DOCUMENT RESUME ED 426 934 SO 029 855 Bredo, Eric AUTHOR TITLE The Darwinian Center to the Vision of William James. PUB DATE 1998-00-00 NOTE 18p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (San Diego, CA, April 13-17, 1998). Opinion Papers (120) -- Speeches/Meeting Papers (150) PUB TYPE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE DESCRIPTORS *Evolution; Influences; *Intellectual History; *Philosophy; *Psychology; *Scholarship *Darwin (Charles); *James (William) IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT The essence of William James's vision can sometimes be hard to discover due to emotional volatility and exploratory impulsiveness. On the other hand, beneath James's apparent inconsistency was a constancy of purpose that can be easily underestimated. This paper argues that the center of James's vision lay in an interpretation of Darwinism. By drawing specific connections between James and Darwin, the paper seeks to make James's overall approach clearer and to relate a variety of seemingly disparate themes within it. First the paper explores James's emotional concerns. Next the paper considers Charles Darwin's influence on James' thinking. The paper questions what it means to be "Darwinian," especially when considered philosophically, examining Darwin's accomplishments. According to the paper, Darwin introduced and legitimized a number of intellectual innovations that have become so familiar today that their radical character often goes unrecognized. Contending that pragmatism can be viewed as the generalization of Darwinian philosophy to human social and moral affairs, to see how James used Darwin's ideas, the paper first considers James's work in psychology and then in philosophy. The paper concludes that James tackled the problems facing him by adopting a version of an evolutionary philosophy. 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LE BEST COPY AVAIL 2 The Darwinian Center to the Vision of William James' Eric Bredo University of Virginia William James once wrote that "Any author is There are other reasons for bringing Darwin back easy if you can catch the centre of his vision" into the picture at this time as well. First, now th a t Unfortunately, the center of pragmatism is experiencing a resurgence reviewing (Lovejoy, 1911, 126). connections to evolutionary theory helps James's own vision can sometimes be hard to catch. its in understanding it as an intellectual movement, as As his biographer, Ralph Barton Perry, noted, "The power of his mind lay both Dewey and Mead were at pains to point out. largely extreme its in Second, it deepens pragmatism itself by relating i t mobility, its darting, exploratory impulsiveness. It to theory in the natural sciences, and not just to was not a mind which remained stationary, drawing all things to itself as a centre; but a mind which cultural post-modernism. Finally, Darwinian ideas and now there-- are also resurgent today, due in part to new advances here traveled widely--now These ideas are coming back into ....making up in the variety of its adventures for in biology. psychology, often at the hands of scholars who what it lacked in poise" (Perry, 1935, 66). One can adopt reductive approaches (Wilson, 1980; Dennett, see this quality in James's writing, where sometimes This has led to some debate between asserts one thing at one point, then contradict 1995). himself while caught in enthusiasm for another "evolutionary" and "cultural" psychologists (Cole, 1996). Since James dealt with debates similar point. James could also be unsystematic, and in fact As he warned in was so on principle. the holistic and reductive between Spencerians it may be timely to reconsider this introduction to his Principles of Psychology, "The Hegelians, thinking today. reader will in vain seek for any closed system in this book" (James, 1952/1890, xiv). The combination of a certain emotional volatility and lack of system has James's Emotional Concerns Before exploring the influence of Darwin an often led James to be misunderstood. James, however, I would like to set the stage by first On the other hand, beneath James's apparent examining James's emotional concerns. James invited this approach when he argued that commitments to inconsistency was a constancy of purpose that can be easily underestimated. He explored things from an philosophical systems are emotional at base (James, 1963/1907). Every philosophy was for him an attitude or orientation that brought considerable articulation of an emotional stance, however covert. somewhat his to work, even consistency if attitude was one that Thus finding James's central emotional concerns may (since his paradoxically of his be as important as finding the In what follows I argue origins valued varying attitudes). in an intellectual ideas. Indeed, it may be another way of that lay the vision James's center of This may seem of Darwinism. interpretation doing much the same thing. obvious, since James has often been viewed as influenced by evolutionary thought, but it is rarer for this point to be followed though in any detail so that one can see just how Darwinian ideas figured in his work. By drawing more specific connections between James and Darwin I hope to make James's overall approach clearer and to relate a variety of seemingly disparate themes within it. Presented at the American Educational Research Association meetings, San Diego, CA, April 13-18, 1998. 2 One of the and placed strongest emotional overtones in individual variation value a on uniqueness. In "The Will to Believe," for example, James's work seems to have been fear of confinement. he argued that people should be allowed to adopt Simply put, James was something of a claustrophobe As his sister Alice wrote, whatever fundamental beliefs they chose as long as (Perry, 1935, 219,232). "William expressed himself and his environment to they were willing to bear the consequences (James, perfection when he replied to my question about his 1956/1896). In "Great Men and Their Environments" house in Chocurua. 'Oh, it's the most delightful he argued that individual variation is the source of house you ever saw; has fourteen doors, a 1 1 social progress, making being different of potential it His brain isn't opening outwards.' limited to social value (James, 1956/1897). fourteen, perhaps unfortunately" (Dewey, 1946a, and stereotypical In place of deterministic 380). This feeling recurs in James's continual protest against closed systems and deterministic schemes systems, James sought to vitalize and personalize that leave one trapped with no way out. As he once put it, his things, to enliven them. His principal bogey was "desiccation" (Dewey, 1946b, reaction to Hegelian absolutism is an example: "The 'through and through' universe (of the Hegelian 386). He sought to revivify thought by arguing in system) seems to suffocate me with its infallible favor of conceptions that gave a strong role to human impeccable all-pervasiveness. Its necessity, with no individual Both and action uniqueness. Spencerianism and neo-Hegelianism came in for possibilities; its relations, with no subjects, make me feel as if I had entered into a contract with no in this regard because of the special criticism reserved rights, or rather as if I had to live in a passive roles in which they placed people, one large seaside boarding-house with no private bed- viewing people as conforming to natural laws, the other seeing their behavior as an expression of room in which I might take refuge from the society Neither gave a sufficient role to of the place" (James, 1992a, 1018-1019). Absolute Spirit. James's "neurasthenia," to which Perry and others refer, James interpreted the human action or to novelty. role of philosophy in terms of such enlivenment, may have been a form of panic attack brought on by declaring that "Philosophic study means the habit the thought of being trapped or confined.' of always seeing an alternative, of not taking the James reacted in related fashion to any line of usual for granted, of making conventionalities fluid of every that thought denied again, of imagining foreign states of mind" (Dewey, the uniqueness individual. He continually sought to leave room for 1946b, 388; Perry, 1935, 215).2 While James reacted against deterministic and James's depression of 1869 and 1870 is often taken as an stereotypical lines of thought, he did not neglect indication of his emotional constitution. It seems as though lack of structure and an unclear future led to a depression constraint or universality. As Dewey noted, "all the some months after he had passed his medical examination determining motifs of his philosophy spring from with no intention of going into medicine (Perry, 1935, 114). his extraordinarily intense and personal feeling for It was at this point that first formulated his pluralistic stance between optimistic religious belief that the individual the work of the individual, combined, however, can be totally aligned with the universe, and pessimistic with an equally intense realization of the extent to of separation between part individual and feelings which the findings of natural sciences (to which he "Can one with full knowledge and universal whole: sincerely ever bring one's self to so sympathize with the to rational was loyally devoted) seemed hostile total process of the universe as heartily as assent to the evil justification of the idea that individuality as such Is the mind so purely that seems inherent in the details? has any especial value..." (Dewey, 1946a, 329-393). Are, on the fluid and plastic? If so, optimism is possible. other hancl, the private interests and sympathies of the Thus his work deals with the tension between the individual so essential to his existence that they can never individual and universal and that between freedom be swallowed up in his feeling for the total process,--and and determinism, or, as he preferred to phrase the does he nevertheless imperiously crave a reconciliation or In more between chance and unity of some sort. Pessimism must be his portion. But if, as necessity. issue, in Homer, a divided universe be a conception possible for everyday terms, the tension he dealt with involved his intellect to rest in, and at the same time he have vigor of how the old sense of certainty and human moral will enough to look the universal death in the face without blinking, he can lead the life of moralism (Perry, 1935, 120- 121). James declared that "My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will" (Perry, 1935, 121). This decision is Elsewhere James gave an alternative interpretation based 2 on his conception of the pragmatic method: "The whole viewed instrumental as resolving James's often in depression, but I would be more inclined to attribute its function of philosophy ought to be to fmd out what definite cessation to changes in his practical circumstances, such as difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of his being hired to teach physiology at Harvard in 1872, our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the which gave him a structured outlet for his energies. true one" (James, 1963/1907, 24). 4 What incensed James about both Spencerian influence represented by religion could be squared with the new discoveries and moral uncertainties Social Darwinism and Hegelian Absolute Idealism raised by science. Since I want to suggest that was their determinism and denial of individual Darwinian ideas played a large role in James's uniqueness. Spencer saw human beings as behaving in attempts to solve these problems, it is important to conformity to universal laws and natural selection as eliminating unfit individuals, i.e., those who did consider the influence of Darwin on his thinking. For neo-Hegelians the outcome of not conform. Evolutionary Influences history was predetermined and every tragedy for an in the Evolutionary thought was pervasive individual "rational" was it would because ultimately lead to the Good. James has some United States when James was a young man (Miller, forms of evolutionary principal wonderful passages in which he makes fun of this Three 1968). view which is so insulating from the suffering of Neo-Hegeleianism, thought were play: in Spencerianism, and Darwinism. To put the matter others. Much of James's work was directed against Hegel holist, was succinctly, Spencerians and neo-Hegelians. Indeed, one can see Spencer a a and Darwin a more complicated him as continually defending a largely Darwinian reductionist, something of a one might call that character position against these competitors. pragmatist. Darwin became the central influence on James, as James was influenced by Spencer at an early Edward Reed recently affirmed: "Much of James's psychological theorizing bears the stamp of an although conversations with friend stage, his Charles Saunders Peirce seem to have lessened early and deep adherence to Darwin's ideas. Even on him.' He used Spencer's hold Spencer's when James worked on topics removed from Darwin's Psychology in his first undergraduate course in the interest there area of evidence strong of is subject in 1876. Even so, he wrote at the time, "I am Darwinian influence" (Reed, 1997a).5 completely disgusted with the eminent philosopher When James went to Harvard for his scientific (Spencer), who seems to me more and more to be as and medical absolutely. worthless in all fundamental_ matters of training, was the of it center thought, as he is admirable, clever and ingenious in intellectual debate on evolution: "It was in science, and especially in the field of biological science, secondary matters. His mind is a perfect puzzle to me, but the total impression is of an intensely two that Harvard and was contemporary most and sixpenny, paper-collar prophetic; and it was this emancipating influence, affair" (Perry, 1935, 144). As Perry suggested, Spencer's work served among all the forces of his time and place, that most James as a "teething ring" which he "outlived as an deeply affected William James during the years of incident of his philosophical infancy" (Perry, 1935, his university studies" (Perry, 1935, 65). 154). James began his work at Harvard in chemistry, James seems to have been less touched by but soon changed to the Department of Comparative Hegelian thinking, even though he was early Anatomy and Physiology in the Lawrence Scientific School (a new school at Harvard) with the aim of surrounded by New England Transcendentalists who Idealistic similarly shared making natural history his subject (Perry, 1935, 66, Romantic and There he studied for a year under Jeffries tendencies.' Josiah Royce, a younger neo-Hegelian 72). Wyman, a James was whom James had helped to get a job at Harvard, anatomy. professor of became a neighbor and friend. James learned from attracted to Wyman for his "unmagisterial manner" Royce and reacted negatively to neo-Hegelianism, and his "accuracy and thoroughness," viewing him although he mellowed in some of his reactions later as a paragon of scientific saintliness (Perry, 1935, 67- 68). Wyman tended to favor the Darwinian account, on. but approached the whole issue cautiously and 3 Spencer tended to be a reductionist, emphasizing the ways 5 It is worth noting that James's family friend and older in which the properties of the part determine those of the peer, Chauncey Wright, had written defending Darwin, whole. His social philosophy was based on the individual engaged in correspondence with him, and was viewed very as the primary unit of social evolution. favorably in the Darwinian circle in England (Irvine, His father was a friend of Emerson, who often visited the 1955/1963). Wright's essay, "Evolution of Self- house. His two younger brothers also went to a Consciousness" contributed to James's later view of the Transcendentalist school. biological role of thought (Perry, 1935, 128). 4 without drawing hasty condusions (Croce, 1995). between physiology and psychology, the same issue he was later to pursue in great detail in his James also came in contact with Louis Aggasiz a t Harvard, one of the principal critics of Darwinism. Principles of Psychology. Edward Reed recently summed up the situation as James's work in follows: physiology significant, is particularly given the centrality of the debate on The only prominent psychologist of his day to evolution at the time, because it shows how deeply have studied comparative anatomy, James had he was immersed in Darwinian thinking. As Perry been a pupil of both Jeffries Wyman and Louis put it, in his teaching "he drew most heavily upon what he had learned from Wyman. Aggasiz at Harvard during the 1860's, when The first they were in the middle of their heated debate philosophical devoted which problem he to over Darwinism. Wyman was the second most himself systematically was the problem of evolution, and here also it was the same teacher important Darwinian in the United States after Asa Gray, who was also at Harvard and also who had first shown him the way" (Perry, 1935, 68). part of this vicious intellectual battle. Aggasiz was perhaps America's most distinguished While nineteenth century evolutionary debate and certainly anti- naturalist, often seemed to turn cn the issue of science versus its fiercest When James joined Aggasiz in a Darwinian. with religion, considered Spencer be a to representative of the more scientific end of the expedition in Brazil collecting in 1865-66 (designed in large part to prove Aggasiz's spectrum and neo-Hegelians the more religious end, theory of fish taxonomy against Darwin'sa the issue was actually more complex than this. As goal that could not be, and was not met), he was Dewey emphasized (Dewey, 1997/1910) and Croce (1995) has recently reemphasized, the problem of repelled by Aggasiz's unwillingness to consider Darwin's views. Thirty years later James still dealing with uncertainty and indeterminism was the remembered the inside of science itself and not just an external issue verbal tongue-lashing distinguished professor gave to the twenty- Darwin was regarding religious considerations. three-year-old who dared to defend Darwin. among those working out a new approach to science which could better accommodate uncertainty and (Reed, 1997b, 204) indeterminism as innovations by such using and hypothetical reasoning. Thus, As James wrote to his brother Henry in 1868: "The probabilistic than seeing Darwin as aligned rather against more I think of Darwin's ideas the more weighty do they appear to me, though of course my opinion is with reductionists religion scientific and that worth very little--still, that materialists, such as Spencer and Huxley, one might believe I better view him as opposing both religious and scoundrel Aggasiz is unworthy either intellectually dogmatism.' or morally for him to wipe his shoes on, and I find a affinity for scientific James's certain pleasure in yielding to the feeling (Perry, Darwinian can thus be seen as having deep roots in his own reaction to dogmatic and deterministic 1935, 102). thinking. When James left the Lawrence School of Science to enter the medical school, he continued to be Darwinian Ideas supervised by Wyman. After receiving his medical There is ample evidence, then, that James was degree, James was hired to teach physiology a t influenced heavily by Darwinian thinking. But what does it mean to be a Darwinian, especially Harvard, which he continued to do for five years. He even replaced Wyman after the latter's death, Darwin philosophically? when considered the head of the physiology introduced and legitimized a number of intellectual becoming briefly he entered the It was only after innovations that have become so familiar today department. philosophy department later cn that he taught that their radical character often goes unrecognized. psychology. As James recalled, "I originally studied medicine in order to be a physiologist, but I drifted into psychology and philosophy from a sort of 6 While Huxley is generally viewed as very close to fatality. I never had any philosophic instruction, Darwin, as indeed he was, he adopted a more reductive and materialistic approach to human behavior than did Darwin. the first lecture on psychology I ever heard being Huxley viewed human beings as automata, leading Darwin the first I ever gave" (Perry, 1935, 78). James's first to tease that if this were so he wished there were more course in psychology (in 1875) focused on the relation automata about like Huxley (Irvine, 1955/1963). 6 5 species may have certain average properties, but Let me focus on three of the most important ideas for present purposes. this is a statistical characteristic of a population, set of traits not an essential of each member. First, Darwin argued that species evolve rather Populational thinking is necessary to understand is a commonplace than being immutable. change in species, for if species are to change there This must be some way for them to change somewhat today, but as Dewey argued one needs to recognize that it overthrew two thousand years of philosophy without thereby necessarily becoming a new species. In Platonic and Christian (Dewey, 1997/1910). (Otherwise there would be a virtually infinite set of thought "Being" was traditionally placed above A populational approach makes species.) i t possible to see how individual organisms can be "Becoming." The emphasis was on the way things are, on their eternal and universal form rather than unique and still be members of the same species! point of view, Darwin's From a philosophical on changes or variations from this form. The true, eternal, or final character of a thing (Being) was populational approach can be seen as a form of anti- then used to explain present and concretely essentialism one hundred and forty years before its Darwin reversed varying character (Becoming). Rortyan anti-essentialism. this priority, viewing forms as emergent from a series of historical and contingent Darwin adopted other principles of thought which events. life will be given less emphasis here, although they "Being" was explained by "Becoming," rather than He adopted the also figured in James's work. the reverse. One can see the depth of philosophical aim in Darwin's work by remembering that "species" principle continuity, from L y ell. borrowed of is the Latin word for "form." Thus, when Darwin Continuity meant that a scientific account must wrote about "the origin of species" he was writing explain how organisms change from one form to In effect, his wider about the origin of form itself. another without presupposing saltations, or sudden, intellectual target was formalism. inexplicable appearances, to accont for the change. Explanations must account for successive changes in form, making the appearance of a later Second, Darwin suggested that change in organic species form occurs because of variation and selection rationally comprehensible in terms of a series of changes from an earlier ("descent with modification through variation and Darwin fact, In one. natural selection" (Darwin, 1963/1859, 442)). This suspected, but could not prove, that all of life was so a descended from a seemingly obvious point, which was one of Darwin's original species single complete story would trace everything back to a both central against contributions, argued Continuity served as a version of traditional Deistic thought, which viewed forms as single origin. caused by God or Mind, and against traditional Occam's razor Darwin's thought, keeping for Newtonian or mechanistic thought, which took the explanations simple by not multiplying origins. Darwin also introduced analogical and plausible form of elementary bits of matter as fixed. Darwin's reasoning in science (Croce, 1995). He argued that view suggested that form changes through a cyclical in which there changes in animal form created by human breeding negative feedback process is Organic forms are analogous to a (Bateson, 1972). and natural selection were similar, and attempted to its varied set of experiments which are "corrected" by his interpretation support events by of their elimination, plausibility rather than its logical certainty. variants drawing future characteristics from the group of survivors. This The Darwinian evolving notions forms, of view allowed one to see how functional changes in change through variation and and selection, form could occur without a designer and through populational thinking, may seem obvious today, the that mechanical were processes not in however, we may not appreciate how radical a Newtonian sense, thus evading the predominant thinker Darwin truly was (Mayr, 1997). Darwin can dualism of the time. be viewed as proposing a new philosophy using organic evolution as an example with which to Thirdly, Darwin in conceived species of upend two thousand years of Western philosophy. populational rather than typological terms (Mayr, Defining species in functional and populational A species of unique population is a 1997). terms gave an important individual role for interbreed and share common that individuals ancestors, not a set of individuals all of whom share As Dewey put it, applying this principle to education, certain abstract properties. Seen in this way, a 7 each pupil in a school "is a membff of a unique class" species is a statistical concept. The members of a (Dewey, 1916). 7 6 variation while still retaining higher order units. thought mtin differed from beasts because they had immaterial souls, and from Kant, who emphasized Explaining the cause of change in terms of variation and selection is still radical in the social sciences, the mind's constitutive powers. which tend towards mechanical power theories or James rejected both views. As Reed put of rational Darwin short, theories In choice. i t recently, "James wanted to reject both the active- developed a philosophy from which we might still but-unnatural mind of the idealists and the natural- learn. but-passive mind of the associationists" (Reed, Darwin's approach can be seen as custom made 1997a, 6). James argued that both views begin with given entities, such as objects that interact or an for helping James address his central problems, since account was able integrate immaterial ego. While one can describe things from Darwinian the to individuality and commonality and chance and both physical and mental standpoints, and seek to relate a physical description of the state of the James borrowed a necessity.' deal great from whole brain to phenomenally apparent ideas, it was Indeed, these Darwin, including concepts. pragmatism can be viewed as the generalization of an "unwarrantable impertinence" to suggest that one Darwinian philosophy to human social and moral had the ultimate units for an explanatory account affairs. To see how James used Darwinian ideas let (James, 1952/1890, 90). me first consider his work in psychology and then Darwin provided the beginnings of a middle move on to his philosophy. way between these two accounts of mind. For Darwin mental capacities were the product of a James's Psychology James's psychology was an attack on both mindless evolutionary process. They were entirely natural, not supernatural. On the other hand, mind mechanistic and spiritualistic theories of the mind. As he the need not be interpreted as passively as Spencer had put both "This it, book...rejects as though it merely reflected the portrayed it, associationist and the spiritualist theories, and in Animals have emotionsintereststhat this strictly positivist point of view consists the world. only feature for which I am tempted to claim result in their certain ways not responding in immediate their originality (James, 1952/1890, xiii)." One could see determined directly by As James developed this these two opponents as represented by Spencer and environments. account, mind was primarily a matter of selective attention other although there many were Hegel, or emphasis, rather than a passive mirror of things representatives as well. as they are. Thus mind could play an active role in theory behavior and determined simply mechanistic associationistic not by or The be tended to see mind as a mere side-effect of the immediate external conditions, yet it could also be entirely natural, and, indeed, a mere part of nature. interaction of physical objects. This line of thought evolved from Descartes, who thought animals It could be both active and natural. However, this a new account and from Locke, who thought the interpretation automata, required of a 11 functioning of the brain and nervous system which elementary knowledge sensations came from was neither merely mechanical in a Newtonian generated by the interaction of external objects and sense while also avoiding covertly smuggling in the body's sensory system. In contrast to this view, unobservable entities like mind or soul or spirit to spiritualists or idealists viewed thought as result of explain thought. the active operation of the soul, or as a reflection of Divine Mind. This approach derived primarily from Descartes, who from scholastic Physiology thought, James's physiology was primarily a reaction to Tensions within Darwin's own account should be As noted earlier, mechanism and reductionism. If individual organisms are qualitatively acknowledged. mechanists like Huxley tended to view human unique how can there be continuous variation in form as beings as mere automata.' like Reductionists, How can one descends from another? particle-like individuality be squared with wave-like continuity? Darwin recognized this problem and was unable to solve it. The issue was later resolved by the introduction of 9 Huxley wrote that,"The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body a s Mendelian genetics into the discussion. It then became clear working, and product of that particle-like individuality (unique combinations of simply a collateral its a s genes) can be consistent with wave-like continuity at the completely without any power of modifying that working a s the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of populational level (statistical in changes the genetic a composition of whole populations). locomotive engine is without influence on its machinery....to 8 7 Spencer, saw mind as composed of elementary behavior with surprising adaptive ability, making sensations, thus suggesting that there were little them "mental" in function. They act to bring about bits of mind or consciousness latent in the nerves a 1 1 certain sensed states of affairs, as in the example of the way down. a decorticated frog's rear leg reaching up to just the right place to wipe a drop of acid off its belly. In so dogmatism of both doing the frog acts teleologically. the (or what James objected to It The mechanists that senses a state positions. insisted remains of it) only of affairs that its "as if Hume, material causation was allowable, actions serve to modify in a "desired" direction. Kant, and Lotze had never been born" (James, James concluded that: "All the nervous centres have The atomists, or "mind-stuff" 1952/1890, 90). then in the first instance one essential function, th a t theorists, gave an account that physiologically of "intelligent" action. They feel, prefer one thing implausible since it did not properly account for the to another, and have "ends" (James, 1952/1890, 51). contributions of higher order neural systems. James James viewed the nervous system as a whole as viewed mind in a more active and holistic way than organized so that higher order centers (such as the was evident in either of these accounts. This did not cerebrum) modify the relations between lower order mean that he wanted to go all the way to the other centers without intruding into the latter's operation, end of the spectrum and posit a soul, though at times like officers giving commands to subordinates. In he went in for this, but he realized this the higher centers funclion as "an organ that effect, added for the sake of steering a nervous system nothing explained the phenomena beyond themselves. grown too complex to regulate itself" (James, 1952/1890, 94). Today we might say that the brain Rather than appealing either atomistic and nervous system are organized like a cybernetic to sensations or to the operations of a soul, both of hierarchy. which posited metaphysically given entities, James James's account went a long ways towards suggested that "consciousness" was a function, not a thing. Considered as a function, consciousness was integrating higher and lower orders of "mind.10 It "primarily a selecting agency" (James, 1952/1890, preserved continuity between the minds of higher and lower creatures, and between the evolutionary 91). Mental functioning involved selecting means for the attainment of ends: "The pursuance of future ends remains of this history in the neural systems in our and the choice of means for attainment their own bodies. In neatly avoiding both the mechanistic are...the mark and criterion of the presence of and spiritualistic "ends," James conceptions of adopted a Darwinian way of mediating between mentality in a phenomenon....no actions but such as mechanical and spiritual approaches to "design." are done for an end, and show a choice of means, can be called indubitable expressions of mind" (James, He saw mind as a process of selecting among possible lines of action (ideas) on their basis of anticipated 1952/1890,5,6-7). This conception of the mental gave This view was not mechanical, James a way of shooting in between the mechanistic consequences. and spiritualistic views. Unlike the mechanistic because it assumed that mental agents have their view, it suggested that the organism had ends, not own aims and are not just billiard balls pushed the just the observer. Unlike the spiritualists, was also around by external not It objects. having of ends had perfectly naturalistic, organic spiritualistic, since it supposed no soul or deity to do At other times, origins. Thus, James evoked Darwin to account for or selecting. anticipating the the evolution of mind while viewing "the mental" however, James fell back into the more conventional as similar to a Darwinian process of variation and view that there are two types of entity, brain and selection (as applied to the survival of possible soul, which causally interact with one another.' As lines of action). '° James also arped that evolutionary changes altered the degree of specialization of these in different ' centres ' This conception of the mental gave a way of creatures. The relatively great split between higher and seeing "mind" all the way up and down the scale of lower levels of mental functioning, evident in our elaborated brain an lower itself and behavior, since it was a kind of function, not a thing. less flexible systems, is In this way James also evolutionary product. found Even isolated parts of the spinal cord could control "continuity ' between different species. "I confess...that to posit a soul influenced in some 'I mysterious way by the brain-states and responding to them the best of my judgment, the argumentation which applies to by conscious affections of its own, seems to rre the line of brutes holds equally good of men..." in least logical resistance, so far as we yet have attained...The (cited (James, 1952/1890, 86). bare phenomenon, however, the immediately known thing 9 8 flow smoothly into Dewey pointed out, at the time that he wrote his next thought without the Psychology he was still influenced by conventional apparent jar. thinking regarding the soul.' James accounts for these properties of thought by appealing to the metaphor of a stream or wave. He of Thought The Stream The second, phenomenological, part of James's saw a relatively stable thought, like the thought of psychology attempted some object, as similar to a relatively stable wave- provide view of a to the subjectively experienced thought to parallel form in a pond. A kind of dynamic stability to such first physiological discussion. Here he faced what a wave, keeping its form relatively constant over the same two sets were basically of enemies. some period of time. On the other hand, this wave the is intrinsically related to other waves. Associationist represented psychologists For one mechanistic side of things. They thought th a t thing, it is defined by the other waves around it. In complex ideas were assembled out of elementary similar fashion, each thought is surrounded by a ideas which become associated in some mechanical fringe, or non-focal periphery, that constitutes the fashion, such as through their occurring next to one background against which the former is evident by This was an inheritance another in time or space. way of contrast. Thus an individual thought is in a sense always part of a larger process involving from the British empiricist tradition of Locke and the Each individual "other" thoughts, other waves. Hume. represented psychologists Ego spiritualistic side, thinking that a transcendental wave may also be quite complex in structure even ego constituted its objects maleably from the vague though it is not made up of separate atomistic parts. It is simply a complex pattern, with sub-patterns flux of experience, an approach inherited from the rationalist tradition Kant. and composing the larger pattern. By the same token, an Decartes of the fomer were "objectivists, " who individual thought might be a complex feeling or Essentially, thought the immediate parts given, the latter image whose pieces define each other and form a abstract thought rather than who mechanical "constructivists" united whole, a relationships given. James's problem was how to assemblage. retain the particularity of ideas suggested by the former and the universality emphasized by the Thoughts can also be seen as interrelated in latter. time, flowing into one another, just as waves are related to one another as they come in on the beach. James attacked this problem most directly in his After it peaks, each wave starts to lean into the next famous chapter on the "stream of thought" (James, just as the next builds from the preceding one. Thus Here he each wave helps make up the preceeding and that argued subjective 1952/1890). experience supports the notion that ideas are both succeeding waves, and has information about them Every thought individual and continuous. is evident in its form. In similar fashion, each thought flows into the next during the transitional phases individual in the sense that it is experienced as part As James put it, when thoughts are changing. of a personal consciousness, belonging to "concrete, changing metaphors, thought is something like a particular I's and you's" (James, t 1952/1890, 147). I bird that flies from perch to perch. The dynamic is also unique and individual in that it can never be exactly repeated, since neither the brain nor the rest phase involves the search for a new object while the of the world will ever be the same again. On the perching involves the appreciation of a sought-for other hand a thought steady wave-form, experienced as one fairly In effect, also is object. which is itself formed by the interaction of a continuous. Every thought seems to be an integral whole rather than a mechanical assemblage of transformed through an of waves, variety is "Our idea of a separate parts (As James put it, intervening variety of intermediate wave-forms into another relatively steady wave-form. It also seems to be couple is not a couple of ideas."). The point of this metaphor is that relationships which on the mental side is in apposition with the entire brain-process is the state of consciousness and not the soul between thoughts are present within every thought, Since the soul was not itself" (James, 1952/1890, 119). which is, of course, not a separate or distinct thing, knowable, James ended by suggesting that psychology study but a part of this whole dynamic set of oscillations. the parallelism of whole brain states and of states consciousness, without assuming that either causes the Indeed, in this model both objects and relationships other. have exactly the same standing, neither being more See Dewey's discussion of the "vanishing subject" in 12 real than the other. Both are simply aspects of James's psychology (Dewey, 1946b). 1 0