The Unity of William James’s Thought

No philosopher’s writing is more charming that James’s. Few philosophers have been subjected to such intense psychological speculation as James. Fewer still have had so many non-philosophical stages to their careers. For all of these reasons, professional philosophers are wary of his philosophy, which is typically dismissed as fragmented or merely popular. Wesley Cooper opposes this traditional view, arguing instead that there is a systematic philosophy to be found in James’s writings. His doctrine of pure experience is the binding thread that links his earlier psychological theorizing to his later epistemological, religious, and pragmatic concerns. To make this case as compelling as possible, Cooper provides a two-level approach to James’s philosophical system: the metaphysical level of pure experience and the empirical level of science and everyday life. Making sense of James is partly a matter of seeing that, on a given occasion, he is writing at one level or the other.