"For the philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos. ...I have heard friends and colleagues try to popularize philosophy... but they soon grew dry, and then technical, and the results were only partially encouraging. So my enterprise is a bold one. The founder of pragmatism... gave... lectures... with that very word in its title,—flashes of brilliant light relieved against Cimmerian darkness! None of us... understood all that he said—yet here I stand making a very similar venture. ...There is... a curious fascination in hearing deep things talked about, even though neither we nor the disputants understand them. We get the problematic thrill, we feel the presence of the vastness."
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Philosophers from the United StatesPsychologists from the United StatesPresidents of the American Psychological AssociationCritics from the United StatesParapsychologists
Original Language: English
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Lecture I, The Present Dilemma in Philosophy
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_James
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William James
1842 – 1910
US-amerikanischer Philosoph und Psychologe
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