" by presenting evidence regarding the previously unrecognized role of Arthur Schopenhauer's thought in shaping and intensifying the way in which James experienced this crisis. It will also relate Schopenhauer's influence to prior issues that had concerned James, and in an appendix it will provide an overview of other areas in which Schopenhauer seems to have influenced James, both during and after his personal crisis. The second article in this sequence will present evidence in support of the strong possibility that John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress played a previously unrecognized role in inspiring James's means of defense against the frightening hallucination and panic fear that characterized his crisis. It will also present an argument regarding the probable influence of his defensive measures upon his subsequent views on the nature and importance of attention and will in human life. Along the way, it will identify James's specific, newly discovered copy of Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and the specific, newly discovered Bible through which he developed familiarity with the scriptural phrases that helped him get through his ordeal.

In the early twentieth century psychology became the study of \"behavior.\" This article reviews developments within animal psychology, functional psychology, and American society and culture that help explain how a term rarely used in the first years of the century became not only an accepted scientific concept but even, for many, an all-encompassing label for the entire subject matter of the discipline. The subsequent conceptual and linguistic activity of John B. Watson, Edward C. Tolman, Clark L. Hull, and B.F. Skinner, as they attempted to explain \"behavior\" throughout the course of the twentieth century, is then discussed. Finally, the article suggests the need for greater conceptual and linguistic diversity in psychology. In this last regard, reference is made to cognition and consciousness, to William James and John Dewey, and to the fact that prediction and control might not be the most relevant aims of contemporary psychology.

The purpose of this article is to provide a quick survey of William James's views on the plurality of visions that humans have regarding reality, as a background for more extensive discussions of his views on the plurality of values that orient human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, as well as his views on the enactment of those values through active resistance to the ways things are and the risk-taking involved in striving to improve the human condition. Consonant with pluralism itself, I intend this discussion to open up rather than close off further considerations of James's views on ethics.

Human beings use metaphors to describe objects, thoughts, feelings or actions that have perceived or conjectured similarities. The multiple references inherent in metaphors give humans the power to compare, comprehend and communicate in an infinite variety of situations. The power of metaphor is also necessary in science, since scientists always have to compare phenomena with an established standard or point of reference. The principles of the phenomenon of metaphorical thinking in science are discussed.