Talk:William James/Archive 1

message: As I understood it, "References" was a place to list material we use in constructing an article, and as such shouldn't require comment about quality, though it might be apt to icnlude comments about what material was referenced; "Further reading" is the usual Wikipedia convention for additional materials reccomeded to the reader with comments about particular areas of importance. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 16:06, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "References" section 

message: This paragraph has been moved here from the article:
William James was interested in Parapsychology. Parapsychology is the study of the evidence involving phenomena where a person seems to affect or to gain information about something through a means not currently explainable within the framework of mainstream, conventional science. Proponents of the existence of these phenomena usually consider them to be a product of unexplained mental abilities.
The term parapsychology did not exist in James' day.  He may have been innterested in the concept, but the editor who made the addition provided no reference to any of James writing on the subject.  When adding substantive new material, please supply a reference similar to the ones in each of the other subjects covered in the article.   --Blainster 20:21, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: He did have a strong interest in "psychical research", to the point of writing a fairly hefty volume on the subject. I think it would be a good item to add here, since it was kind of his "third field" (after psychology and philosophy). If nobody beats me to it, I'll add such a section when I'm done reading his Psychical Research. --M.C. ArZeCh 08:02, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  James and parapsychology 

message: I find the way this section is ended highly problematic. Why is the last sentence enclosed in {brackets}? Furthermore, it's completely unsupported. A reference to where James actually said this would make it relevant, but it looks and sounds like someone is putting in their own inference.
Also Most formatting conventions I'm familiar with say that ellipsis-preceded phrase would do better in its own paragraph, instead of being tacked on to the quote. --M.C. ArZeCh 04:09, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You know, I went back to make the modification, and I don't see anything besides the quote that actually belongs there. I'm removing everything but the quote until someone can bring in some real references, because most of it sounds like someone's private interpretation. Whoever put it there or wants it there, tell us where James actually says these things. --M.C. ArZeCh 04:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Cash Value of Religion" section 

message: <Comment on the following phrase in Cash Value—A belief was true, he said, if in the long run it worked for all of us, and guided us expeditiously through our semihospitable world. James was anxious to uncover what true beliefs amounted to in human life, what their "Cash Value" was, what consequences they led to.>
:
From William James Pragmatism 1981; ; p. 63. 
   
:The only way to get forward with our notion {God is One} is to treat it pragmatically. Granting the Oneness to exist, what facts will be different in consequence? What will the unity be known as? The world is One—yes, but how one?  What is the practical cash value of the oneness for us?
::{The practical cash value of positing "oneness" is that your 'world view' is that of an infinite organically  interdependence organism (i.e. G-D) and you know you can't harm any one part without eventually harming yourself or your progeny.} For curley brackets kindly see Note 1.
Yesselman 21:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cash Value of Religion 

message: <From William James—Why do we run away if we notice that we are in danger? Because we are afraid of what will happen if we don't. This obvious (and incorrect) answer to a seemingly trivial question has been the central concern of a century-old debate about the nature of our emotions].
From Daniel M. Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will; 2002; 0262232227 p.54—James' Bear and Free Will: 
:The conclusion suggested by this research is that the experience of conscious will kicks in at some point after  the brain has already started preparing for the action. Libet sums up these observations by saying that "the initiation of the voluntary act appears to be an unconscious cerebral process. Clearly, free will or free choice of whether to act now could not be the initiating agent, contrary to one widely held view. This is of course also contrary to each individual's own introspective feeling that he/she consciously initiates such voluntary acts; this provides an important empirical example of the possibility that the subjective experience of a mental causality need not necessarily reflect the actual causative relationship between mental and brain events" (Libet 1992, 269).
Yesselman 21:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  William James' Bear 

message: I don't know enough about the topic to edit the page, but the word 'functionalism' doesn't appear even once. I noticed that the entry on functionalism itself is very sparse, and doesn't mention any proponents such as James. Is this something which should be expanded upon? A google search for "william james" functionalism suggests that maybe it should.
Jmacaulay 18:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Functionalism? 

message: William James was featured in a Google Tech Talk by Alan Wallace, Toward the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences, held on August 8, 2006, and available in video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=983112177262602885&q=alan+wallace ; I have no idea if this is relevant for the external link section, so I just leave the note here. Hope that's ok. --LA2 21:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Google Tech Talk 

message: There is mention of William James' parents, but no mention of whether he was ever married or had any children.  Does anyone know? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.224.217.114 (talk • contribs) 08:25, September 24, 2006  (UTC)
:James married Alice Howe Gibbons on July 10, 1878.  They had four sons and a daughter.  --Blainster 21:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal Life 

message: I noticed there is no criticism section in this article whereas in the article on Hilary Putnam there is a fairly extensive criticism section.  In particular, Bertrand Russell linked James' philosophy with 20th century fascism (check "The Ancestry of Fascism").  I will add something if there is no objection.  --Teetotaler 00:48, April 14, 2007
:Your entry referred to the specific article "The Will to Believe", so I moved it there. --Blainster 23:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism section needed 

message: Can anyone cite support for the description of radical empiricism in the 'Epistemology' section? I have to have read Essays on Radical Empiricism a half dozen times, and either I really missed something, or this description sounds nothing like what James refered to with the term.
:Although this section may be mixing things up a little, it should be clear from this how far pragmatism really is from positivism, where truth was (incorrectly) thought to be abstract and axiomatic. James's radical empiricism is now Popper's rational empiricism: "We search for truth, but what we find is fact, without certainty."  Vendrov 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Radical Empiricism 

message: "James was not trained as a philosopher, but rather as a psychologist, at the time when the two disciplines were only beginning to separate themselves. He was in fact one of the first laboratory psychologists in America, though he was also skeptical of the ultimate value of laboratories for understanding the human mind."
His formal training was as a medical doctor.  He TAUGHT psychology, and made his first mark there with his famous textbook in the field, before he became known as a philosopher.  I don't know what is meant by his skepticism about the "ultimate value of laboratories" here.
:What he meant was the characteristics of the human mind are investigated by the subjective technique of personal report, rather than objective experiment as in the physical sciences.  Since James's day many objective tools and techniques have been introduced for neurological (brain) study, but the neural correlates of consciousness have not yet been discovered over a century later.  --Blainster 03:08, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me add to this.  James relied on introspection as an investigative technique, but also developed psychometric tools, and wrote a paper "Are We Automata?" that pre-dated modern cognitive science by 80 or so years.  We today are little closer to understanding consciousness than was James, who well understood the meaning of the neural substrate (e.g., Broca's area).  James's introspection a la yoga may yet again become a valid subject and means of study.  James was the father of experimental psychology.  He foresaw well enough, in broad strokes, all that has come since.  This article does not nearly do justice to his contribution.Vendrov 07:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anybody want to defend this passage? 

message: Loook Ive done nitrous oxide and Idon't understand Hegel. Mc2000 (talk) 03:20, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nitrous Oxide 

message: Is there any Wiki policy on the order in which external links are entered? An anonymous user has been altering the order in which links appear in the External Links section, so that now the "William James Cybrary" (and some affiliated websites) are at the top of the list. Now, as far as I can tell these sites are appropriate external links. It is not clear to me why they should (or should not) be at the top of the (long) list of external links. But it is clear to me that whichever sites are listed first will benefit from additional traffic. Any ideas? ChristopherHoney (talk) 18:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure if there is a policy besides neutrality generally, could be. I'm a fan of alphabetizing as a way of neutralizing. - Owlmonkey (talk) 01:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: In the "Early Years" section the article states:
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical and mental difficulties, including problems with his eyes, back, stomach, and skin, as well as periods of depression, and even attempted suicide. 
Although James certainly struggled with depression, I know of no evidence of him having attempted suicide. According to Robert Richardson's biography of James ("WJ: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism", Houghton Mifflin, 2006), James did contemplate suicide. But this is a different thing from attempting suicide. Does anyone know of the event to which the text refers? If not, I think we should change it from attempted suicide to something more like "the contemplation of suicide". 74.130.1.162 (talk) 17:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You should be bold and change it. -- Craigtalbert (talk) 04:10, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Gave it a shot ... ChristopherHoney (talk) 06:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attempted Suicide 

message: This article needs at minimum a reference to Charles Peirce
:  Please sign your name to requests.  It would be interesting (with proper sources) to integrate Peirce with James.  I noticed that editing has been locked for the Peirce page.----DownUndr
:     I did not write the original post, but I agree.  Pierce is important enough in the Pragmatic school of thought to warrent inclusion here.---JGWald596  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgwald596 (talk • contribs) 02:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  C. S. Peirce 

message: When James died, Mussolini was about 26-27. M was not yet prominent in the world. There is no indication M was then (or ever) a writer & a scholar (as lede says) --JimWae (talk) 14:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mussolini? 

message: Article needs completely re-done. There is literally no mention of Professor James's political writings or opinions, or his social conscience/social activism. This was a considerable part of who he is and what he stood for, and it's not as if it's separate from his work, for there are essays about it in his published works. He's not Noam Chomsky or anything, but it's not as if his political stuff is a side project that's insignificant compared to the accomplishments that 'got him on Wikipedia'. It was all part of a whole.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.248.142.13 (talk) 04:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agree w/ previous post 

message: I just finished reading Robert D. Richardson's excellent intellectual biography of James, then turned here to see what Wikipedia had to say. I was astonished at the low quality article for such an important thinker. The issues that most concerned James are not adequately reflected here, and all the long block quotes are appalling. Many parts I would say are not particularly important and shouldn't be included at all.
Unfortunately, I don't have time to do the radical overhaul this article needs, but my advice to someone who does is to read Richardson's book first. (I will delete some of the block quotes, though.)
66.41.253.22 (talk) 07:33, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Wikiquote article makes a better introduction to the man. Srnec (talk) 05:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article needs a lot of work 

message: The unverified reasoning that physical states give rise to emotions must have had at least some critics, if there is thinking on the planet - are there none to be found?
I tremble, yet am not afraid. I just jogged, with no emotion what so ever..  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.154.4.92 (talk) 21:31, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Really no critique to James' theory of emotion? 

message: James's contributions to psychology are woefully under-represented in this article, while the discussion of his philosophical ideas is bloated and should be much more concise. -DoctorW 00:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Psychology under-represented 

message: I don't know where to put this or how relevant this is, but I see that neither this page nor W.E.B. Dubois's page references any relationship between the two of them. Although my scope of knowledge in terms of the two of them is limited, one source I have been reading talks about a strong relationship between them two that had strong influences on Dubois's racial doctrines. I also don't know how popularly accepted this connection/influence is. The source is COLOR AND CULTURE by Ross Posnock. Perhaps the connection is noteworthy? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.108.64.86 (talk • contribs) 18:56, December 9, 2006  (UTC)
As far as the Allen biography of WJ goes (1967) they didn't actually have a very strong relationship. Perhaps Dubois was merely influenced by WJ's writings. For instance, when Edwin G. Boring wrote "Masters and Pupils among the American Psychologist" he found that a number of professional psychologists credited WJ as their "master" and not their thesis instructor. Due in part to this (and in part to the character that is seen within WJ's writings) Rand B Evans (1981) asserts that many individuals were influenced by WJ in a deep way. WJ made efforts in almost all of his writings to speak to the reader in a deeply personal way, and as Evans asserts it is likely for this reason how he came to inspire so many.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.235.185.241 (talk) 23:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  WJ and Dubois? 

message: To call Henry James Sr. an eccentric Swedenborgian is not a neutral statement.  MacLennan, 17 April 2012Maclennan123 (talk) 18:09, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The statement about James' father has been tweaked to conform with WP:NPOV. Thanks for bringing attention to the non-neutral language.--JayJasper (talk) 18:16, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  William James' father 

message: Last two sentences of the penultimate paragraph under heading Career refer to E. B. Titchener, and have nothing to do with James.  Any reason they should not be deleted?  Brazzit (talk) 18:37, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Titchener reference? 

message: I protest the anonymous reversion of my edit yesterday, in which I restored the following text from an earlier version (with a modification of the first paragraph):
James was the first president of the American branch of the Society for Psychical Research, in 1884 or 1885.
In 1885 James met Leonora Piper, a famous medium. He was soon convinced that Piper knew things she could only have discovered by supernatural means.Report on Mrs. Piper's Hodgson- control' in Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, Volume 3' published by the American Society for Psychical Research, 1909 James expressed his belief that Piper's mediumistic abilities were genuine, saying, "If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, it is enough if you prove that one crow is white. My white crow is Mrs. Piper."William James on Psychical Research compiled and edited by Gardner Murphy, MD and Robert O. Ballou, Viking Press, 1960, page 41 In 1909 William James published Expériences d'un Psychiste, a book which relates many experiments that he had with Mrs Piper. His first commentary about Piper was published in Science much earlier (1896):Science, New Series, Vol. 3, No. 77. (Jun. 19, 1896), pp. 881-888.
In the trances of this medium, I cannot resist the conviction that knowledge appears which she has never gained by the ordinary waking use of her eyes and ears and wits.
Professor James gave more detailed information about his first experiments with Mrs Piper in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research:A Record of Observations of Certain Phenomena of Trance (1889-1890)- Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 1889-1890, 6, 436-659. Frederic W. H. Myers, Oliver J. Lodge, Walter Leaf and William James.
I made Mrs. Piper's acquaintance in the autumn of 1885. My wife's mother, Mrs. Gibbens, had been told of her by a friend, during the previous summer, and never having seen a medium before, had paid her a visit out of curiosity. She returned with the statement that Mrs. P. had given her a long string of names of members of the family, mostly Christian names, together with facts about the persons mentioned and their relations to each other, the knowledge of which on her part was incomprehensible without supernormal powers. My sister-in-law went the next day, with still better results, as she related them. Amongst other things, the medium had accurately described the circumstances of the writer of a letter which she held against her forehead, after Miss G. had given it to her. The letter was in Italian, and its writer was known to but two persons in this country.
[I may add that on a later occasion my wife and I took another letter from this same person to Mrs. P., who went on to speak of him in a way which identified him unmistakably again. On a third occasion, two years later, my sister-in-law and I being again with Mrs. P., she reverted in her trance to these letters, and then gave us the writer's name, which she said she had not been able to get on the former occasion.]
But to revert to the beginning. I remember playing the esprit fort on that occasion before my feminine relatives, and seeking to explain, by simple considerations the marvellous character of the facts which they brought back. This did not, however, prevent me from going myself a few days later, in company with my wife, to get a direct personal impression. The names of none of us up to this meeting had been announced to Mrs. P., and Mrs. J. and I were, of course, careful to make no reference to our relatives who had preceded. The medium, however, when entranced, repeated most of the names of "spirits" whom she had announced on the two former occasions and added others. The names came with difficulty, and were only gradually made perfect. My wife's father's name of Gibbens was announced first as Niblin, then as Giblin. A child Herman (whom we had lost the previous year) had his name spelt out as Herrin. I think that in no case were both Christian and surnames given on this visit. But the facts predicated of the persons named made it in many instances impossible not to recognise the particular individuals who were talked about. We took particular pains on this occasion to give the Phinuit control no help over his difficulties and to ask no leading questions. In the light of subsequent experience I believe this not to be the best policy. For it often happens, if you give this trance-personage a name or some small fact for the lack of which he is brought to a standstill, that he will then start off with a copious flow of additional talk, containing in itself an abundance of "tests."
My impression after this first visit was, that Mrs. P. was either possessed of supernormal powers, or knew the members of my wife's family by sight and had by some lucky coincidence become acquainted with such a multitude of their domestic circumstances as to produce the startling impression which she did. My later knowledge of her sittings and personal acquaintance with her has led me absolutely to reject the latter explanation, and to believe that she has supernormal powers.
The anonymous reverted commented "These are unreliable fringe sources." That's not true at all. This is a direct quote of William James. This section needs to give a better picture of what James thought on the issue. Therefore I am going to revert the reversion.
Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:19, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Views on Spiritualism 

message: I have started a page for William James' theory of self. Wanted to get some feedback on what I have so far. This is an assignment for my History of Psychology class at the University of Mary Washington. Here is the link:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jason_Rector/sandbox
Jason Rector (talk) 17:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theory of Self 

message: Why are the Jameses described as a "wealthy Muslim family"?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.30.173.143 (talk) 18:04, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Muslim? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on William James. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131220035946/http://www.iep.utm.edu/james-o/ to http://www.iep.utm.edu/james-o/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131206021129/http://psychclassics.asu.edu/James/Principles/prin10.htm to http://psychclassics.asu.edu/James/Principles/prin10.htm
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on William James. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added  tag to https://cris.parks.ny.gov/
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: In the text, her maiden name is given as Alice Howe Gibbens. In the picture-caption, she is called Alice Runnels James. What happened to the ‘Howe’, and where did the ‘Runnels’ come from? Valetude (talk) 20:23, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wife’s name 

message: The  template contains William as his brother, so is appropriate per the common use of templates for individuals on Wikipedia. Its use here was good faith reverted in the mistake that the Henry James template is just about his works, so asking for a double-revert back to the templates use. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:03, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: - I disagree that the Henry James template is appropriate for the William James article - the article notes that William was the brother of the prominent novelist Henry James and the diarist Alice James with links to their articles, so we don't need the template to establish that - besides noting his relations, the Henry James template is nothing more than a list of his works and as William did not collaborate with Henry, Henry's books are a completely separate body of work and they aren't appropriate here - Epinoia (talk) 03:04, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: ? Templates of brothers, mothers, fathers, sisters, are commonly and almost always placed on pages, with the exception of the British royals (who would have quite a few related templates on each page). Establishing relationship comes in the text, connecting and easily accessing family accomplishments is accomplished by templates. For instance, a William James template, which would be a valuable addition to the project and to the collection of James family material on Wikipedia, would by common practice be placed on the Henry James page. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:35, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: - Henry James navbox is not appropriate here - if you disagree, you will have to go through Wikipedia:Dispute resolution - Epinoia (talk) 21:09, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Totally appropriate as an achieving family member. I've never done dispute resolution, not my thing (if you want to start one please ping me). This one is too obvious anyway, as immediate family templates are used throughout Wikipedia except on royalty pages. If someone eventually comes up with a  template then I'd of course advocate for it being used on the Henry James page. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:33, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: - one of the advantages at WP:NAVBOX is, "They provide an organized resource for readers who went through an article in some broad topic to find other articles on the same broad topic" - this Henry James navbox provides a list of his books - no one is going to find out more about William James by linking to Henry's books - links to William's family members are already in the body of the article - the guideline also says, "If not for the navigation template, an editor would be inclined to link many of these articles in the See also sections of the articles" - there is no reason to add a list of Henry's books to William's See also section as they are unrelated, so there is no reason to add a navbox of Henry's books to William's article - Epinoia (talk) 23:30, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for discussing. What you're accurately describing applies to a potential  template. The link in the  template which applies here is William James, an appropriate entry on that template because William was James' brother. Then, once linked, the template is allowable on the linked page. That's how navbox placement works. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:58, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  - WP:NAVBOX guideline does not mention family members - it says that navboxes help readers "to find other articles on the same broad topic" - the books of Henry James do not relate to the broad topic of William James - if the navbox was a list of links to extended family members (grandparents, parents, notable siblings, children, grandchildren, cousins, uncles, aunts, neices, nephews, etc), I could understand it, but this navbox is a list of Henry's books and is not relevant to William James - links to William's family are included in the body of the article and no new information or links to articles on the same broad topic are included in the navbox - Epinoia (talk) 00:14, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Have given my take on it, which I believe accurate, but I won't add it back (not that important to have a back-and-forth over). Thanks for a good discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:30, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Henry James template added and reverted