Psychology

William James

Description

A durable classic in the field, Psychology: The Briefer Course is developed on the structure of seventeen definitive chapters treating cryptic themes such as Habit, Stream of Consciousness, The Self, Attention, Conception, Discrimination, Association, Memory, Imagination, Perception, Reasoning, Emotion, Instinct, Will.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• PHILOSOPHY
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Counseling
• Reference
• List of counseling topics
• Psychotherapy
• Psychology
• Epistemology
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 septembre 1985
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780268083564
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 26 Mo

Extrait

William James
PSYCHOLOGY
edited by Gordon Allport
THE BRIEFER COURSE
James 2009 cover_Layout 1 8/28/12 10:34 AM Page 1
William James
PSYCHOLOGY William James
THE BRIEFER COURSE
edited by Gordon Allport PSYCHOLOGY
“This book . . . was originally published in 1892 by Holt and republished
by Harper in 1961. A durable classic in the field, it is developed on the
structure of seventeen definitive chapters treating cryptic themes such
THE BRIEFER COURSEas Habit, Stream of Consciousness, The Self, Attention, Conception,
Discrimination, Association, Memory, Imagination, Perception, Reason- edited by Gordon Allport
ing, Emotion, Instinct, Will, and the like. . . . Today . . . it is still eminently
readable scholarship.” —Journal of Psychology and Christianity
“The re-publication of Jamesʼs work . . . is a testimony to his
monumental importance in the field of psychology. The work, a brief of his
larger work, The Principles of Psychology, illustrates to the modern mind
how far we have come in returning to some of Jamesʼs insights.”
—Studies in Formative Spirituality
“William James is a towering figure in the history of American thought—
without doubt the foremost psychologist this country has produced. His
depiction of mental life is faithful, vital, and subtle. In verve, he has no
equal. . . .
“There is a sharp contrast between the expanding horizon of James
and the constricting horizon of much contemporary psychology. The one
opens doors to discovery, the other closes them. Much psychology
today is written in terms of reaction, little in terms of becoming. James
would say that a balance is needed, but that only by assuming that man
has the capacity for growth are we likely to discover the scope of this
same capacity.” —from the introduction by Gordon W. Allport
William James (1842–1910) was an American psychologist and
philosopher and one of the most popular thinkers of the nineteenth century. He
is the author of many works, including his monumental The Principles
of Psychology (1890), Human Immortality (1898), and The Varieties of
Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902).
Gordon W. Allport (1897–1967) was one of the first psychologists to
study personality, and also researched human attitudes, prejudices, and
religious beliefs. He is the author of Personality (1937), The Individual
and His Religion (1950), and The Nature of Prejudice (1954).
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46656
undpress.nd.edu
Cover design: Margaret GlosterPSYCHOLOGY
THE BRIEFER COURSE NOTRE DAME SERIES I THE GREAT BOOKS
John Henr Newman, Te Idea of a Universit (1982)
St. Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Happiness (1983) William James
PSYCHOLOGY
THE BRIEFE R COUR SE
edited by Gordon Allport
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
NOTRE DAME , INDIANA First Harper Torchbook edition published 1961
Introduction copyright © 1961 by Gordon Allport
This book was originally published by Henry Holt and Company in 1892.
University of Notre Dame Press edition, 1985
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
Reprinted in 1988, 1991, 1994, 1996, 2003, 2009, 2012
Manufactured in the United States of America
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
James, William, 1842–1910.
Psychology : the briefer course.
Reprint. Originally published : 1st Harper torchbook ed.
New York : Harper, 1961. (Harper torchbooks. The Academic library)
ISBN 13: 978-0-268-01557-2 (pbk.)
ISBN 10: 0-268-01557-0 (pbk.)
ISBN 13: 978-0-268-08356-4 (web pdf)
1. Psychology. I. Allport, Gordon W. (Gordon Willard), 1897–1967.
II. Title.
BF121.J2 1985 150 84-40821
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.CONTENTS
PREFATORY NOT xi
INTRODUCTION BY GORDON ALLPRT xiii
INTRODUCTORY (ORIGINAL CHAPER 1) xxv
CHAPTER
HAIT
Its importance, and its physical basis, I. Due to pathways
formed in the centres, 3. Its practical uses, 5. Concatenated
acts, 7 Necessity for guiding sensations in secondarily auto­
matic performances, 8. Pedagogical maxims concerning the
formation of habits, 9.
CHAPTER 2
18 THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Analytic order of our study, 18. Every state of mind forms
part of a personal consciousness, 19. The same state of mind
is never had twice, 21. Permanently recurring ideas are a
fction, 23. Every personal consciousness is continuous, 24.
Substantive and transitive states, 2 7. Every object appears
with a ' fringe ' of relations, 30. The ' topic ' of the thought,
34. Thought may be rational in any sort of imagery, 35.
Consciousness is always especially interested in some one part
of its object, 3 7.
3 CHAPTER
THE SELF 43
The Me and the I, 43. The material Me, 44. The social
Me, 46. The spiritual Me, 46. Self-appreciati on, 47. Self­
seeking, bodily, social and spiritual, 51. Rivalry of the Mes,
53. Their hierarchy, 57. Teleology of self-interest, 6.
The I, or 'pure ego, ' 62. Thoughts are not compounded of
' fused' sensations, 63. The 'soul' as a combining medium,
67. The sense of personal identity, 68. Explained by iden­
tity of function in successive passing thoughts, 70. Mutations
v vi CONTENTS
of the self, 72. Insane delusions, 74. Alternating person­
alities, 77. Mediumships or possessions, 79. Who is the
Thinker, 82.
4 CHAPTER
ATTENTION
The narrowness of the feld of consciousness, 84. Dis­
persed attention, 85. To how much can we attend at once?
86. The varieties of attention, 87. Voluntary attention, its
momentary character, 91. To keep our attention, an object
must change, 93. Genius and attention, 94. Attention 's
physiological conditions, 95. The sense-organ must be
adapted, 96 The idea of the object must be aroused, 99.
Pedagogic remarks, l03. Attention and free-will, 104.
5 CHAPTER
CONCEPTION 106
Diferent states of mind can mean the same, 106. Concep­
tions of abstract, of universal, and of problematic objects, 107.
The thought of ' the same ' is not the same thought over
again, llO.
CHAPTER 6
DISCRIMINATION I II
Discrimination and association; defnition of discrimination,
1 l l. Conditions which favor it, l r 2. The sensation of difer­
ence, l 13. Diferences inferred, II5. The analysis of com­
pound objects. II5. To be easily singled out, a quality should
already be separately known, r l 7. Dissociation by varying
concomitants, II8. Practice improves discrimination, II9.
7 CHAPTER
ASSOCIATION I 20
The order of our ideas, 120. It is determined by cerebral
laws, 122. The ultimate cause of asociation is habit, 123.
The elementary law in association, 124. Indeterminateness of
its results, 125. Total recal, 126. Partial recl, and the law
of interest, 128. Frequency, recency, vividness, and emotional
congruity tend to determine the object recaled, 131. Focalized
recall, or ' association by similarity,' 134. Voluntary trains of
thought, 138. The solution of problems, 140. Similarity no
elementary law; summary and conclusion, 144· vii CONTENTS
CHAPTER 8
THE SENSE OF TIME
The sensible present has duration, 14 7. We have no sense
for absolutely empty time, 148. We measure duration by the
events which succeed in it, 150. The feeling of past time is a
present feeling, 152. Due to a constant cerebral condition, 153.
CHAPTER 9
MEMORY
. What it is, 154. It involves both retention and recall, 156
Both elements explained by paths formed by habit in the brain,
157. Two conditions of a good memory, persistence and nu­
merousness of paths, 159. Cramming, 162. One's native re­
tentiveness is unchangeable, 163. Improvement of the mem­
ory, 165. Recognition, 166. Forgetting, 167. Pathological
conditions, l 68.
CHAPTER 10
IMAGINATION 169
What it is, 169. Imaginations differ from man to man; Gal­
lon's statistics of visual imagery, 170. Images of sounds, 173·
Images of movement, 174· Images of touch, 175· Loss of
images in aphasia, 176. The neural process in imagination, 177.
CHAPTER 11
PERCEPTION I 79
Perception and sensation compared, l 79. The perceptive
state of mind is not a compound, i8o. Perception is of defnite
things, 183. Illusions, 184. First type: inference of the more
usual object, 185. Second type: inference of the object of
which our mind is full, 188. 'Apperception,' 193· Genius
and old-fogyism, 194. The physiological process in percep­
tion, 196. Hallucinations, 197·
CHAPTER 12
THE PERCEPTION OF SPACE 202
The attribute of extensity belongs to all objects of sensation,
202. The construction of real space, 204. The processes
which it involves: 1) Subdivision, 205; 2) Coalescence of difer­
ent sensible data into one ' thing,' 206; 3) Location in an en­
vironment, 207; 4) Place in a series of positions, 208; 5)
Meas154
147 viii CONTENTS
urement, 209. Objects which are sigs, and objects which are
realities, 2 I 2. The ' third dimension,' Berkeley's theory of
The part played by the intellect in space-per-distance, 213.
ception, 216.
3 CHAPTER 1
REASONING 2 l 8
What it is, 218. It involves the use of abstract characters,
220. What is meant by an 'essential' character, 221. The
'essence' varies with the subjective interest, 225. The two
great points in reasoning, 'sagacity' and 'wisdom,' 227. Sa­
gacity, 229. The help given by association by similarity, 23i.
The reasoning powers of brutes, 234.
4 CHAPTER 1
CONSCIUSNESS AND MOVEMENT 23 7
All consciousness is motor, 237. Three classes of movement
to which it leads, 239.
5 CHAPTER 1
EMOTON
Emotions compared with instincts, 240. The varieties of
emotion are innumerable, 24i. The cause of their varieties,
242. The feeling, in the coarser emotions, results from the
bodily expression, 242. This view must not be called material­
istic, 247. This view explains the great variability of emotion,
248. A corollary verifed, 249. An objection replied to, 250.
The subtler emotions, 25i. Description of fear, 252. Gene­
sis of the emotional reactions, 25 . 3
CHAPTER 16
INSTICT 258
Its defnition, 258. Every instinct is an impulse, 259. In­
stincts are not always blind or invariable,