William James (January 11, 1842, New York — August 16, 1910, Chokorua, New Hampshire) was an American philosopher and psychologist, one of the founders and a prominent representative of pragmatism and functionalism.
Biography
Older brother of writer Henry James. He studied medicine, in 1869 he received a doctorate, but for health reasons he abandoned the career of a practicing doctor. From 1872 — assistant, from 1885 — professor of philosophy, and in 1889-1907 — professor of psychology at Harvard University, where in 1892 he organized the first laboratory of applied psychology in the United States (together with Munsterberg). From 1878 to 1890, James wrote his «Principles of Psychology», in which he rejects the atomism of German psychology and puts forward the task of studying concrete facts and states of consciousness, and not data «in» consciousness. James considered consciousness as an individual stream in which the same sensations or thoughts never appear twice. James considered one of the important characteristics of consciousness to be its selectivity. For James, consciousness is a function that «in all probability, like other biological functions, evolved because it is useful.» Proceeding from such an adaptive nature of consciousness, he assigned an important role to instincts and emotions, as well as individual physiological characteristics of a person. The theory of emotions of James put forward in 1884 was widely adopted. In 1892, James founded the first applied psychology laboratory in the United States at Harvard University. The theory of personality, developed by him in one of the chapters of «Psychology», had a significant impact on the formation of personology in the United States.
Personality according to W. James
According to W. James, the constituent elements of personality can also be divided into three classes: physical personality, social personality and spiritual personality. See →
Publications in Russian
- Conversations with teachers about psychology. M., 1902
- Dependence of faith on the will. SPb., 1904
- Pragmatism. SPb., 1910
- Diversity of religious experience. M., 1910
- Psychology. St. Petersburg, 1911
- Psychology. M.: «Pedagogy», 1991
- The universe from a pluralistic point of view. M., 1911
- Introduction to philosophy. Berlin, 1923
- Scientific bases of psychology. M., 2003