This is an accessible introduction to the full range of the philosophy of William James. It portrays that philosophy as containing a deep division between a Promethean type of pragmatism and a passive mysticism. The pragmatist James conceives of truth and meaning as a means to control nature and make it do our bidding. The mystic James eschews the use of concepts in order to penetrate to the inner conscious core of all being, including nature at large. Richard Gale attempts to harmonize these pragmatic and mystical perspectives.

This book focuses on William James' philosophy as it relates to his conceptions of ordinary experience, the respective natures of self and the world, and the interrelations of these three things.

In previous works, and most systematically in the two volumes entitled The World and the Individual, I have set forth and defended a form of philosophical Idealism. The essays collected in the present volume contain further illustrations and applications of this doctrine… The justification for bringing them together in a single volume is expressed by the phrase “philosophy of life,” used on my title page. That is, each essay contains an interpretation of some problem that is, in my opinion, of vital interest for anyone who wants to form sound ideals for the conduct of life. - From the Preface

"Cotkin provides a gracefully written and consistently intelligent defense of James and pragmatism that deserves a wide audience among intellectual historians and their students."--Robert C. Bannister, American Historical Review.

Virtue theory, natural law, deontology, utilitarianism, existentialism: these are the basic moral theories taught in “Ethics,” “History of Philosophy,” and “Introduction to Philosophy” courses throughout the United States. When the American philosopher William James (1842 – 1910) find his way into these conversations, there is uncertainty about where his thinking fits. While utilitarianism has become the default position for teaching James’s pragmatism and radical empiricism, this default position fails to address and explain James’s multiple criticisms of John Stuart Mill’s formulaic approach to questions concerning the moral life. Through close readings of James’s writings, the chapters in William James, Moral Philosophy, and the Ethical Life catalogue the ways in whichJames wants to avoid the following: (a) the hierarchies of Christian natural law theory, (b) the moral calculus of Mill’s utilitarianism, (c) the absolutism and principle-ism of Immanuel Kant’s deontology, and (d) the staticity of the virtues found in Aristotle’s moral theory. Elaborating upon and clarifying James’s differences from these dominant moral theories is a crucial feature of this collection. This collection, is not, however, intended to be wholly negative – that is, only describing to readers what James’s moral theory is not. It seeks to articulate the positive features of James’s ethics and moral reasoning: what does it mean to an ethical life, and how should we theorize about morality?