William James

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Early life and education
Interest in psychology
Interest in religion
Career in philosophy
Significance and influence

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William James summary

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Agathon (centre) greeting guests in "Plato's Symposium" oil on canvas by Anselm Feuerbach, 1869; in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, Germany.

Philosophy 101

Related Questions

How did Charles Darwin's ideas influence William James's view of the mind?
How did Charles Renouvier influence William James's ideas about free will?
How did F.C.S. Schiller support pragmatism in England?
How did Giovanni Papini interpret William James's pragmatism in Italy?
How did Henry James Sr.'s religious and philosophical interests shape William James's childhood?
How did John Dewey help spread William James's pragmatism in the United States?
How did William James change the study of psychology at Harvard University?
How did William James connect religious experience with the existence of divinity?
How did William James connect thought and knowledge to human survival?
How did William James respond to criticism that pragmatism makes truth merely subjective?
How did William James study religion through personal experience rather than abstract arguments?
How did William James understand religious experience in The Varieties of Religious Experience?
How did William James's ideas about chance and change relate to human freedom?
How did William James's marriage affect his health and work?
How did William James's pragmatism differ from Charles Sanders Peirce's pragmatism?
How did radical empiricism differ from older forms of empiricism?
How did radical empiricism explain the relations between things?
How was William James related to the novelist Henry James?
What conclusion did William James reach about survival after death?
What did William James mean by pluralism in philosophy?
When did William James deliver the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh?
When did William James marry Alice H. Gibbens?
When was Pragmatism: A New Name for Old Ways of Thinking published?
When was The Principles of Psychology published?
When was The Varieties of Religious Experience published?
When was The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy published?
Where did William James study medicine?
Who were William James's parents and siblings?
Why did William James decide to believe in free will in 1870?
Why did William James describe thought as adaptive and purposive?
Why did William James join Louis Agassiz's expedition to the Amazon?
Why is William James considered a founder of modern psychology in the United States?
What is Judith Jarvis Thomson known for?
What is the doctrine of double effect?
What is the trolley problem?
What did Judith Jarvis Thomson’s work on the trolley problem involve?
What did Judith Butler write?
Why is Judith Butler important?
What is the ‘brains in a vat’ thought experiment?
What did Hegel write?
Why is Hegel significant?
What was Bertrand Russell’s childhood like?

Philosophy & Religion Philosophers

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External Websites

Harvard University - Department of Psychology - William James
Simply Psychology - William James Biography and Contributions to Psychology
National Endowment for the Humanities - The Thinker Who Believed in Doing
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - William James
Verywell Mind - William James Biography and Impact on Psychology
StateUniversity.com - William James (1842ï¿½1910)
University of Potsdam - William James Center - Who is William James?
National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - William James and British thought: then and now
ABC listen - The Philosopher's Zone - Habit
University of Memphis Digital Commons - William James on the Mind and Its Fringes (PDF)
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - William James
K12 LibreTexts - Pragmatism and Post-Modernism
American Heritage - William James Finds His Vocation

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William James - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

William James

American psychologist and philosopher

Written by

Horace M. Kallen

Professor of Social Philosophy, New School for Social Research, New York City, 1919–52. Author of the introduction to The Philosophy of William James, Drawn from His Own Works.

Horace M. Kallen

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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

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Last updated

Sep. 25, 2026 •History

William James (born January 11, 1842, New York, New York, U.S.—died August 26, 1910, Chocorua, New Hampshire) was an American philosopher and psychologist, a leader of the philosophical movement of pragmatism and a founder of the psychological movement of functionalism. James was the eldest son of Henry James, an idiosyncratic and voluble man whose philosophical interests attracted him to the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg. One of William’s brothers was the novelist Henry James. The elder...

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