William James, Awareness of Consciousness

Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz and William James are “four great thinkers who have made significant contributions to the creation of philosophy as a system,” said the eminent British mathematician and philosopher Alfred Whitehead. Everyone has heard about the first three, but what about the fourth? William James (traditionally in Russian James) was a small man, lean, lively and energetic. He immediately attracted attention with his shining blue eyes under thick eyebrows and a wide cheerful smile. He was restless, traveled all over Western Europe, not to mention the United States, was fond of mountaineering. Among his many acquaintances were French philosophers and English mathematicians, writers Bernard Shaw, Herbert Wells and Gilbert Chesterton, psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung. James was one of the founders of psychology as a science, highlighting the principle of activity of the psyche, the primacy of will and interest in it. In the fundamental work “Principles of Psychology” he considered all known psychological plots in the light of his two fundamental discoveries: the self (self) as the core of our psyche and the flow as a form of organization of consciousness. As a philosopher and psychologist, James paid much attention to the problem of moral choice. Our freedom is determined by the selective abilities of our consciousness and thinking: at any moment we are free to focus our attention on certain people, feelings or objects of the world. If this is so, we are responsible for what we direct our attention to, for our actions and in general for the meaning of our life.

Keys to Understanding

The stream of consciousness is a form of activity of the soul

“In each of us, when we are awake, and often when we are asleep, there is a process of consciousness. This means that there is a flow, a series of states of knowledge, feelings, desires, intentions, in which our inner life is contained. The existence of this stream constitutes the main fact, and its nature and origin constitute the main problem of our science.

“A particular field of consciousness is always complex. It may contain sensations coming from our body or from objects around us, memories of the past, thoughts about something far away, feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, desires and dislikes, as well as other emotions, along with our volitional decisions – all this undergoes various permutations and combinations.

Самость, или self, – стержень психики

“Many, apparently, would call this the active element of our consciousness. They would also say that whatever feelings we have, whatever thoughts we have in our heads, there is something in us that goes towards these feelings and thoughts … It is this that welcomes and rejects, it chairs the meeting of our perceptions. and feelings and, approving them or forbidding, influences our motives … It is the source of our attention and our efforts, the orders of our will come from it. It is an indispensable and constant participant in our mental life … “

The meaning of life is in gaining new experience

New truths are the result of new experience, so you need to look for new areas of activity, give new food to your self, and for this you have to intensively change your life. “We choose from a wide sea of ​​possibilities those that are feasible, and in this way we comprehend the truth.” This means that the truth is comprehended in experience, it is itself in the process of becoming: the truth is that which gave rise to true expectations. Sometimes we are forced to act in a situation of uncertainty, without knowing which decision is the right one: then, without succumbing to self-deception and realizing the risk, we must choose the path that will give our lives meaning and completeness.