"Certainly, as everyone has pointed out, the manner, if not the substance, of James's thinking was specifically and uniquely American. The American lust for movement and acquisition fills the sails of his style and thought, and gives them a buoyant and almost aerial motility. Huneker calls it “a philosophy for philistines,” and indeed there is something that smacks of salesmanship in it: James talks of God as of an article to be sold to a materialistically-minded consumer by every device of optimistic advertising; and he counsels us to believe as if he were recommending long-term investments, with high dividends, in which there was nothing to lose, and all the (other) world to win. It was young America's defense-reaction against European metaphysics and European Science...When some pragmatists speak of a belief having been true once because they were useful (though now disproved), they utter nonsense learnedly; it was a useful error, not a truth. Pragmatism is correct only if it is a platitude."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Philosophers from the United StatesPsychologists from the United StatesPresidents of the American Psychological AssociationCritics from the United StatesParapsychologists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_James
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
William James
1842 – 1910
US-amerikanischer Philosoph und Psychologe
207 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by William James →
Related Quotes
"The normal process of life contains moments as bad as any of those which insane melancholy is filled with, moments in…"
"Tro ej din vän , förrän i ätit upp en halfspann salt tillsammans."
"The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance...This notion of alternative possib…"
"The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his e…"
"What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wr…"
"I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second Essais and see no rea…"
"But even the distant reader must allow that Clifford's mental personality belonged to the highest possible type to sa…"
"Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight …"
"All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods."
"Freedom is only necessity understood."