William James's Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy - Softcover

Seigfried, Charlene Haddock

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791404021 ISBN 13: 9780791404027

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1990

About this title

Review:

"This is the most intelligent and authoritative study of James's works I know. Seigfried's treatment is complete, objective, subtle. Anyone seriously interested in James studies will have to reckon with Seigfried's assessment." -- Nancy Frankenberry

"I like the way Seigfried combines a comprehensive scope with a detailed and nuanced understanding of specific texts and particular positions. Also I like the way she shows how James's reconstruction of philosophy makes his project directly relevant to the deepest concerns of contemporary life and the focal questions of contemporary philosophy. I think she has written a very interesting work which is full of unexpected and surprising turns and interpretations." -- Vincent Colapietro

"I find the book to shed new light on the source of the ambiguities and inconsistencies in James's writings, setting into relief his continual and fruitless struggle for consistency. In the process, it also clarifies recurrent themes and persistent tendencies in James's work and illumines the relations between its different parts: his psychology, his pragmatism, and his philosophy of 'pure experience.' I also like the way the author tries to utilize what she shows to be James's own method in interpreting him.

"In addition to providing information about some of James's unpublished writings, for me the book provided new insights into the implications of specific texts and also into the continuity, from one period and one topic to another, of James's preoccupations and methodological strategies. Reading it, I felt I was 'getting inside' James's writings in a way I never had before. She teases out dominant motifs and shows their implications for his own position in ways he was incapable of doing. Without claiming to have the last word (which would be unJamesian), she is very persuasive." -- Beth J. Singer

About the Author:

Charlene Haddock Seigfried is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University. She has also written Chaos and Context: A Study in William James.

About this edition

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0791404021
• ISBN 13: 9780791404027
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 433