William James, in the first lecture of his work "the varieties of religious experiences" analyzes the origins of religious phenomena. The theory mostly debated among others is that of medical materialism. According to the theory of medical materialism, every persons ''spir...

Chapter Two of William James's Pragmatism called "What Pragmatism Means" begins with the famous metaphysical question: Does the man go round the squirrel or not? What he means by this is if a man walks around a tree in a full circle, and a squirrel is one of the tree branches, how come it never ...

William James in his work "Religious Experience as the Root of Religion" argued that there is no validity in the claim of rationalism to assert the existence of only one consciousness. He based this off the foundation that the human being first perceives reality through the senses and t...

The Compatibility of Faith and Reason When comparing the two selections by W.K. Clifford and William James on the compatibility of faith and reason, I feel that both arguments make very valid points. However I do think, after careful reading and based on my own experience, that William James h...

The Evolutionary Philosophy of Chauncey WrightIntroductionIn the recent bestseller, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Daniel C. Dennett argues that the truly "dangerous" aspect of the Darwinian revolution was not the notion that species evolve: Lamarck, Owen, and Darwin's grandfather Era...

Mary Whiton Calkins was born on March 30, 1863 in Hartford, Connecticut, but spent most of her childhood in Buffalo, New York. Mary was the oldest of five children born to her Puritan mother and minister father. According to some sources, Calkin's father had a great distrust of public educa...

Prominent Women in American Psychology "The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man's attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman (Darwin)." Darwin's professional assumption of the intelligence of wome...

"Only two things are infinite; the universe and human stupidity, and the former I'm not sure of". An immortal quote from the mind of Albert Einstein whereas the exact reference to which it applies I am not positive, however I could not agree more with the preciseness to which this st...

Introduction The claim that religious experience can tell us nothing about god, because it is all in the mind strikes at the heart of the problem of religious experience. The study of religious experience, which took off with William James' definitive study in 1902, has put the topic at the ...

Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography "It will be remarked that, tho` my Scheme was not wholly without Religion there was in it no Mark of any of the distinguishing Tenets of any particular Sect. I had purposely avoided them; for being fully persuaded of the Utility ...

Daisy Miller by Henry James Brief Biography of Henry James Henry James was born in New York in 1843. His parents were Henry James Sr. and Mary James. Henry James had three brothers and one sister. Henry James' ancestor, William James, was an 18 year old Irishman who arrived in America in 1...

Introduction: I started this report on Mary Whiton Calkins. I was fascinated by the strides that she made in the fields of psychology, and how at every corner she was shot down because she was a woman. I went first to the library at PCC only to discover that I could find no reference to her wor...

"self and society are two sides of the same coin" - To what extent is this true? "The self is the individual as known to the individual" (Murphy 1947). The self as defined by Murphy above shows a definition of the self described as in interna...

Structuralism - 1879, Wilhelm Wundt, Germany - based on advancements in chemistry and philosophy - introspection: process by which people closely examine their own thoughts Functionalism - William James, U.S. - Method of introspection was too restrictive, therefore the good was observati...

Overcoming Evidentialism The turn of this century came in stride with Humanity's most radical scientific progression in history. Accompanied with science, has come the thirst to rationally validate all our beliefs with evidence. This is the principle by which the evidentialist devotionally a...

Simplicity and Complexity "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:4)." This seems to be a very simple scripture talking about simple ideas. Children understand the little things that adults have a tendency to exasperate inher...