Greetings again,
James's biography (p.126) clearly states he had read and reread
Upanishad and Buddhist texts, texts that belonged to his father.
This would have been around 1870, while still in his twenties.
Here's a list of some of the books:
Modern Buddhist - Alabaster
Religion des Buddha (Vol.1) - Koeppen
Le Buddhisme - Taine
Weltauffas der Buddhisten - Bastian
Brahma Somej: Four Lectures - Sen
(William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
by Robert D. Richardson)
James's ideas of pure experience weren't pulled out of the American sky.
On Sep 26, 2010, at 2:00 PM, david buchanan wrote:
>
> As a matter of fact, I just finished "The Metaphysical Club". I thought it
> was pretty weak, actually. Don't think I've ever read a more disappointing
> secondary source on pragmatism. Somehow, it was like hearing a bad
> impersonation of Rorty. The author seemed to hit every note that Rorty hits,
> as if following a playbook. But the biographical stuff is what interested me
> anyway. As you may have noticed, I've also been reading Robert Richardson's
> biography of James. It's far more substantial. Richardson not only read
> everything James ever wrote, including private letters, he also read
> everything James read. Richardson rocks.
>
> One thing I learned from "The Metaphysical Club" was that free speech rights
> didn't become what they are today until about 1925 and this came about - in
> part - because of the club. It's that many cognizers idea again. Oliver
> Wendell Holmes served on the supreme court and he had a legal version of this
> view even back in the 1870's. John Dewey would later go on to help found the
> ACLU and the NAACP. My point simply being that pragmatism has been good for
> democracy and liberalism.
>
>
>
>> Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 09:36:46 -0700
>> From: [email protected]
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [MD] william James.
>>
>> That does sound fascinating Marsha. I always like to be shown books that
>> deal with what I'm thinking and discussing, and if I do so say, this book
>> suggestion you share seems to point to us - the MoQ Discuss- and our little
>> "metaphysical club" and our discussions.
>>
>> Pat on the backs all around for us being so "cutting edge".
>>
>> woo-hoo!
>>
>> John
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 11:28 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Here might be a book worth reading, 'The Metaphysical Club: A Story of
>>> Ideas in America':
>>>
>>>
>>> It’s the liberal belief that there are no absolutes and no Truth. That’s
>>> why relativism is the central idea of today’s “culture war.”
>>>
>>> They say there are only our own personal “values” that reflect our
>>> interests, prejudices, and desires.
>>>
>>> This idea seemed to explode onto the American scene in the 1960s, with the
>>> moral code, “If it feels good, do it.” But its roots lie farther back in
>>> American history.
>>>
>>> After the Civil War, American philosophers (centered at Harvard) began to
>>> build the intellectual and moral system that produced the Clinton/Baby
>>> Boomer ethos, the kind that is never “judgmental” and disputes the meaning
>>> of the word “is.”
>>>
>>> The abandonment of both religious and philosophical absolutes was a
>>> worldwide phenomenon. The American style of relativism came to be called
>>> “pragmatism.”
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.massnews.com/2002_editions/03_Mar/302harvard.htm
>>>
>>>
>>> ___
>>>
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