Questions Nov 18

K ch5; WJ Pragmatism Lec VI, "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth"; "The Gospel of Relaxation"

1. What "vectors of meaning" saved James's life?

2. Embracing the pragmatic theory of truth is a commitment to what?

3. As a professional academic philosopher, Kaag has trouble remembering what?

4. James's hallway (corridor) metaphor, treating pragmatism primarily as a method in philosophy, reminds Kaag of what?

5. What's the difference between truth and facts, for WJ?

6. Embracing free will is the first step in what?

7. What is Binnenleben?

8. Where does "zest" come from, according to WJ, and what is it?

9. For James pragmatism was a protest against what proposition about salvation?

Discussion Questions:

• Can personal struggles, whether with ideas and philosophies or with more tangible life challenges, contribute to a meaningful life and even save it?
• Should truth "mean" something to us, in the existentialist sense of meaning?
• Do you value the experiences in your life that you cannot put into words? Can you give an example? What can you say about it?
• Are you more like tough-minded Hume or tender-minded Leibniz? 132
• Is our world a "mid-world" in Emerson's sense? 133
• What is the "life-and-death significance of the pragmatic method of testing ideas against experience"? 138
• Do you agree that free will is melioristic, where determinism is not? 144
• Have you ever had a Gertrude Stein moment, during an exam? Could her response ever work for you in such a situation, do you think? 152
• How does "zest" makes us all both the same and different? 156
• Is "Hands off" good advice? 158
• Have professors displaced true teachers? 161
• Is "man is the measure" a humanist proposition? 163-5

VI "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth"

When Clerk Maxwell was a child it is written that he had a mania for having everything explained to him, and that when people put him off with vague verbal accounts of any phenomenon he would interrupt them impatiently by saying, "Yes; but I want you to tell me the particular go of it!" Had his question been about truth, only a pragmatist could have told him the particular go of it. I believe that our contemporary pragmatists, especially Messrs. Schiller and Dewey, have given the only tenable account of this subject. It is a very ticklish subject, sending subtle rootlets into all kinds of crannies, and hard to treat in the sketchy way that alone befits a public lecture. But the Schiller-Dewey view of truth has been so ferociously attacked by rationalistic philosophers, and so abominably misunderstood, that here, if anywhere, is the point where a clear and simple statement should be made.

I fully expect to see the pragmatist view of truth run through the classic stages of a theory's career. First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it. Our doctrine of truth is at present in the first of these three stages, with symptoms of the second stage having begun in certain quarters. I wish that this lecture might help it beyond the first stage in the eyes of many of you... (continues)

==

The Gospel of Relaxation

William James

I wish in the following hour to take certain psychological doctrines and show their practical applications to mental hygiene,—to the hygiene of our American life more particularly. Our people, especially in academic circles, are turning towards psychology nowadays with great expectations; and, if psychology is to justify them, it must be by showing fruits in the pedagogic and therapeutic lines.

The reader may possibly have heard of a peculiar theory of the emotions, commonly referred to in psychological literature as the Lange-James theory. According to this theory, our emotions are mainly due to those organic stirrings that are aroused in us in a reflex way by the stimulus of the exciting object or situation. An emotion of fear, for example, or surprise, is not a direct effect of the object's presence on the mind, but an effect of that still earlier effect, the bodily commotion which the object suddenly excites; so that, were this bodily commotion suppressed, we should not so much feel fear as call the situation fearful; we should not feel surprise, but coldly recognize that the object was indeed astonishing. One enthusiast has even gone so far as to say that when we feel sorry it is because we weep, when we feel afraid it is because we run away, and not conversely. Some of you may perhaps be acquainted with the paradoxical formula. Now, whatever exaggeration may possibly lurk in this account of our emotions (and I doubt myself whether the exaggeration be very great), it is certain that the main core of it is true, and that the mere giving way to tears, for example, or to the outward expression of an anger-fit, will result for the moment in making the inner grief or anger more acutely felt. There is, accordingly, no better known or more generally useful precept in the moral training of youth, or in one's personal self-discipline, than that which bids us pay primary attention to what we do and express, and not to care too much for what we feel. If we only check a cowardly impulse in time, for example, or if we only don't strike the blow or rip out with the complaining or insulting word that we shall regret as long as we live, our feelings themselves will presently be t..he calmer and better, with no particular guidance from us on their own account. Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not... (continues)

==

THE LESSONS OF THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION

by Ed Craig

The Gospel of Relaxation is an essay by William James. It is, in written form, a commencement address he gave to the 1896 graduating class of Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. James, an M.D. (who never practiced as such), was a professor at Harvard, a psychologist, a philosopher, and a popular lecturer at a time when public lectures were in vogue. Think Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain. He was, in fact, the father of American psychology, and became America’s most eminent philosopher. In 1890, James published his masterwork, ten years in the making, Principles of Psychology. It is volume 53 of The Great Books of the Western World. In 1892 he published an abbreviated form of Principles as Psychology: Briefer Course. After publishing these books, James was asked by the Harvard Corporation to give a few public lectures on psychology to Cambridge teachers. Their purpose was to provide some guidance to the proponents of scientific methods of teaching. There were sixteen lectures, later collected as Talks to Teachers. Additionally, in response to invitations to deliver 'addresses' to students at women's colleges, he gave three. These are included as essays in his 1899 volume titled Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals. The first of these addresses to students, delivered to the ladies of Boston Normal, was The Gospel of Relaxation. The Gospel is best seen as a guide to inner peace. It provides psychological and philosophical wisdom on the value of equanimity and how to find it. James gives us lessons, based on physiology, psychology, sociology, and philosophy, that we can apply to ourselves, and live a better life. James states his purpose in the first sentence of the essay. He proposes to show the practical application of certain psychological principles to mental hygiene, the conditions or practices conducive to maintaining mental health. (825)i It is to be a self-help lecture.

(continues)

https://1drv.ms/b/s!Ao604sECdB1UqR5jed3RRDe9fvGL?e=vDgpNZ