San Antonio College Library

This is the first comprehensive interpretive and critical analysis of the thought of one of America's foremost phiolosophers and psychologists- William James.

William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience was an intellectual landmark, paving the way for current study of psychology, philosophy and religious studies. In this new companion to the Varieties, key international experts provide contemporary responses to James's book, exploring its seminal historical importance and its modern significance. Locating the Varieties within the context of James's other works and exploring James's views on psychology,...

"In his diaries, the American philosopher and psychologist William James, for whom the personal and the philosophical were never far apart, recounted how in his late twenties he was confronted with existential despair regarding the issue of free will: do humans have the capacity to act freely and meaningfully? James famously decided that his "first act of free will is to believe in free will," and declared that, "if you can change your mind, you can...

This first full biography of William James in nearly a generation brings us the man alive in all his complexity. Intellectual rebel, romantic pragmatist, aristocratic pluralist, James was both a towering figure of the nineteenth century and a springboard into the twentieth. Constitutionally opposed to the rigidity and stability of the nineteenth century, James guided his generation toward the ambivalence, unpredictability, and indeterminacy of the...

Goes beyond the usual study of the American psychologist and philosopher James' (1842-1910) classic Varieties of Religious Experience to connect the ideas on mysticism there with his other, less-well-known investigations of the mystical states of awareness. Also explores how his insights can inform the modern understanding of mysticism. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Publisher's description: A hundred years after William James delivered the celebrated lectures that became The Varieties of Religious Experience, one of the foremost thinkers in the English-speaking world returns to the questions posed in James's masterpiece to clarify the circumstances and conditions of religion in our day. An elegant mix of the philosophy and sociology of religion, Charles Taylor's powerful book maintains a clear perspective on...

"Focuses on Fulbright's 23-year Congressional career and the development of his views on foreign policy." -- Dust jacket.