Inaug.-diss.--München. / "Zur literatur": p. [5]-6.

(Uncorrected OCR) Abstract of thesis entitled 'William James' Psychological Philosophy' submitted by Kwok Hang Wah Yvonne for the degree of Master of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in November 2002 The aim of this thesis is to suggest a way to better understand William James' philosophy by recognising its relation with his evolutionary psychology. In order to clarify James' version of 'evolutionary psychology', I will present it in contrast to Herbert Spencer's biological psychology. In Chapter Two, I will discuss how Spencer establishes his development hypothesis and how he understands the mind as a biological product being modified by environmental changes. In Chapter Three, I will interpret James' argument against Spencer's ideas that the mind operates passively, and that Spencer has overlooked the subjective factors in mental development. Through the discussion, we can understand the main difference between James' and Spencer's evolutionary psychologies. The fourth chapter will focus on James' psychology of the active mind. I will offer a more detailed explanatory account of James' views of three important mental functions, namely 'discrimination', 'association' and 'conception', as well as how they operate to construct experiences. In the last chapter, I will interpret one of the topics in James' philosophical discussions, so as to illustrate his psychological view in his philosophy. The discussion will show James' views of the different i roles of perception and conception in life, and his evolutionary concern of the functional use of concepts for experience. I will then explain how these views are related to James' argument against rationalism and his position in his radical empiricism. Through these discussions, I hope to shed light on the connection between James' evolutionary psychology and his philosophical ideas, which ultimately offers a better understanding to James' philosophy. ii / abstract / toc / Philosophy / Master / Master of Philosophy

By paying attention to the habitual register of politics this dissertation has sought to contribute to the theoretical literature on democratic citizenship. More precisely, I offer a more complex account the moral psychology of political agency presumed by the turn to ethics within democratic theory. The central question of this dissertation is how do citizens come to feel empowered to act on their convictions in politics? Political theorists often celebrate civic action as spontaneity and willfulness, and at the same time lament the agency-foreclosing complexity and fragmentation of late-modern politics. Drawing out this tension in Michel Foucault’s analysis of docility and transgression I argue that a middle path between disembodied autonomy and docile passivity is articulated in the moral psychology found in William James’s account of habit. The study makes this case by looking at three episodes of the foreclosure and recovery of action in James’s thinking: his engagement with Darwinian science and his nervous breakdown in the 1870’s and 80’s; his critique of democratic docility and debate on strenuousness with Theodore Roosevelt during the Spanish-American war; and the cynical adaptation of James’s psychology by the democratic realism of Walter Lippmann in the 1920’s. In each case I argue that James’s lively account of habit as a force of unruly spontaneity functions as a therapy of action against feelings of powerlessness, docility, and incompetence constrain democratic conviction. The result is at once a novel continuation of the American tradition of democratic individualism and a contribution to the contemporary debates on the democratic ethics of self-making.

By paying attention to the habitual register of politics this dissertation has sought to contribute to the theoretical literature on democratic citizenship. More precisely, I offer a more complex account the moral psychology of political agency presumed by the turn to ethics within democratic theory. The central question of this dissertation is how do citizens come to feel empowered to act on their convictions in politics? Political theorists often celebrate civic action as spontaneity and willfulness, and at the same time lament the agency-foreclosing complexity and fragmentation of late-modern politics. Drawing out this tension in Michel Foucault’s analysis of docility and transgression I argue that a middle path between disembodied autonomy and docile passivity is articulated in the moral psychology found in William James’s account of habit. The study makes this case by looking at three episodes of the foreclosure and recovery of action in James’s thinking: his engagement with Darwinian science and his nervous breakdown in the 1870’s and 80’s; his critique of democratic docility and debate on strenuousness with Theodore Roosevelt during the Spanish-American war; and the cynical adaptation of James’s psychology by the democratic realism of Walter Lippmann in the 1920’s. In each case I argue that James’s lively account of habit as a force of unruly spontaneity functions as a therapy of action against feelings of powerlessness, docility, and incompetence constrain democratic conviction. The result is at once a novel continuation of the American tradition of democratic individualism and a contribution to the contemporary debates on the democratic ethics of self-making.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1981. / Bibliography: leaves [230]-234. / Microfiche. / iv, 234 leaves, bound 29 cm

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1984. / Bibliography: leaves 94-96.

Issued also as thesis (Ph. D.) Columbia University. / Bibliography: p. 229-248.

Thesis (doctoral) -- Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Geneva. / At head of title: Université de Genève. Faculté des lettres et des sciences sociales. "Liste des écrits de William James": p. [217]-221.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 234-240).