William James, Charles Peirce, and American Pragmatism

by James Campbell

C. S. Peirce was an authentic American genius who developed a tough-minded pragmatism and a sweeping philosophy of evolutionary love. William James, a trained physician, carefully studied human experience, including the highest reaches of consciousness. Peirce and James established a rich, sensible, and pragmatic American approach to philosophy's traditional problems. The World of Philosophy series is a dramatic presentation, in understandable language, of the concerns, questions, interests, and overall outlook of the world's great philosophers and philosophical traditions. Special emphasis on clear and relevant explanations gives you a new arsenal of insights toward living a better life.

Genres: Philosophy, Audiobook, Nonfiction, History, Biography

Audio Cassette

Published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This little summary of the thinking behind American Pragmatist philosophy is exactly what you would expect of a little summary of philosophical thinking - nice as an introduction, but not terribly deep. I was interested to learn more of Charles Peirce, about whom I previously knew nothing. I believe that if I had read Peirce when I was younger and a scoffer at philosophy, I would have liked him as he goes right for the heart of concrete questions in a very practical way. I used to think that not doing this was the great failure of philosophy and the reason why philosophers all seemed to go round and round with different answers to unanswerable questions. As I have gotten older and have spent more time reading those philosophers that I used to despise, I have come to admire them not because any of them have found final answers but because they dared to ask the big questions and by reaching for answers brought us to a deeper understanding. Now it seems to me that Peirce's focus on the immediate and practical misses an important part of the bigger picture. However, I suspect that there is more to be found in Peirce if I were to delve deeper than this little summary. In contrast with Peirce, I am still able to put William James on a pedestal. He was a brilliant guy and whenever I have read his work, he has helped me to see the world a little differently.

[Jasonlylescampbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these thinkers! (This was free on audible)

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy to follow, succinct overview of the history and three main leaders in pragmatism with three different views - Charles, James, and Dewey.
I related the most to Dewey's pragmatism which combines some of Charles' and James' ideas and focuses on social life and its betterment, a belief that real world problems are most important, a social nature of successful inquiry.
Trying to get ahead in my reading for this semester. 1 down, 15 to go!


"Charles Peirce identifies and examines three methods of settling belief... tenacity, authority, and ad priori. And he rejects all three. In other words, we are unlikely to reach the truth if we start with an answer and tenaciously refuse to question it. We are unlikely to find truth if we use our authority to prevent questioning. And we probably will fall short if we simply assume something to be true. All three of these methods are inadequate because they essentially use psychological tools in an effort to satisfy logical problems. Peirce proposes the method of science, which professes not to know the answer in advance. Science is a kind of collective inquiry using the minds of all the interested members in the community to propose and evaluate beliefs. The scientific method emphasizes that it’s possible and even likely that individuals will make errors, and science deals with such errors by making inquiry cooperative. This means that among the four methods for fixing beliefs, science is the only one that is always corrigible or capable of being improved. Moreover to participate in a scientific enterprise, each experimenter must have an attitude that acknowledges personal availability and they need to cooperate with others."

[Jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great primer in Pragmatism, or what Charles Peirce later referred to as Pragmaticism after he claimed that William James misinterpreted his original theory. I hadn't heard of Charles Peirce until I read The Wisdom of Finance. I was glad to find a good resource that further explained his ideas. Pragmatism makes a lot of sense to me. It especially helped me to understand how people come to believe what they believe.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this audiobook 3 1/2 stars mostly because I am sympathetic to the philosophy of Pragmatism and I like it presented here. I was a little disappointed when they failed to mention one of the largest groups of people using Pragmitism in their daily lives... the members of Alcoholics Anonymous although if you asked almost any AA member about Pragmatism they would probably say, "What's that?"

I might read/listen to this audiobook again.

[Ryan Farrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good and concise introductory audiobook on Peirce, James, Dewey and American pragmatism in general. I didn’t learn a whole lot I hadn’t already received from primary texts and other sources, but it was a pleasant review nonetheless, and reading itself was fantastic with different speakers handling quoted material.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an old set of tapes by Knowledge Products made in the 90's. It was a very good introduction to three philosophers, William James, Charles Peirce and John Dewey. Not having very much background in philosophy, I found this to be interesting but do not have the ability to judge the quality of the presentation other than it was well organized and one I would like to listen to again.

[Adrian Iswariah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I swear Charles Pierce and William James must not only be turning in their graves, They are probably building up enough of an electric charge to light up the Capitol - considering the state of American Politics and general right wing behaviour.

[Joshua Duran]

Audible Audiobook

[Todd Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice overview.

[Michael Barros · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very practical. 💁🏽‍♂️