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A Stroll with William James
With this book, Jacques Barzun pays what he describes as an "intellectual debt" to William James—psychologist, philosopher, and, for Barzun, guide and mentor. Commenting on James's life, thought, and legacy, Barzun leaves us with a wise and civilized distillation of the great thinker's work.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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About the author
Jacques Barzun
137 books211 followersWorks of French-American educator, author, and historian Jacques Martin Barzun include
Darwin, Marx, Wagner
(see Charles Robert Darwin, Karl Marx, and Richard Wagner) (1941) and
The American University
(1968).
He presented ideas and culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques...
He presented ideas and culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques...
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 21, 2025
With William James And Jacques Barzun
William James (1842 -- 1910) was a philosopher and psychologist who is widely regarded as a founder of American pragmatism, an important philosophy but one difficult to pin down. James was at the center of a moment of American intellectual life at the beginning of the 20th Century that has come to be known as the Golden Age of American Philosophy. Jacques Barzun (1907 -- 2012) was born in France but spent most of his life in the United States. Barzun was a prolific author and a recipient of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honor. He was a cultural historian, noted for his erudition and his love for his adopted country, including its popular culture.
Barzun's book, "A Stroll With William James" (1982) is an outstanding study of the earlier American philosopher which also tells the reader a good deal about Barzun himself. In his Preface Barzun describes himself as a "polytheist", meaning that he is receptive to learning from many people with widely diverging points of view. Still, Barzun found a different attraction in reading James than in reading any other writer. Barzun writes:
"I find him visibly and testably right-- right in intuition, range of considerations, sequence of reasons, and fully rounded power of expression. He is for me the most inclusive mind I can listen to, the most concrete and the least hampered by trifles. He is moreover entirely candid and full of gaiety, lovable through his words as he was in life to his friends. As if this were not enough, he helps me to understand what his contemporaries and mine were and are doing. I stroll with him again and again because he knows better than anyone else the material and spiritual country I am traveling through."
Barzun finds in James "an antidote to the opium of modern ideologies, a tonic in the resistance to the sludge of 'modern communications', popular and advanced." In the body of the book, Barzun explains why he loves to "stroll" with James and how reading James can serve as an antidote to some of the shibboleths Barzun finds in the late 20th century. Barzun's study is inspiring, provocative, and bracing.
The book is more detailed and dense than the term "stroll" might suggest. But it is manages to be both accessible and entertaining as Barzun describes in terms of his own life the influence of James' character and thought.
In its opening chapter, the book describes James' upbringing and his depression and suicidal thoughts in his mid 20s. Barzun considers how James was able to right himself and make good on the sense of purposelessness he felt as a young man.
The book describes many of James' writings and attempts in its course to organize them into a coherent whole. There are many asides and digressions in the book in which Barzun brings his interpretation of James to bear on historical or contemporary issues. The book also includes a chapter bring William's work together with that of his brother, the novelist Henry James together with the work of many other figures from the late 19th century whose work in addressing still lively issues may not be fully appreciated after two World Wars.
Broadly, Barzun sees James as a nonreductive naturalist whose work is based on the fullness of human experience but does not reduce human experience to scientific knowledge or to materialism.
James was always preoccupied with religious questions although he was far from traditional in his outlook. Barzun also sees James as a pluralist of a special kind in which there are many separate realities in the way individuals see the world and many truths. As Barzun rightly stresses, James emphasizes the importance of feeling in human endeavor and how feeling is always a part of thinking. James is thus a pluralist and a "radical empiricist" in that he endeavors to rely on all human experience rather than, say, sense data or science, as well as, a pragmatist.
Barzun presents a highly detailed discussion of James "masterpiece" the "Principles of Psychology" of 1890 which founded the modern study of psychology and became the basis of James' further work. Indeed, Barzun wants to show how much of James thinking is a development of the "Principles". Barzun compares the book to "Moby-Dick" in "being the narrative of a search". He finds, "in James, the object of the pursuit is as elusive, as intimate, as momentous for Everyman as anything symbolized by the white whale: it is the human mind: or how, from multiple sensation, -- the 'one great blooming, buzzing confusion, of the infant's encounter with the world-- comes such an extraordinary entity as the warm particular self each of us knows, with its perceptions, will, judgment, habits, emotions, preference; and its undetermined powers; its capacity to abstract and remember; to suffer and utter in myriad languages, to create art and philosophize, to invent systems of writing and of algebra; and with the aid of puny limbs and muscles to bore through mountains, bridge abysses, and reach the moon." The "Principles" lays the groundwork for James pluralism, radical empiricism and pragmatism.
Barzun considers at greater or lesser length many other works of James in developing James' views on the philosophical question of the nature of truth (where Barzun gives James more credit than he usually receives), the nature of pragmatism, and pluralism and ethics. Based on his reading of James, Barzun develops and defends a form of relativism based upon the tie between feeling and thought in each person and the need to understand reality from the point of view of each individual. Barzun points out how "the false separation of feeling from thought [is] a cause of the distrust people feel for one another's realities". (Barzun, p. 25) This is something I know all-too-well from my own experience.
Late in the book, Barzun turns to James' "second masterpiece" the "Varieties of Religious Experience", a book I have learned from over the years. In this book together with the short, controversial essay "The Will to Believe", James explored the importance of different forms of religious consciousness. The "Varieties"suggests how religious experience, but not particular creeds, is as fundamental to human feeling and thought as any other forms, including science and common sense. Most of the book consists of descriptions and analyses of various religious temperaments, with James venturing to express his own ideas only in the work's concluding pages. Why undertake the religious search at all? Barzun, explaining James, states: "Because the religious emotion goes with the feeling that we can act with some power in the universe to support and enhance the worthier and seemlier, we can transcend animal existence and oppose its evils. .... For James the possibility existed that 'we may be in the universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inking of the meaning of it all. The outlines of the superhuman consciousness thus made probable must remain, however, very vague, and the number of functionally distinct 'selves' it comports and carries has to be left entirely problematic.'"
Barzun's book shows eloquently how much may be learned from William James. I enjoyed this leisurely stroll with both William James and Jacques Barzun. They both make excellent teachers and companions.
Robin Friedman
William James (1842 -- 1910) was a philosopher and psychologist who is widely regarded as a founder of American pragmatism, an important philosophy but one difficult to pin down. James was at the center of a moment of American intellectual life at the beginning of the 20th Century that has come to be known as the Golden Age of American Philosophy. Jacques Barzun (1907 -- 2012) was born in France but spent most of his life in the United States. Barzun was a prolific author and a recipient of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honor. He was a cultural historian, noted for his erudition and his love for his adopted country, including its popular culture.
Barzun's book, "A Stroll With William James" (1982) is an outstanding study of the earlier American philosopher which also tells the reader a good deal about Barzun himself. In his Preface Barzun describes himself as a "polytheist", meaning that he is receptive to learning from many people with widely diverging points of view. Still, Barzun found a different attraction in reading James than in reading any other writer. Barzun writes:
"I find him visibly and testably right-- right in intuition, range of considerations, sequence of reasons, and fully rounded power of expression. He is for me the most inclusive mind I can listen to, the most concrete and the least hampered by trifles. He is moreover entirely candid and full of gaiety, lovable through his words as he was in life to his friends. As if this were not enough, he helps me to understand what his contemporaries and mine were and are doing. I stroll with him again and again because he knows better than anyone else the material and spiritual country I am traveling through."
Barzun finds in James "an antidote to the opium of modern ideologies, a tonic in the resistance to the sludge of 'modern communications', popular and advanced." In the body of the book, Barzun explains why he loves to "stroll" with James and how reading James can serve as an antidote to some of the shibboleths Barzun finds in the late 20th century. Barzun's study is inspiring, provocative, and bracing.
The book is more detailed and dense than the term "stroll" might suggest. But it is manages to be both accessible and entertaining as Barzun describes in terms of his own life the influence of James' character and thought.
In its opening chapter, the book describes James' upbringing and his depression and suicidal thoughts in his mid 20s. Barzun considers how James was able to right himself and make good on the sense of purposelessness he felt as a young man.
The book describes many of James' writings and attempts in its course to organize them into a coherent whole. There are many asides and digressions in the book in which Barzun brings his interpretation of James to bear on historical or contemporary issues. The book also includes a chapter bring William's work together with that of his brother, the novelist Henry James together with the work of many other figures from the late 19th century whose work in addressing still lively issues may not be fully appreciated after two World Wars.
Broadly, Barzun sees James as a nonreductive naturalist whose work is based on the fullness of human experience but does not reduce human experience to scientific knowledge or to materialism.
James was always preoccupied with religious questions although he was far from traditional in his outlook. Barzun also sees James as a pluralist of a special kind in which there are many separate realities in the way individuals see the world and many truths. As Barzun rightly stresses, James emphasizes the importance of feeling in human endeavor and how feeling is always a part of thinking. James is thus a pluralist and a "radical empiricist" in that he endeavors to rely on all human experience rather than, say, sense data or science, as well as, a pragmatist.
Barzun presents a highly detailed discussion of James "masterpiece" the "Principles of Psychology" of 1890 which founded the modern study of psychology and became the basis of James' further work. Indeed, Barzun wants to show how much of James thinking is a development of the "Principles". Barzun compares the book to "Moby-Dick" in "being the narrative of a search". He finds, "in James, the object of the pursuit is as elusive, as intimate, as momentous for Everyman as anything symbolized by the white whale: it is the human mind: or how, from multiple sensation, -- the 'one great blooming, buzzing confusion, of the infant's encounter with the world-- comes such an extraordinary entity as the warm particular self each of us knows, with its perceptions, will, judgment, habits, emotions, preference; and its undetermined powers; its capacity to abstract and remember; to suffer and utter in myriad languages, to create art and philosophize, to invent systems of writing and of algebra; and with the aid of puny limbs and muscles to bore through mountains, bridge abysses, and reach the moon." The "Principles" lays the groundwork for James pluralism, radical empiricism and pragmatism.
Barzun considers at greater or lesser length many other works of James in developing James' views on the philosophical question of the nature of truth (where Barzun gives James more credit than he usually receives), the nature of pragmatism, and pluralism and ethics. Based on his reading of James, Barzun develops and defends a form of relativism based upon the tie between feeling and thought in each person and the need to understand reality from the point of view of each individual. Barzun points out how "the false separation of feeling from thought [is] a cause of the distrust people feel for one another's realities". (Barzun, p. 25) This is something I know all-too-well from my own experience.
Late in the book, Barzun turns to James' "second masterpiece" the "Varieties of Religious Experience", a book I have learned from over the years. In this book together with the short, controversial essay "The Will to Believe", James explored the importance of different forms of religious consciousness. The "Varieties"suggests how religious experience, but not particular creeds, is as fundamental to human feeling and thought as any other forms, including science and common sense. Most of the book consists of descriptions and analyses of various religious temperaments, with James venturing to express his own ideas only in the work's concluding pages. Why undertake the religious search at all? Barzun, explaining James, states: "Because the religious emotion goes with the feeling that we can act with some power in the universe to support and enhance the worthier and seemlier, we can transcend animal existence and oppose its evils. .... For James the possibility existed that 'we may be in the universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inking of the meaning of it all. The outlines of the superhuman consciousness thus made probable must remain, however, very vague, and the number of functionally distinct 'selves' it comports and carries has to be left entirely problematic.'"
Barzun's book shows eloquently how much may be learned from William James. I enjoyed this leisurely stroll with both William James and Jacques Barzun. They both make excellent teachers and companions.
Robin Friedman
July 23, 2019
I sought this book out because I find James' philosophy to be unexpectedly subtle and I hoped that Barzun might help to simplify it for me. My hopes were largely met. Barzun emphasizes James' radical empiricism, pluralism and relativism. He is frank with the reader that none of these concepts is easily simplified without sacrificing accuracy.
James' idea of empiricism is broad and inclusive. The stuff of experience for him includes the usual inputs from our five senses, and much more: emotion, instinct, dreams, imagination, physical urge, desire, pain, pleasure, artistic impulse, religious impulse, revelation, and etc. Our minds operate (consciously and not) on all of these inputs. The result is experience and it is rich, deep and, for many, even spiritual.
For James, there is no absolute truth. We measure the truth of things against our ever-changing experience. But there is more. James seems to suppose that when we ask whether something is true, we do so for a reason. Our reason for asking is key. He thinks that whether something is true will depend on whether it works for the purpose that underlies the question.
James' ethics are relativistic, even situational. He seems to think that questions of ethics arise only when one places a moral claim on us. Only then do we make a decision that involves ethics. He is very open that the question will be answered differently depending on the individual and the specific circumstances of the situation. But he interposes a rule. When a moral claim is placed, it must be honored, unless it is refuted. The burden of refutation is on the obligor. This prevents expediency.
I am unable to tell how much of this is new. I suspect that much of it can be found here and there in the philosophy of others. That was a disappointment for me. I had expected James to be highly original, and Barzun clearly thinks he is, but I just don't see it.
I am undoubtedly missing a lot of what James has to say. This is a danger to one who reads seriously, but alone without a teacher or colleagues. Be that as it may, A STROLL WITH WILLIAM JAMES is a very enlightening read. And, of course, Barzun is a joy.
James' idea of empiricism is broad and inclusive. The stuff of experience for him includes the usual inputs from our five senses, and much more: emotion, instinct, dreams, imagination, physical urge, desire, pain, pleasure, artistic impulse, religious impulse, revelation, and etc. Our minds operate (consciously and not) on all of these inputs. The result is experience and it is rich, deep and, for many, even spiritual.
For James, there is no absolute truth. We measure the truth of things against our ever-changing experience. But there is more. James seems to suppose that when we ask whether something is true, we do so for a reason. Our reason for asking is key. He thinks that whether something is true will depend on whether it works for the purpose that underlies the question.
James' ethics are relativistic, even situational. He seems to think that questions of ethics arise only when one places a moral claim on us. Only then do we make a decision that involves ethics. He is very open that the question will be answered differently depending on the individual and the specific circumstances of the situation. But he interposes a rule. When a moral claim is placed, it must be honored, unless it is refuted. The burden of refutation is on the obligor. This prevents expediency.
I am unable to tell how much of this is new. I suspect that much of it can be found here and there in the philosophy of others. That was a disappointment for me. I had expected James to be highly original, and Barzun clearly thinks he is, but I just don't see it.
I am undoubtedly missing a lot of what James has to say. This is a danger to one who reads seriously, but alone without a teacher or colleagues. Be that as it may, A STROLL WITH WILLIAM JAMES is a very enlightening read. And, of course, Barzun is a joy.
May 8, 2022
The title of historian and polymath Jacques Barzun’s “A Stroll with William James” is aptly understated and amusing: this is no stroll; it is a deep journey, a wide-ranging trek, an absorbing pilgrimage.
I picked up this book believing I have working knowledge of William James and his thought; I believe I know more now. Barzun goes through the masterpieces, “Principles of Psychology” and “Varieties of Religious Experience” and explicates the important concepts in each. Barzun also addresses the critics’ view of James, sometimes agreeing but mostly to refute. He also gives an in-depth look at James’ life and personality, which are integral to the psychology and philosophy he developed. James' work is complex and sophisticated, and Barzun does a good job of making it accessible.
Barzun wrote in a suitably conversational style, with occasional gems sprinkled in, such as: “It is clear that when critics later on spoke of James’ philosophy as ‘typically American” – a sort of homespun product of the backwoods – they were ignorantly jumping at conclusions, perhaps from reading his birth certificate rather than his works.”
Barzun makes a strong case that William James rightfully belongs in the pantheon of thinkers and scientists that brought tremendous ferment and changes from 1890 to 1914: mechanical inventions (automobiles, airplanes, movies, X-ray, electricity as power) and domestic changes (vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, zippers, toothpaste in a tube, etc.), were matched with artistic innovations (Cubism) and quantum physics.
As Barzun puts it: “… Jamesian revolutions – rejoining knower and known into one universe, re-defining truth and its test, showing the workings of the stream of consciousness and disposing of the heart-and-mind dichotomy, restoring within due limits the right and the will to believe, exploring the unconscious in its relation to religion, genius and psychopathology, and supplying a vision of what experience is like with nothing left out.”
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it here: the more I read by and about William James, the more I think we’re all just catching up to him.
I picked up this book believing I have working knowledge of William James and his thought; I believe I know more now. Barzun goes through the masterpieces, “Principles of Psychology” and “Varieties of Religious Experience” and explicates the important concepts in each. Barzun also addresses the critics’ view of James, sometimes agreeing but mostly to refute. He also gives an in-depth look at James’ life and personality, which are integral to the psychology and philosophy he developed. James' work is complex and sophisticated, and Barzun does a good job of making it accessible.
Barzun wrote in a suitably conversational style, with occasional gems sprinkled in, such as: “It is clear that when critics later on spoke of James’ philosophy as ‘typically American” – a sort of homespun product of the backwoods – they were ignorantly jumping at conclusions, perhaps from reading his birth certificate rather than his works.”
Barzun makes a strong case that William James rightfully belongs in the pantheon of thinkers and scientists that brought tremendous ferment and changes from 1890 to 1914: mechanical inventions (automobiles, airplanes, movies, X-ray, electricity as power) and domestic changes (vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, zippers, toothpaste in a tube, etc.), were matched with artistic innovations (Cubism) and quantum physics.
As Barzun puts it: “… Jamesian revolutions – rejoining knower and known into one universe, re-defining truth and its test, showing the workings of the stream of consciousness and disposing of the heart-and-mind dichotomy, restoring within due limits the right and the will to believe, exploring the unconscious in its relation to religion, genius and psychopathology, and supplying a vision of what experience is like with nothing left out.”
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it here: the more I read by and about William James, the more I think we’re all just catching up to him.
August 4, 2014
I really wanted to like this book, but by the time I got about a third of the way through I'd given up on it. It's a slog. Why read this and not William James in the original? I can't see any justification for it.
December 4, 2013
A cranky but entertaining and useful survey of the work of William James. Does a much better job, I think, of illustrating pragmatism as a philosophy and showing why it matters than Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club.
June 10, 2023
Jacques Barzun's A Stroll with William James is simultaneously a survey of William James' thought and a collection of Jacques Barzun's beliefs that are fundamentally Jamesian.
The book begins with Barzun outlining his impetus to write it: to guide the reader through "the tone and temper" of William James' thought, which "is a prop to independence of mind, an antidote to the opium of modern ideologies, a tonic in the resistance to the sludge of 'modern communications,' popular and advanced." In essence, Barzun believes James can provide the necessary guidance to not only think about modern dilemmas – which may not be so "modern" as, Barzun insists throughout, the problems that existed in James' time are simply reskinned or have morphed in our time – but also what to do in response to these dilemmas.
Barzun's first chapter, "The Man," provides a biographical sketch, tracing William's early life from privileged firstborn of a wealthy family, to an academic globetrotter, to a man subject to the impulses of melancholy, despair, confusion, and dissatisfaction with himself and the world, to his familial endeavors, and finally to his relatively early death. Barzun contributes the remaining bulk of the book describing the discoveries and outlining the philosophies within James' two primary masterpieces: The Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience. The ideas contained in The Will to Believe, The Energies of Men, and Essays in Radical Empiricism, among others, are also cited.
As one might expect from its author, A Stroll with Williams James is packed densely with explication, observation, and general history. Barzun's insights shine brightly, especially with his calls to forgotten thinkers such as Lichtenberg (who predated philosophy's turn to the study of language by a century and made fundamental contributions to the philosophy of physics) and Alfred Sidgwick's out-of-print contributions to the study of logical thinking, for which he is unknown today. Nuggets such as these abound in this book.
Barzun's survey of The Principles of Psychology is a fruitful one, outlining James' original contributions to the field of psychology, such as (what would eventually be known as) the James-Lange theory of emotion, "feeling-thought," rationalization, perceptions of time and space (the latter being "James's greatest achievement in psychology," according to Barzun), memory, brain anatomy, among many others. The Psychology, a former university textbook in its day, is timeless. Barzun's survey in his chapter "The Test of Truth" digs into James' The Will to Believe, which is ostensibly the philosopher's most misunderstood and misrepresented work. In it, James proffers an explanation of the "making of truth," which is distinct from, but not necessarily unrelated to, the discovery of facts. In summary, "Ideas (which themselves are but parts of our experience) become true just insofar as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience." In effect, "truth" is a hodgepodge of beliefs corroborated with experience and facts, and each of us – including scientists, philosophers, and non-Pragmatists – hold conflicting truths simultaneously, an innate consequence of humanity's "perspectivism", i.e., "purpose and point of view." Barzun, like James, believes that "truth is the pathway, not the terminus..." that "chart[s] 'reality,' but never exhaust[s] it." In practice this definition of truth, per the doctrine of Pragmatism, is seen in Law, with Lord Devlin, a High Court judge, serving as a prime example of such virtues. Barzun suggests that needless confusion and conflict would be abated if Pragmatism were called Practicalism and the title of James' book in question changed to "The Right to Believe."
In his chapters "The Varieties of Experience" and "Freedom and Risk," Barzun explores James' pluralism and radical empiricism through myriad examples of everyday life, emphasizing "pure experience" over scientism or philosophical idealism, common sense over needlessly complex abstraction, "moral intuition" and the related belief "in free will on moral grounds," "unities and relations among things and among ideas," and a sort of coyness toward the unknown by adhering neither to scientific materialism nor mysticism. In these chapters, Barzun applies Jamesian thinking to briefly probe Marx's shortcomings, highlight the "failure of prose" endemic in "academic philosophy," and ruminate political and moral conduct. Regarding the latter, pages 156-160 reveal a discussion of modern topics applying James' maxims, lambasting "the habit of thinking about means-and-ends in linked form." In total, these two chapters alone are some of the best examinations offered in the book.
Such examinations are applied in subsequent chapters, as well, with "The Reign of William and Henry" packing the most history in the book, aside from the first chapter, meaning that it examines the influence and placement of William James and his brother, the novelist Henry James Jr., in their own time. "Beyond the Conscious Mind" touches upon James' opinions on the power and faculty of the mind as well as its intellectual influence and divergence from even more popular figures such as Jung and Freud. This chapter, discussing ideas expressed in The Varieties of Religious Experience and The Energies of Men, also touches upon James' oft-misunderstood conclusion regarding his examination into the paranormal, specifically ESP; the conclusion is that James could draw no meaningful conclusions, not that he was convinced of anything. The reader is also acquainted with Barzun's type of spiritualism, characterizing himself as "a Nietzsche-Shaw-James kind of believer" who is "obedient to 'spirit,' knowing that from it alone come the thing that justify life – things, in Nietzsche's words, 'transfiguring, exquisite, mad and divine.'" One of the highlights of James' assessment of the sensation religious experience is that we all know what it feels like: in Barzun's words: "The intimation of something beyond our consciousness, the sense of a controlling force in our destiny, the feeling of transcendence," which "James can say is objectively true." The sense, feeling, and passion are real. The evidence for its existence is purely personal and belongs to the individual alone.
There is much more to pluck out, analyze, and surmise from these chapters. Barzun concludes the book with something of a character study of James, differing from the biographical sketch at the beginning. In this last chapter, "Genius," Barzun pits James' philosophies against his character, actions, and lasting impressions. The chapter seeks to answer the question "Who was William James, the man?" with "A genius." After this chapter is the "Epilogue-Anthology," which simply cannot be overlooked. It's a staple of Barzun's to supplement the primary subject with related quotes and excerpts for additional reading, and in this case, he provides quotes more akin to the history of ideas, sharing quotes that he believes are quite Jamesian in fashion, with ideas and remarks that existed both before and after James' life. It's short but well worth reading.
In summary, this book offers an excellent survey of the life and thought of William James. It is not as sweeping as Ralph Barton Perry's intellectual biography, nor does it aim to compete with G.W. Allen's biography (the best on James, according to Barzun), but it's a study intimately tied with the thoughts and life of its author – who was an equally interesting, well-read, and intelligent academic in his own right – offering, almost tongue-in-cheek, no clear, black-and-white answers on life's toughest, most challenging questions, no solutions to the many complexities of the universe, and no rigorous philosophical system. To some this will be most unsatisfactory but equally most consistent with its subject, making A Stroll with William James the perfect introduction.
The book begins with Barzun outlining his impetus to write it: to guide the reader through "the tone and temper" of William James' thought, which "is a prop to independence of mind, an antidote to the opium of modern ideologies, a tonic in the resistance to the sludge of 'modern communications,' popular and advanced." In essence, Barzun believes James can provide the necessary guidance to not only think about modern dilemmas – which may not be so "modern" as, Barzun insists throughout, the problems that existed in James' time are simply reskinned or have morphed in our time – but also what to do in response to these dilemmas.
Barzun's first chapter, "The Man," provides a biographical sketch, tracing William's early life from privileged firstborn of a wealthy family, to an academic globetrotter, to a man subject to the impulses of melancholy, despair, confusion, and dissatisfaction with himself and the world, to his familial endeavors, and finally to his relatively early death. Barzun contributes the remaining bulk of the book describing the discoveries and outlining the philosophies within James' two primary masterpieces: The Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience. The ideas contained in The Will to Believe, The Energies of Men, and Essays in Radical Empiricism, among others, are also cited.
As one might expect from its author, A Stroll with Williams James is packed densely with explication, observation, and general history. Barzun's insights shine brightly, especially with his calls to forgotten thinkers such as Lichtenberg (who predated philosophy's turn to the study of language by a century and made fundamental contributions to the philosophy of physics) and Alfred Sidgwick's out-of-print contributions to the study of logical thinking, for which he is unknown today. Nuggets such as these abound in this book.
Barzun's survey of The Principles of Psychology is a fruitful one, outlining James' original contributions to the field of psychology, such as (what would eventually be known as) the James-Lange theory of emotion, "feeling-thought," rationalization, perceptions of time and space (the latter being "James's greatest achievement in psychology," according to Barzun), memory, brain anatomy, among many others. The Psychology, a former university textbook in its day, is timeless. Barzun's survey in his chapter "The Test of Truth" digs into James' The Will to Believe, which is ostensibly the philosopher's most misunderstood and misrepresented work. In it, James proffers an explanation of the "making of truth," which is distinct from, but not necessarily unrelated to, the discovery of facts. In summary, "Ideas (which themselves are but parts of our experience) become true just insofar as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience." In effect, "truth" is a hodgepodge of beliefs corroborated with experience and facts, and each of us – including scientists, philosophers, and non-Pragmatists – hold conflicting truths simultaneously, an innate consequence of humanity's "perspectivism", i.e., "purpose and point of view." Barzun, like James, believes that "truth is the pathway, not the terminus..." that "chart[s] 'reality,' but never exhaust[s] it." In practice this definition of truth, per the doctrine of Pragmatism, is seen in Law, with Lord Devlin, a High Court judge, serving as a prime example of such virtues. Barzun suggests that needless confusion and conflict would be abated if Pragmatism were called Practicalism and the title of James' book in question changed to "The Right to Believe."
In his chapters "The Varieties of Experience" and "Freedom and Risk," Barzun explores James' pluralism and radical empiricism through myriad examples of everyday life, emphasizing "pure experience" over scientism or philosophical idealism, common sense over needlessly complex abstraction, "moral intuition" and the related belief "in free will on moral grounds," "unities and relations among things and among ideas," and a sort of coyness toward the unknown by adhering neither to scientific materialism nor mysticism. In these chapters, Barzun applies Jamesian thinking to briefly probe Marx's shortcomings, highlight the "failure of prose" endemic in "academic philosophy," and ruminate political and moral conduct. Regarding the latter, pages 156-160 reveal a discussion of modern topics applying James' maxims, lambasting "the habit of thinking about means-and-ends in linked form." In total, these two chapters alone are some of the best examinations offered in the book.
Such examinations are applied in subsequent chapters, as well, with "The Reign of William and Henry" packing the most history in the book, aside from the first chapter, meaning that it examines the influence and placement of William James and his brother, the novelist Henry James Jr., in their own time. "Beyond the Conscious Mind" touches upon James' opinions on the power and faculty of the mind as well as its intellectual influence and divergence from even more popular figures such as Jung and Freud. This chapter, discussing ideas expressed in The Varieties of Religious Experience and The Energies of Men, also touches upon James' oft-misunderstood conclusion regarding his examination into the paranormal, specifically ESP; the conclusion is that James could draw no meaningful conclusions, not that he was convinced of anything. The reader is also acquainted with Barzun's type of spiritualism, characterizing himself as "a Nietzsche-Shaw-James kind of believer" who is "obedient to 'spirit,' knowing that from it alone come the thing that justify life – things, in Nietzsche's words, 'transfiguring, exquisite, mad and divine.'" One of the highlights of James' assessment of the sensation religious experience is that we all know what it feels like: in Barzun's words: "The intimation of something beyond our consciousness, the sense of a controlling force in our destiny, the feeling of transcendence," which "James can say is objectively true." The sense, feeling, and passion are real. The evidence for its existence is purely personal and belongs to the individual alone.
There is much more to pluck out, analyze, and surmise from these chapters. Barzun concludes the book with something of a character study of James, differing from the biographical sketch at the beginning. In this last chapter, "Genius," Barzun pits James' philosophies against his character, actions, and lasting impressions. The chapter seeks to answer the question "Who was William James, the man?" with "A genius." After this chapter is the "Epilogue-Anthology," which simply cannot be overlooked. It's a staple of Barzun's to supplement the primary subject with related quotes and excerpts for additional reading, and in this case, he provides quotes more akin to the history of ideas, sharing quotes that he believes are quite Jamesian in fashion, with ideas and remarks that existed both before and after James' life. It's short but well worth reading.
In summary, this book offers an excellent survey of the life and thought of William James. It is not as sweeping as Ralph Barton Perry's intellectual biography, nor does it aim to compete with G.W. Allen's biography (the best on James, according to Barzun), but it's a study intimately tied with the thoughts and life of its author – who was an equally interesting, well-read, and intelligent academic in his own right – offering, almost tongue-in-cheek, no clear, black-and-white answers on life's toughest, most challenging questions, no solutions to the many complexities of the universe, and no rigorous philosophical system. To some this will be most unsatisfactory but equally most consistent with its subject, making A Stroll with William James the perfect introduction.
January 31, 2019
This seemed a good introduction to William James. Wrong. I'm reading James now to understand Barzun. Barzun admired James, but his style demands the reader meet him on Barzun's terms; James always approached the reader as an equal. Barzun has a running grumpy conversation going in the footnotes lining the bottom of nearly every page, which I learned to ignore after a while. This seems a book with an agenda, something to do with some long-forgotten argument current in the world of academia, ca. 1980, which is probably another reason (in addition to the difficult prose) it is no longer read. There are gems to be mined here, but they'll take some work to uncover.
January 24, 2021
Wonderfully written and researched. Bears rereading.
Notes:
Viii a congenial disputant
8 Henry Sr a permissive parent, a paternal wanderlust asserted itself.
15 I can hardly think of Abe L w/o feeling on the point of blubber
18 idiotic patient “That shape am I” … horror the insecurity of life
30 Wm’s letters sprinkle with spontaneous love-touches, ...
33 Mothers! Venerable ones whom we should reverence.
36 neurosis for nerve action ... Psychosis for the mental event
190 Wilde Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself -- 1895
Notes:
Viii a congenial disputant
8 Henry Sr a permissive parent, a paternal wanderlust asserted itself.
15 I can hardly think of Abe L w/o feeling on the point of blubber
18 idiotic patient “That shape am I” … horror the insecurity of life
30 Wm’s letters sprinkle with spontaneous love-touches, ...
33 Mothers! Venerable ones whom we should reverence.
36 neurosis for nerve action ... Psychosis for the mental event
190 Wilde Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself -- 1895
July 24, 2007
I'm half-way through this book. Barzun is one of the best writers I've had the privelege of reading. He makes James' ideas clear and extremely understandable. I highly recommend this book!
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