Word: jamesians
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...there shall ego be." In short, Freud points to the trinity, and then urges us to become Unitarians. James on the other hand, found the One God--pure experience--and yet he exhorts his readers to be Trinitarians. Pure experience, principles of conduct, and mediating reason--this is the Jamesian trinity. And the greatest of these, ultimately, is pure experience...
Once one understands the nature of the Jamesian trinity and its analogues in Freudianism, Platonism, Christianity, physiology, art, and other realms, its great significance becomes clear. Consider existentialism. In one essay Sartre states the chief tenet of his philosophy as "existence precedes essence." Though this is a crude rendition, it has come to be the popular slogan for the movement. James would surely agree with Sartre's slogan, but a glance at the triadic table indicates that he goes beyond existentialism. Existence precedes essence, indeed, yet being (pure experience) precedes existence...
...saint, as James treats him, epitomizes the Jamesian attitude toward religion and the religious life. "Instead of placing happiness where common men place it, in comfort, he places it in a higher kind of inner excitement, which converts discomforts into sources of cheer and annuls unhappiness. So he turns his back upon no duty, however thankless; and when we are in need of assistance, we can count upon the saint lending his hand with more certainty than we can count upon any other person.... Felicity, purity, charity, patience, self-severity--these are splendid excellencies, and the saint...
...perhaps we can imbroil James in an intellectual paternity suit, nonetheless. After all, she was but a young impressionable 'Cliffie, while he had by then attained world renown. In lieu of a blood test, one need only examine the term "stream of consciousnes literature." It is astonishing how Jamesian some passages of Miss Stein's essays on the art of writing sound. Surely the extent of the dalliance is clear beyond reasonable doubt. And if we can obtain the conviction, we must congratulate the father on his splendid brood. For Gertrude Stein did not spawn just one "natural" child...
...psychologist has surpassed James in surveying the topic. For several decades after the publication of the Principles there was little interest in the self. Some commentators have attributed the avoidance to the prevailing behavioristic temper, while others speculate that no one felt he could add to the Jamesian treatment of the concept. In the last twenty years concern with the self has steadily increased. Theories of existential psychiatry, the self-image, and the child's perception of his world all echo ideas originally proposed by James...