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A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE


Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in
Philosophy


BY WILLIAM JAMES




1909




CONTENTS


LECTURE I

THE TYPES OF PHILOSOPHIC THINKING 1

  Our age is growing philosophical again, 3. Change of tone since 1860, 4.
  Empiricism and Rationalism defined, 7. The process of Philosophizing:
  Philosophers choose some part of the world to interpret the whole by, 8.
  They seek to make it seem less strange, 11. Their temperamental
  differences, 12. Their systems must be reasoned out, 13. Their tendency
  to over-technicality, 15. Excess of this in Germany, 17. The type of
  vision is the important thing in a philosopher, 20. Primitive thought,
  21. Spiritualism and Materialism: Spiritualism shows two types, 23.
  Theism and Pantheism, 24. Theism makes a duality of Man and God, and
  leaves Man an outsider, 25. Pantheism identifies Man with God, 29. The
  contemporary tendency is towards Pantheism, 30. Legitimacy of our demand
  to be essential in the Universe, 33. Pluralism versus Monism: The 'each-
  form' and the 'all-form' of representing the world, 34. Professor Jacks
  quoted, 35. Absolute Idealism characterized, 36. Peculiarities of the
  finite consciousness which the Absolute cannot share, 38. The finite
  still remains outside of absolute reality, 40.


LECTURE II

MONISTIC IDEALISM 41

  Recapitulation, 43. Radical Pluralism is to be the thesis of these
  lectures, 44. Most philosophers contemn it, 45. Foreignness to us of
  Bradley's Absolute, 46. Spinoza and 'quatenus,'47. Difficulty of
  sympathizing with the Absolute, 48. Idealistic attempt to interpret it,
  50. Professor Jones quoted, 52. Absolutist refutations of Pluralism, 54.
  Criticism of Lotze's proof of Monism by the analysis of what interaction
  involves, 55. Vicious intellectualism defined, 60. Royce's alternative:
  either the complete disunion or the absolute union of things, 61.
  Bradley's dialectic difficulties with relations, 69. Inefficiency of the
  Absolute as a rationalizing remedy, 71. Tendency of Rationalists to fly
  to extremes, 74. The question of 'external' relations, 79. Transition to
  Hegel, 91.


LECTURE III

HEGEL AND HIS METHOD 83

  Hegel's influence. 85. The type of his vision is impressionistic, 87.
  The 'dialectic' element in reality, 88. Pluralism involves possible
  conflicts among things, 90. Hegel explains conflicts by the mutual
  contradictoriness of concepts, 91. Criticism of his attempt to transcend
  ordinary logic, 92. Examples of the 'dialectic' constitution of things,
  95. The rationalistic ideal: propositions self-securing by means of
  double negation, 101. Sublimity of the conception, 104. Criticism of
  Hegel's account: it involves vicious intellectualism, 105. Hegel is a
  seer rather than a reasoner, 107. 'The Absolute' and 'God' are two
  different notions, 110. Utility of the Absolute in conferring mental
  peace, 114. But this is counterbalanced by the peculiar paradoxes which
  it introduces into philosophy, 116. Leibnitz and Lotze on the 'fall'
  involved in the creation of the finite, 119. Joachim on the fall of
  truth into error, 121. The world of the absolutist cannot be perfect,
  123. Pluralistic conclusions, 125.


LECTURE IV

CONCERNING FECHNER 131

  Superhuman consciousness does not necessarily imply an absolute
  mind, 134. Thinness of contemporary absolutism, 135. The
  tone of Fechner's empiricist pantheism contrasted with that of the
  rationalistic sort, 144. Fechner's life, 145. His vision, the 'daylight
  view,' 150. His way of reasoning by analogy, 151. The whole universe
  animated, 152. His monistic formula is unessential, 153. The
  Earth-Soul, 156. Its differences from our souls, 160. The earth as
  an angel, 164. The Plant-Soul, 165. The logic used by Fechner,
  168. His theory of immortality, 170. The 'thickness' of his imagination,
  173. Inferiority of the ordinary