William James

A Pluralistic Universe William James

Our age is growing philosophical again. Change of tone since 1860. Empiricism and Rationalism defined. The process of Philosophizing: Philosophers choose some part of the world to interpret the whole by. They seek to make it seem less strange. Their temperamental differences. Their systems must be reasoned out. Their tendency to over-technicality. Excess of this in Germany. The type of vision is the important thing in a philosopher. Primitive thought. Spiritualism and Materialism: Spiritualism shows two types. Theism and Pantheism. Theism makes a duality of Man and God, and leaves Man an outsider. Pantheism identifies Man with God. The contemporary tendency is towards Pantheism. Legitimacy of our demand to be essential in the Universe. Pluralism versus Monism: The 'each-form? and the 'all-form? of representing the world. Professor Jacks quoted. Absolute Idealism characterized. Peculiarities of the finite consciousness which the Absolute cannot share. The finite still remains outside of absolute reality. As these lectures are meant to be public, and so few, I have assumed all very special problems to be excluded, and some topic of general interest required. Fortunately, our age seems to be growing philosophical again ? still in the ashes live the wonted fires. Oxford, long the seed-bed, for the english world, of the idealism inspired by Kant and Hegel, has recently become the nursery of a very different way of thinking. Even non-philosophers have begun to take an interest in a controversy over what is known as pluralism or humanism.