Episode 180: More James's Psychology: Self and Will (Part Two)
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2018
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Concluding on William James's Psychology, the Briefer Course (1892). We briefly cover emotions and spend the bulk of our time on will.
James's introspective method allows us to distinguish reflex or coerced actions from voluntary, free-seeming ones, and gives us the vocabulary to attribute moral virtue to those who have enough willpower to keep those inconvenient truths in mind (if you eat this, you'll get fat!) that allow us to successfully resist temptation.
Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Support PEL!
End song: "Join the Zoo/Live Again" by Craig Wedren; listen to him on Nakedly Examined Music #15.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The bell is for me, not for you. |
| 0:02.9 | Although, if you're a teacher like me, it is for you. |
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| 0:46.6 | You're listening to the Parsley Xamon Life episode 180, part 2. |
| 0:51.9 | Hopefully our last segment on William James' psychology. |
| 0:55.7 | We had just spent the whole first half talking about the self. |
| 0:59.7 | Let's move on to the will. |
| 1:02.0 | Can we point at emotions before we get there? |
| 1:05.3 | Just to say what the fear is. |
| 1:07.1 | So we read a whole chapter on emotions. |
| 1:09.4 | And it is relevant only in so far as they're not the will. |
| 1:13.4 | They are part of, you know, we read a whole chapter on instinct and we read a whole chapter on the emotions, |
| 1:17.8 | which are both kind of part of this reflex action. |
| 1:21.4 | Just his theory of emotion is that really what emotion is is you feeling some physiological stuff. |
| 1:28.2 | So what fear is is you see the scary thing and your body reacts. |
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