Articulation and mysticism in the thought of William James.
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 296
Description: Issues of articulation are reflected in the philosophy of William James (1842--1910) by a tension between attempts to put ideas or feelings into words and the intimate and inarticulate aspects of life that resist such attempts. Mystical language is one such radical example of an articulate encounter with vagueness, bearing in mind that I intend to use the term 'vagueness' generally to refer to the qualities of feelings, experiences, or ideas that avoid complete articulation and the terms 'mystical' or 'mysticism' to denote experiences of or relations with such vagueness. Mystical language achieves a linguistic intimacy between thinking and feeling as well as a communicative intimacy between the experiences of individuals. James believes an attempt to articulate intimacy is a form of intimate experience itself, therefore there is no absolute breach or separation between articulation and the vague. The articulation of experience is a valuable part of James's philosophical "return to life." Understood as a focussed turn toward a more immediate and intuitive method of philosophical investigation, the "return to life" takes a cautious but optimistic attitude toward attempts at articulating the experiential foundations of life. The "return to life" suggests a mystical method of widening the range of articulation and becoming more intimate with life. If the mystical method includes the articulation of the vague and inarticulate, then it is a constituent of the "return to life" and the mystical method is therefore implicated in James's philosophy as a whole: his epistemology, understanding of language, theory of experience, and finally, his pluralistic, pantheistic ontology.
Notes: Adviser:  Graeme Nicholson.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-10, Section: A, page: 3858.