Abstract

This essay argues that William James's mature philosophical view is most adequately represented by the integrated, radically empiricist, pluralistically panpsychist position indicated in his last major completed work, A Pluralistic Universe . Arguing that the many facets of James's worldview are systematically interrelated, and considering the historical development of James's metaphysical views in the last two decades of his life, this thesis provides a fresh appreciation of the contours and depth of James's thought, as well as a deeper understanding of the centrality of his understanding of religion to his comprehensive philosophical project. ;Chapter 2 is a systematic interpretation of James's radical empiricism, based on the 1904-5 articles known to contemporary readers as Essays in Radical Empiricism . The analysis divides James's view into seven theses, explicating each while exploring their interrelations. Chapter 3 considers the early historical development of James's radical empiricism. Linking radical empiricism philosophically to James's dissatisfactions with his psychological work in the 1890s, this chapter demonstrates that James engaged the central tenets of radical empiricism by 1895, eight years earlier than has been generally recognized. Chapter 3 also shows the dependence of James's "field theory" on his formally monistic radical empiricism. Chapter 4 is a philosophical interpretation of Varieties of Religious Experience which seeks to reconstruct the "philosophy adequate to normal religious needs" that James promised in his plan for these lectures. Offering a fresh look at this well-known text, the chapter demonstrates close connections between the analysis of Varieties and the central ideas of radical empiricism. Chapter 5 returns to systematic issues, providing an in-depth reading of A Pluralistic Universe that attends to crucial refinements James makes to radical empiricism, most notably his endorsement of "pluralistic panpsychism." This refinement is seen both to solve the critical philosophical problem of the compounding of consciousness that James recognized in radical empiricism, and to make philosophically comprehensible the piecemeal supernaturalism of Varieties. The outcome is a more philosophically detailed understanding of James's integrated worldview, and a deeper appreciation of the close relation between religion and philosophy in James's thought