: Henry James and Pragmatistic Thought: A Study in the Relationship Between the Philosophy of William James and the Literary Art of Henry James. . Richard A. Hocks.

1976 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-111
Author(s):  
James W. Tuttleton
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
William James ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
The Relationship

Henry James: The Poetics of Empiricism

PMLA ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Henry Raleigh
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
Basic Assumption ◽  
William James ◽  
The Body ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Critical Problems ◽  
Philosophical Pragmatism ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Works ◽  
Elaborate Structure

Criticism of Henry James in our time is verging into metaphysics. The late works have recently been analyzed in terms of “dialectic” and “myth”,1 as products of Swedenborgianism,2 and as an artistic objectification of William James' philosophical pragmatism.3 Despite great individual differences these three approaches hold in common the basic assumption that James' inner and final meaning has not yet been as-certained and the corollary assumption that this final meaning is perhaps expressed symbolically, by technique, rather than overtly by subject matter.4 In this climate of opinion James is conceived of as a kind of nineteenth-century Dante, the architect of a secular Divine Comedy for some later-day equivalent of scholasticism, and the legendary “late manner”, once considered merely idiosyncratic, is thought to be an elaborate structure which metaphorically expresses a coherent system of values. The critical problems are, first, to find James' Aquinas, or the rationale for the body of ideas on which the late works constitute a metaphor, and, second, to define the relationship between this logical statement and James' symbolic one.

The Meaning of the Concept of “Spiritual Energy” in the Philosophy of William James and Henry Bergson

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 115-131
Author(s):  
Maria M. Kuznetsova
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Development ◽  
William James ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Creative Evolution ◽  
Spiritual Energy ◽  
Spiritual Reality ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The article examines the philosophy of Henri Bergson and William James as independent doctrines aimed at rational comprehension of spiritual reality. The doctrines imply the paramount importance of consciousness, the need for continuous spiritual development, the expansion of experience and perception. The study highlights the fundamental role of spiritual energy for individual and universal evolution, which likens these doctrines to the ancient Eastern teaching as well as to Platonism in Western philosophy. The term “spiritual energy” is used by Bergson and James all the way through their creative career, and therefore this concept should considered in the examination of their solution to the most important philosophical and scientific issues, such as the relationship of matter and spirit, consciousness and brain, cognition, free will, etc. The “radical empiricism” of William James and the “creative evolution” of Henry Bergson should be viewed as conceptions that based on peacemaking goals, because they are aimed at reconciling faith and facts, science and religion through the organic synthesis of sensory and spiritual levels of experience. Although there is a number of modern scientific discoveries that were foreseen by philosophical ideas of Bergson and James, both philosophers advocate for the artificial limitation of the sphere of experimental methods in science. They call not to limit ourselves to the usual intellectual schemes of reality comprehension, but attempt to touch the “living” reality, which presupposes an increase in the intensity of attention and will, but finally brings us closer to freedom.

To Network or Not to Network

2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 376-398
Author(s):  
Nigel Smith
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Literal Truth ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article contrasts hostility toward visual and literary art in English radical Puritanism before the late seventeenth century with the central role of art for Dutch Mennonites, many involved in the commercial prosperity of Amsterdam. Both 1620s Mennonites and 1650s–1660s Quakers debated the relationship between literal truth of the Bible and claims for the power of a personally felt Holy Spirit. This was the intra-Mennonite “Two-Word Dispute,” and for Quakers an opportunity to attack Puritans who argued that the Bible was literally the Word of God, not the “light within.” Mennonites like Jan Theunisz and Quakers like Samuel Fisher made extensive use of learning, festive subversion and poetry. Texts from the earlier dispute were republished in order to traduce the Quakers when they came to Amsterdam in the 1650s and discovered openness to conversation but not conversion.

scholarly journals The Imprisoned, Unspeakable Self: Silenced Sexuality in Henry James

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Camarasana
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
Literary Style ◽  
The Relationship

This essay analyzes Henry James’s The Bostonians (1886) as a novel, like several other works by James, that hints at but never fully articulates homosexual desire. The relationship between Boston feminist Olive Chancellor and her protégé, Verena Tarrant, is a study in self-silencing and repression. In particular, James subtly explores Olive Chancellor’s struggle with an internal prison, her suppressed homosexuality, which was likely James’s own sexual struggle as well. In addition, James’s literary style, his famously imposing and dense walls of verbiage attempt to articulate secrets without ever stating what’s hidden. Paradoxically, James’s voluminous wall of words calls the reader’s attention to what is silent in his characters and in James himself.

scholarly journals THE TURN OF THE SCREW: HENRY JAMES AS AN AUTHOR AND A CRITIC

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-67
Author(s):  
M.B. Rarenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
William James ◽  
Absolute Truth ◽  
The Core ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
New Type ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Absolute

The article considers the story by Henry James (1843 – 1916) «The Turn of the Screw» (1898 – first edition, 1908 – second edition) in connection with the emergence of a new type of narrator in the writer's late prose. The worldview and creative method of H. James are formed under the influence of the philosophy of pragmatism, which became widespread at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries thanks to the works of the writer's elder brother, the philosopher William James (1842 – 1910). The core of pragmatism is the pluralistic concept of William James based on the assumption that knowledge can be realized from very limited, incomplete, and inadequate «points of view» and this leads to the statement that the absolute truth is essentially unknowable. The epistemological statements of William James's theory is that the content of knowledge is entirely determined by the installation of consciousness, and the content of the truth in this case depends on the goals and experience of the human, i.e. the central starting point is the consciousness of the person. Henry James not only creates works of art, but also sets out in detail the principles of his work both on the pages of fiction works of small and large prose, putting them in the mouths of their characters – representatives of the world of art, and in the prefaces to his works of fiction, as well as in critical works.

A Portrait of the Artist

2014 ◽  
pp. 1-79
Author(s):  
David Gillis
Keyword(s):  
Central Feature ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Great Thing ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
Philosophy And Religion ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This introductory chapter provides a background of Maimonides and his code of Jewish law, the Mishneh torah. Maimonides applied the highest literary art to the highest of tasks: to bequeath, as philosopher-statesman, a law that would regulate the life of the individual and of society and move people closer to the knowledge of God. The result of that art is a book to be read and experienced, not just consulted. The central feature of Mishneh torah as a work of art is the casting of the commandments of the law in the form of the cosmos. The microcosmic form suggests, in the first place, that studying Mishneh torah, like the study of the universe, can be a way to the knowledge and love of God. On the plane of ideas, this form embodies the relationship between the ‘small thing’ and the ‘great thing’, between halakhah, on the one hand, and physics and metaphysics on the other. It depicts philosophy as the matrix of halakhah, reflecting the view of the relationship between philosophy and religion in the Islamic philosophers.

Specimen Collectors

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-188
Author(s):  
Reed Gochberg
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Henry David Thoreau ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Louisa May Alcott ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Comparative Zoology ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Philosophical Writings

This chapter examines the early history of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology and broader conversations about the representation of the natural world as fixed and stable. While the museum’s founder, Louis Agassiz, emphasized the value of preserved specimens to research and teaching, many collectors and writers questioned such practices. After donating turtles to the museum, Henry David Thoreau contemplated the ethical and scientific implications of freezing nature for extended study. In children’s fiction, Louisa May Alcott emphasized the relationship between collecting specimens and moral order, while highlighting the growing gendered divide between scientific practice in the museum and the parlor. And in philosophical writings, William James drew on classification to consider more flexible possibilities to fixed theories. These accounts show how writers sought to promote a deeper understanding of flux and change both within the museum and beyond.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-53
Author(s):  
Eitan P. Fishbane
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
The Relationship

The first chapter sets the stage for the broader project of the book; it begins with the idea that the Zohar may be approached as a classic of literary art, probing how the term “classic” has been used in the study of religion and philosophical hermeneutics. I will delve into the following issues: the contours of a literary approach to the Zohar and its relationship to the evolution of zoharic authorship and redaction theory; explore the nexus of mysticism and literature (both narrative and poetry) in comparative perspective; address the relationship between fiction, imagined history, and the merging of time between the medieval and (imagined) ancient periods; and explore the manner in which the Zohar operates with a diasporic-exilic consciousness, imagining the Holy Land from the distance of thirteenth-century Castile.

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