Episode 179: William James's Introspective Psychology (Part One)

From The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey

On The Principles of Psychology (1890) chapters 1 & 7, and Psychology, the Briefer Course (1892), the chapters on "The Stream of Thought," "Habit," and some of "The Self."

Can we talk about the mind in a way that is both scientific and also does justice to our everyday experiences? James thought his method, which involved both introspection and physiology, yielded more accurate descriptions of the mind than associationism ("the mind is made up of ideas") or spiritualism ("the mind is a faculty of the soul"). Consciousness is a stream, not a concatenation of ideas!

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