Episode 179: William James's Introspective Psychology (Part One)
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2017
⏱️ 52 minutes
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Summary
On The Principles of Psychology (1890) chapters 1 & 7, and Psychology, the Briefer Course (1892), the chapters on "The Stream of Thought," "Habit," and some of "The Self."
Can we talk about the mind in a way that is both scientific and also does justice to our everyday experiences? James thought his method, which involved both introspection and physiology, yielded more accurate descriptions of the mind than associationism ("the mind is made up of ideas") or spiritualism ("the mind is a faculty of the soul"). Consciousness is a stream, not a concatenation of ideas!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Partial Examined Life relies on your support. |
| 0:02.5 | To find out how to help in ways that are cheap or even free, |
| 0:05.4 | please visit partiallyexaminedlife.com slash support. |
| 0:08.6 | You are listening to The Partial Examined Life, |
| 0:18.5 | a podcast by some guys who had one point said on doing philosophy for a living, |
| 0:21.9 | but then thought better of it. |
| 0:23.5 | Our question for episode 179 is something like, |
| 0:26.8 | can we talk about the mind in a way that is both scientific |
| 0:30.0 | and also does justice to our everyday experiences? |
| 0:33.3 | We read some chapters of William James, |
| 0:35.2 | the Principles of Psychology from 1890 and its abridgment, |
| 0:38.8 | Psychology the Briefer Course from 1892. |
| 0:41.7 | For more information, please check out partiallyexaminedlife.com. |
| 0:45.2 | This is Mark Linson-Meier, primarily my spiritual self above all other things in Madison, Wisconsin. |
| 0:51.5 | This is Seth Pascon with an extremely limited span of consciousness in Austin, Texas. |
| 0:57.3 | This is Wes Allen in Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
| 1:00.0 | This is Dylan Casey working up my attention in Middleton, Wisconsin. |
| 1:04.0 | So the chapters we read for this, apart from some introductory material, |
| 1:08.3 | were the ones on habit, the stream of consciousness, and the self. |
| 1:13.3 | So those are the three primary topics that we'll be hitting right now, |
| 1:16.9 | who wants to introduce the book. |
| 1:18.7 | It's a pragmatist, so I feel like it should be Dylan. |
... |
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