On the Philosophical and Scientific Relationship between Ernst Mach and William James

Was James Psychologistic?

Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy ◽

10.15173/jhap.v4i5.2945 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 4 (5) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Alexander Klein

Keyword(s):

William James ◽

A Priori ◽

Biological Evolution ◽

American Pragmatism ◽

Ernst Mach ◽

Herbert Spencer ◽

Scientific Philosophy

As Thomas Uebel has recently argued, some early logical positivists saw American pragmatism as a kindred form of scientific philosophy. They associated pragmatism with William James, whom they rightly saw as allied with Ernst Mach. But what apparently blocked sympathetic positivists from pursuing commonalities with American pragmatism was the concern that James advocated some form of psychologism, a view they thought could not do justice to the a priori. This paper argues that positivists were wrong to read James as offering a psychologistic account of the a priori. They had encountered James by reading Pragmatism as translated by the unabashedly psychologistic Wilhelm Jerusalem. But in more technical works, James had actually developed a form of conventionalism that anticipated the so-called “relativized” a priori positivists themselves would independently develop. While positivists arrived at conventionalism largely through reflection on the exact sciences, though, James’s account of the a priori grew from his reflections on the biological evolution of cognition, particularly in the context of his Darwin-inspired critique of Herbert Spencer.

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Nietzsche e as ciências naturais: entrevista com Pietro Gori

Em Construção ◽

10.12957/emconstrucao.2021.62905 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Pietro Gori ◽

Wigson Rafael Silva Da Costa ◽

Vinicius Carvallho Da Silva

Keyword(s):

Friedrich Nietzsche ◽

William James ◽

Ernst Mach

Para tratar das relações entre Nietzsche e o empreendimento científico, convidamos para essa entrevista um dos mais conceituados estudiosos do pensamento nietzschiano na atualidade. Pietro Gori, Ph.D. em Filosofia Moderna e Contemporânea, trabalha como pesquisador no Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, onde também atua como professor adjunto das cadeiras de Filosofia da Ciência e Filosofia do Conhecimento. É ainda diretor do "Lisbon Nietzsche Group" do Instituto de Filosofia da NOVA; membro da associação "HyperNietzsche", da "Red Iberoamericana de Estudios Nietzscheanos"; do "Seminário Permanente Nietzscheano" e colaborador do "Internationale Nietzscheforschungsgruppe Stuttgart". Suas principais áreas de especialização acadêmica são Filosofia Ocidental Moderna e Contemporânea; História e Filosofia da Ciência; Epistemologia e Antropologia Filosófica. Dentro destas áreas, Pietro Gori dedicou seus trabalhos principalmente aos representantes de uma virada antifundacionalista na filosofia, onde destacam-se Ernst Mach, Friedrich Nietzsche e William James. Sobre esses temas, entre as numerosas publicações de Pietro Gori, em 2019 foi publicado o livro Nietzsche’s Pragmatism. A Study on Perspectival Thought (De Gruyter).

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“The Most Artistic Lesson I Ever Heard” – A Contribution to the Reflection on a Comment Made by William James Regarding a Lesson by Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach – Life, Work, Influence - Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-04378-0_38 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 537-549

Author(s):

Mariana Valente

Keyword(s):

William James ◽

Ernst Mach

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A pragmatist philosophy of psychological science and its implications for replication

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x18000626 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Ana Gantman ◽

Robin Gomila ◽

Joel E. Martinez ◽

J. Nathan Matias ◽

Elizabeth Levy Paluck ◽

...

Keyword(s):

William James ◽

Mental Processes ◽

Psychological Science ◽

Behavioral Measurement ◽

The World ◽

Pragmatist Philosophy

AbstractA pragmatist philosophy of psychological science offers to the direct replication debate concrete recommendations and novel benefits that are not discussed in Zwaan et al. This philosophy guides our work as field experimentalists interested in behavioral measurement. Furthermore, all psychologists can relate to its ultimate aim set out by William James: to study mental processes that provide explanations for why people behave as they do in the world.

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