Publisher's Synopsis
In PRAGMATISM William James addresses the realist, essentialist and foundationalist philosophers with their abstract and idealistic arguments demonstrating that it is the pragmatist who takes our obligations seriously. The pragmatist is guided by the experience of the senses and the working body of truth each person carries with them and these are no small trifles and is not one who is free to make anything up. William James wrote voluminously throughout his life. He gained widespread recognition with his Principles of Psychology in 1890, a twelve hundred page work in two volumes. Psychology: The Briefer Course, was an 1892 abridgement designed as a less rigorous introduction to the field. These works criticized both the English associationist school and the Hegelianism of his day as competing dogmatisms of little explanatory value, and sought to re-conceive the human mind as inherently purposive and selective.
