The correspondence of William James

Author(s)

• James, William
• Skrupskelis, Ignas K.
• Berkeley, Elizabeth M.
• Grohskopf, Bernice
• Bradbeer, Wilma

Bibliographic Information

The correspondence of William James

edited by Ignas K. Skrupskelis and Elizabeth M. Berkeley ; with the assistance of Bernice Grohskopf and Wilma Bradbeer

University Press of Virginia, 1992-

• v. 4. 1856-1877
• v. 5. 1878-1884
• v. 6. 1885-1889
• v. 7. 1890-1894
• v. 8. 1895-June 1899
• v. 9. July 1899-1901
• v. 10. 1902-March 1905
• v. 11. April 1905-March 1908
• v. 12. April 1908-August 1910

Note

Editors varies slightly

"Committee on scholarly editions, an approved edition, Modern Language Association of America"--T.p. verso

Vols. 1-3, see each records

Vols. 7-12, with the assistance of Wilma Bradbeer

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

v. 4. 1856-1877 ISBN 9780813916163

Description

This volume contains 309 letters which start when William James was 14 years old and conclude when he was 35. The letters range from his relations with family and friends to his courtship of Alice Howe.

Volume

v. 5. 1878-1884 ISBN 9780813916880

Description

This fifth volume of letters chronicles James's emergence into professional and personal maturity. The correspondence is dominated by letters to his wife, Alice, and they reflect difficult events of the period such as the death of his parents and the responsibility he took for heading the family.

Volume

v. 6. 1885-1889 ISBN 9780813917382

Description

Consisting of 400 letters with an additional 400 calendared, this volume offers an account of William James' correspondence for the years 1885-89. During this period, he completed most of the work on his book, ""The Principles of Psychology"" and became more directly involved with psychical research.

Volume

v. 7. 1890-1894 ISBN 9780813918204

Description

This seventh volume continues the series of William James's correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues that was begun in volume four. Consisting of some 488 letters, with an additional 510 calendared, it offers an account of the academic's correspondence for the years 1890 to 1894.

Volume

v. 8. 1895-June 1899 ISBN 9780813919263

Description

The eighth volume of William James's correspondence, covering the period 1895 to June 1899. During this period, James struggles against various temptations, never completely successfully, to devote all of his attention to philosophy, the first and great love of his life.

Volume

v. 9. July 1899-1901 ISBN 9780813919706

Description

The ninth volume of William James's correspondence, covering the period July 1899 to 1901. It covers the period of James's great collapse, of his years of exile in Europe in search of health, and of the beginning of his withdrawal fron full time teaching at Harvard.

Volume

v. 10. 1902-March 1905 ISBN 9780813920610

Description

Consisting of some 572 letters, with another 460 calendared, this tenth volume in a projected series of twelve offers a complete accounting of William James's known correspondence-with family, friends, and colleagues-from the beginning of 1902 through March 1905. For James these were hopeful years of recovery. The end of the depressing cure at Nauheim, the successful conclusion of the arduous Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh, the reaching maturity and independence of his two eldest children, and the gradual withdrawal from teaching responsibilities at Harvard allowed him to hope that he would at long last present his philosophical message to the world in the shape of a treatise on metaphysics. Philosophy was in a state of unrest, with old alliances breaking up and new ones forming, and was ripe for a more fruitful reformulation of its traditional questions. Intellectualism, philosophical and scientific, was waning, making room for the emergence of an empiricism congenial to humane values. As reflected in the letters of this period, James comes to recognize that Dewey and the Chicago school were his allies and that the Frenchman Henri Bergson was moving in the same direction. Consequently, Bergson is the major new correspondent of the present volume, and, because he emerges during this period as James's leading supporter, Ferdinand Schiller is another dominant correspondent. Often boisterous and irreverent, Schiller saw himself as a general about to overwhelm an aged and sleepy, but still dangerous, enemy. James, in the meantime, had to call upon all of his diplomatic skills to keep on good terms with the people Schiller irritated, while remaining Schiller's friend and defender. Scholars will find much material in this volume that will help them judge whether the common view of pragmatism as a capricious subjectivism largely reflected a widespread lack of respect for Schiller. While continuing his involvement with anti-imperialism, James takes a more critical stance toward existing social conditions during this period, proclaiming his admiration for the small and insisting on the connection between great size and social evil. In 1904 he tours the American South. There are hints that he was acting as a scout for his brother Henry, which perhaps caused William James to see more of the meanness and shabbiness of the region than he would have otherwise. Along with Bergson and Schiller, prominent intellectuals represented in this volume include Theodore Flournoy, Wincenty Lutoslawski, Carl Stumpf, Hugo Munsterberg, Josiah Royce, Charles Sanders Peirce, Oliver Lodge, John Dewey, George Herbert Palmer, Charles William Eliot, James Mark Baldwin, and Edwin Godkin.

Volume

v. 11. April 1905-March 1908 ISBN 9780813921495

Description

Consisting of more than 500 letters to family with an additional 650 calendared, this volume offers a complete account of William James's known correspondence from April 1905 to March 1908.

Volume

v. 12. April 1908-August 1910 ISBN 9780813923079

Description

This twelfth and final volume of The Correspondence of William James concludes the series of William James's correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues that began with volume 4. The first three volumes were devoted to the letters exchanged between the brothers William and Henry James. Consisting of some 600 letters, with an additional 650 letters calendared, this final volume gives a complete accounting of James's known correspondence from April of 1908 to 21 August 1910, inclusive, the last letter having been written five days before James's death on 26 August 1910. The volume also accounts for undated letters, as well as letters located too late to be included in their proper chronological place in the preceding volumes. Professionally there are three major events during this period in James's life. First was the delivery at Manchester College, Oxford, of the Hibbert Lectures on the present condition of philosophy, published in 1908 as A Pluralistic Universe. As was his habit, James sent numerous complimentary copies of his book and received many thoughtful responses, which provide a rare opportunity to see how differently diverse readers interpret the same book. Next came publication of The Meaning of Truth, which forced James to return to the defense of the pragmatic conception of truth. The third was his work on a textbook in metaphysics that was to become the posthumously published Some Problems of Philosophy. Most of James's philosophical correspondents remain the same as in the previous volume: John Dewey, Henri Bergson, Francis Herbert Bradley, Ferdinand Canning Schiller, Charles Sanders Peirce, Ralph Barton Perry, William Pepperell Montague, Horace Meyer Kallen, Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, Charles Augustus Strong, and Dickinson Sergeant Miller. With the French philosopher Emile Boutroux and the German pragmatist Julius Goldstein there is more extensive correspondence in this volume than in the previous one.

by "Nielsen BookData"

• NCID: BA19239401
• ISBN:
  • 081391616X
  • 0813916887
  • 0813917387
  • 0813918200
  • 0813919266
  • 0813919703
  • 0813920612
  • 081392149X
  • 0813923077
• LCCN: 91035923
• Country Code: us
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Charlottesville
• Pages/Volumes: v.
• Size: 24 cm
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : James, William, 1842-1910 -- Correspondence
  • LCSH : Philosophers -- United States -- Correspondence
  • LCSH : Psychologists -- United States -- Correspondence
  • LCSH : James, Henry, 1843-1916 -- Correspondence