At Columbia University in 1906, William James gave a highly confrontational speech to the America... more At Columbia University in 1906, William James gave a highly confrontational speech to the American Philosophical Association (APA). He ignored the technical philosophical questions the audience had gathered to discuss and instead addressed the topic of human energy. Trampling on the rules of academic decorum, James invoked the work of amateurs, read testimonials on the benefits of yoga and alcohol, and concluded by urging his listeners to take up this psychological and physiological problem.What was the goal of this unusual speech? Rather than an oddity, Francesca Bordogna asserts that the APA address was emblematic - it was just one of many gestures that James employed as he plowed through the barriers between academic, popular, and pseudoscience, as well as the newly emergent borders between the study of philosophy, psychology, and the "science of man." Bordogna reveals that James' trespassing of boundaries was an essential element of a broader intellectual and social project. By crisscrossing divides, she argues, James imagined a new social configuration of knowledge, a better society, and a new vision of the human self. As the academy moves toward an increasingly interdisciplinary future, "William James at the Boundaries" reintroduces readers to a seminal influence on the way knowledge is pursued.
This article revisits the question of the social valence of William James's account of the self. ... more This article revisits the question of the social valence of William James's account of the self. As biographers have long noted, James worried much about the crisis of the autonomous , unitary and well-bounded self. This article suggests that, despite his anxieties, James perceived that those features of the self opened up new possibilities both for the individual and for society. By locating the Jamesian self in the context of period techniques for the cultivation of the self, religious and occult practices, and mystical-cum-political discourse, I argue that for James the crisis of the modern self represented a means both of rooting individuals firmly in the community and of endowing them with a form of agency stronger than those promised by traditional doctrines of the simple, self-directed and well-bounded self. Thus, I argue, James's conception of the self and the techniques of the self that he advocated were part and parcel of an attempt to rethink the relationship between individual and community and to promote a new type of society, one composed of spontaneous pluralistic, open and intimate communities. He realized, as every hireling must, … that he belongs to another, whose will is his law. Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889), 353 The opposition in human nature of the two ideas of solidarity and personality may be … illustrated by describing as an expression of the former the sense of the sublime, of the grand, of … the instinct of infinity, and on the other hand as an expression of the personality, the desire of being circumscribed, shut in, and bounded, the aversion to vague limitations, the sense of coziness … or what may be called the instinct of finity. Bellamy, The Religion of Solidarity (1873), 25
This paper studies the constellations of attitudes––sentimental, moral, epistemological, and soci... more This paper studies the constellations of attitudes––sentimental, moral, epistemological, and social––that three leading psychologists active in turn-of-the-twentieth-century America took to be essential to the production of scientific knowledge. William James, G. Stanley Hall, and Edward Titchener located the virtues and traits proper to the scientific frame of mind, and combined them into normative images of the man of science, or, Ôscientific personaeÕ as I use the term here. I argue that their competing formulations of the scientific ethos informed their psychological practice and epistemological commitments. James, Hall, and Titchener mobilized their representations of the man of science in order to reconfigure the field of psychology and redefine its boundaries, as well as to promote forms of sociability and define the proper role of scientists both within the academy and in the wider polity. Science expresses a particular kind of activity, especially distinguished by the ethical qualities of patience, self-possession, doubt, and universality of aim, coupled with much definiteness of construction. The difference between science
At Columbia University in 1906, William James gave a highly confrontational speech to the America... more At Columbia University in 1906, William James gave a highly confrontational speech to the American Philosophical Association (APA). He ignored the technical philosophical questions the audience had gathered to discuss and instead addressed the topic of human energy. Trampling on the rules of academic decorum, James invoked the work of amateurs, read testimonials on the benefits of yoga and alcohol, and concluded by urging his listeners to take up this psychological and physiological problem.What was the goal of this unusual speech? Rather than an oddity, Francesca Bordogna asserts that the APA address was emblematic - it was just one of many gestures that James employed as he plowed through the barriers between academic, popular, and pseudoscience, as well as the newly emergent borders between the study of philosophy, psychology, and the "science of man." Bordogna reveals that James' trespassing of boundaries was an essential element of a broader intellectual and social project. By crisscrossing divides, she argues, James imagined a new social configuration of knowledge, a better society, and a new vision of the human self. As the academy moves toward an increasingly interdisciplinary future, "William James at the Boundaries" reintroduces readers to a seminal influence on the way knowledge is pursued.
This article revisits the question of the social valence of William James's account of the self. ... more This article revisits the question of the social valence of William James's account of the self. As biographers have long noted, James worried much about the crisis of the autonomous , unitary and well-bounded self. This article suggests that, despite his anxieties, James perceived that those features of the self opened up new possibilities both for the individual and for society. By locating the Jamesian self in the context of period techniques for the cultivation of the self, religious and occult practices, and mystical-cum-political discourse, I argue that for James the crisis of the modern self represented a means both of rooting individuals firmly in the community and of endowing them with a form of agency stronger than those promised by traditional doctrines of the simple, self-directed and well-bounded self. Thus, I argue, James's conception of the self and the techniques of the self that he advocated were part and parcel of an attempt to rethink the relationship between individual and community and to promote a new type of society, one composed of spontaneous pluralistic, open and intimate communities. He realized, as every hireling must, … that he belongs to another, whose will is his law. Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889), 353 The opposition in human nature of the two ideas of solidarity and personality may be … illustrated by describing as an expression of the former the sense of the sublime, of the grand, of … the instinct of infinity, and on the other hand as an expression of the personality, the desire of being circumscribed, shut in, and bounded, the aversion to vague limitations, the sense of coziness … or what may be called the instinct of finity. Bellamy, The Religion of Solidarity (1873), 25
This paper studies the constellations of attitudes––sentimental, moral, epistemological, and soci... more This paper studies the constellations of attitudes––sentimental, moral, epistemological, and social––that three leading psychologists active in turn-of-the-twentieth-century America took to be essential to the production of scientific knowledge. William James, G. Stanley Hall, and Edward Titchener located the virtues and traits proper to the scientific frame of mind, and combined them into normative images of the man of science, or, Ôscientific personaeÕ as I use the term here. I argue that their competing formulations of the scientific ethos informed their psychological practice and epistemological commitments. James, Hall, and Titchener mobilized their representations of the man of science in order to reconfigure the field of psychology and redefine its boundaries, as well as to promote forms of sociability and define the proper role of scientists both within the academy and in the wider polity. Science expresses a particular kind of activity, especially distinguished by the ethical qualities of patience, self-possession, doubt, and universality of aim, coupled with much definiteness of construction. The difference between science
concezioni morali del merito che cercano appunto di fondare un punto di vista indipen-dente, o in... more concezioni morali del merito che cercano appunto di fondare un punto di vista indipen-dente, o in qualche modo meno dipendente dalle contingenze della preferenza sociale. La lezione di questa disamina è un invito alla prudenza, motivato dalla constatazione che «il merito, pur essendo un concetto dotato di significato morale e capace di usi socializzanti rilevanti, non può reggere il carico della giustizia di un intero sistema sociale, né nell'am-bito distributivo né in quello retributivo» (p. 131). In conclusione, risulta fallace non solo l'identificazione del meritevole con il buono e del meritevole con il giuridicamente dovuto, ma anche quella del meritevole con il giusto. L'esercizio di definizione e circoscrizione del concetto di merito è lungi dall'essere fine a se stesso, perché come l'autore ci spiega nell'ultimo capitolo, esso serve a mostrare i limiti del suo uso nel contesto della riflessione socio-politica. Se infatti il merito non corrispon-de a ciò che i suoi fautori intendono, il valore stesso di locuzioni come «società fondata sul merito» ne esce inevitabilmente ridimensionato. L'autore stesso ricorda che il declino dell'ideologia del merito è quasi coevo della sua ascesa, e che il sogno di una società or-ganizzata su criteri radicalmente meritocratici è inseparabile dall'incubo di una società classista e nel complesso ingiusta. Rievocando uno dei testi fondatori della meritocrazia contemporanea, l'autore ricorda i tre principi che la fondano: 1) che vi siano lavori più e meno elevati; 2) che il livello intellettuale che determina il successo professionale sia esat-tamente misurabile; e 3) che le indicazioni di queste misurazioni siano immediatamente traducibili in ricompense sociali. Il rischio evidente di questo ragionamento è la giustifica-zione morale della disuguaglianza economica e sociale: se ti trovi ai piani bassi della scala sociale, è perché te lo sei meritato. L'evocazione nelle pagine finali di un brave new world dove il merito non ha più spazio denota forse un pessimismo eccessivo che non va tuttavia letto quale conclusione. L'indi-cazione che l'autore ci consegna nelle ultime pagine è semmai che il concetto di merito si rivela un utile criterio di redistribuzione delle risorse sociali solo a condizione di ricono-scerne i limiti di impiego e di pluralizzarne i criteri e requisiti.
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