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The Rise of Empiricism: William James, T. H. Green, and the Struggle Over Psychology

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The Rise of Empiricism: William James, T. H. Green, and the Struggle Over Psychology The Rise of Empiricism: William James, Thomas Hill Green, and the Struggle over Psychology ALEXANDER MUGAR KLEIN Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Indiana University, Bloomington May, 2007 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee Elisabeth A. Lloyd, Ph.D. (Chair) Karen Hanson, Ph.D. Cheryl Misak, Ph.D. Frederick Schmitt, Ph.D. Joan Weiner, Ph.D. April 17, 2007 ii © 2007 Alexander M. Klein ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii For my Mother and Father, Whose own investigations Instigated these. iv And it is important for thinkers of all schools not to go on repeating things about experience and empirical method that have been proved factually false. … And were this the proper occasion, I think it could be shown that two contemporary schools, now exercising considerable influence, the British analytic school and the school of logical positivism, suffer greatly because of their dependence upon pre-Jamesian psychology. …Present-day biological, anthropological and psychological knowledge is required in order to purge the minds of philosophers of antiquated notions— whatever be the direct function of this knowledge in philosophy. … The significance of James for those who take their stand in philosophy upon experience [is that he] … pointed to a new way of analyzing and reporting it. And he did more than point. He opened up paths of access to nothing less than a revolutionary change in traditional empiricism. John Dewey (Dewey 1942, 54) [‘the’ del.] [intrl. marked by caret cut off] [illeg. word, poss. ‘microcosm’] cobwebs, *[‘lost’ del.] gone like [ab. del. ‘burst through’] bubbles in the sun. [‘There’ del.] Once heavy [‘weights’ del.] upon us, they [‘now count no m’ del.] weigh[‘s’ del.] no more than air. [del. ‘We are free of them, we sing, we move, we [‘float’ del.] soar, *we sing [intrl., undel. in error]’] We are borne on a [‘wave that overflows it glorious’ del.] wave that [‘rolls them under, their pressure is unfelt towers above them, *and [ab. del. ‘as it’]’ del.] rolls them [‘under’ del.] so easily *under its **volume [‘v’ ov. ‘gl’] [intrl.] that their very resistance is unfelt. [‘These superior levels of personal energy’ del.] We are free of them, we move, we soar, we sing. This *sense of enfranchisement and ease [ab. del. ‘carolling and lyric[‘al’ del.] quality’ del.] characterize[‘s’ del.] all these superior levels of personal energy and gives them *a glad & [ab. del. ‘the’] carolling [‘and lyric’ del.] William James, from an undated notebook (WB, 422) v Alexander M. Klein THE RISE OF EMPIRICISM: WILLIAM JAMES, THOMAS HILL GREEN, AND THE STRUGGLE OVER PSYCHOLOGY The concept of empiricism evokes both a historical tradition and a set of philosophical theses. The theses are usually understood to have been developed by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. But these figures did not use the term “empiricism,” and they did not see themselves as united by a shared epistemology into one school of thought. My dissertation analyzes the debate that elevated the concept of empiricism (and of an empiricist tradition) to prominence in English-language philosophy. In the 1870s and ’80s a lively debate about psychology emerged. Neo-Kantian idealists criticized the very idea that the mind can be studied scientifically. A group of philosopher- psychologists responded, often in Mind. They were among the first to call themselves “empiricists,” arguing that psychology could provide a scientific basis for philosophical progress. Idealists held that empirical psychology depended on premises developed by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. These premises were allegedly absurd because they rendered ideas of extension, as well as other ideas crucial to natural science, unreal. Those who wanted to advance psychology towards becoming a legitimate science were forced to engage these philosophical attacks, while at the same time to develop empirical theories that could successfully explain some characteristics of experience. I show how James’s theory of space perception accomplished both tasks. In developing this theory, James found he had to reject the Lockean notion that reality is associated with passively-registered sensations. James also abandoned Berkeley and Hume’s claim that ideas are ultimately derived from atomic sensations. Instead, James presented experimental evidence that sensation is a continuous stream. The mind must actively parse this stream if it is to gain a coherent representation of its environment. I argue that James’s stream-of-thought thesis served as a presupposition of his entire psychology. The thesis showed how the labor of investigating the mind could be divided between philosophers and scientists, and in a manner sensitive to the concerns of both. The stream thesis also provided a scientific basis for a new philosophical empiricism that, I argue, has a hidden legacy in the history of analytic philosophy. Elisabeth A. Lloyd (Chair) Karen Hanson Cheryl Misak Frederick Schmitt Joan Weiner vi Contents Abbreviations x Introduction. Why We Should Wonder about the Rise of Empiricism 1 1. The Main Puzzle 1 2. The Puzzle’s Significance 5 3. Summary of Chapters 16 4. Acknowledgements 20 PART O NE. Empiricism: On the Origin of a Historical-Philosophical Concept 24 Chapter One. Empiricism: A Tool for Attacking Psychologists 25 1. Introduction to Part One 25 2. Contemporary Interpretation of Empiricism 29 Summary of Typographic Convention 31 Schema for Historical-Philosophical (HP) Concept X 31 Contemporary Interpretation of Empiricism (CIE) 35 3. The Usual Suspect: T. H. Green 36 4. Proto-empiricism: Green and Caird’s Actual Opponents 51 The Reality Principle 58 5. Methodological Objections, Conclusion 69 Chapter Two. The Life of Mind: Psychologists Take Their Stand 74 1. Interlude: The Role of Professionalism 74 2. James’s Philosophy Clubs 82 3. Mind, A New Review of Psychology and Philosophy 88 Figure 1: Masthead of Mind, 1876 (first issue) 90 Figure 2: The new Mind masthead, from 1974. 91 4. James Finds Mind 94 Figure 3: Total pages of James’s substantive articles that appeared in various journals over the years 1878-1890. 97 Figure 4: Total pages of James’s substantive publications per journal, over the years 1878-1890. 98 5. James and Robertson 100 6. Mind, from Partisan Haven to Open Ocean 105 7. “Empiricism” in Mind Before 1882. 106 vii 8. Robertson’s Vision of Empiricism 110 Robertsonian Empiricism 118 9. James and Empiricism 120 10. Tensions with Secondary Literature 135 PART T WO. T. H. Green and The Case Against Empiricism 146 Chapter Three. Green against Hume: Space Perception and the Intelligibility of Sensations 147 1. Introduction to Part Two 147 2. The Goals of Green’s “Introduction” 149 2.1 Goal: Show That There Can Be No Scientific Account of Science 149 2.2 Goal: Show that Hume Rejected Physiology as a Basis for Metaphysics 159 2.3 Space Perception and the Failure of Phenomenalist Anti-Metaphysics 162 3. Space is Fantasy: Green’s Attack on Humean Space Perception 166 3.1 Locke, Berkeley, and Hume’s ‘Psychological Atomism’ 166 3.2 Space Perception and the Copy Principle 169 3.3 Space Perception and the Separability Principle 177 Figure 5: Two lines approach very gradually 184 4. All is Fantasy: Green’s General Attack on ‘psychological atomism’ 190 5. Green on the Normativity of Scientific Knowledge 198 6. Edward Caird: A Kantian Account of Space 212 7. J. E. Cabot: Taking the Fight to Psychologists 219 PART T HREE. William James’s Defense of Empiricism 223 Chapter Four. Space Perception and the Stream of Thought 224 1. Introduction to Part Three 224 2. The Stream Thesis—Accounts in the James Literature 228 3. The Stream of Thought and James’s Empiricist Legacy 236 4. “The Spatial Quale” 239 4.1 Summary of Previous Chapters; Aim of “The Spatial Quale” 239 4.2 Empirical Evidence Against ‘Psychological Atomism’ in “The Spatial Quale” 249 4.3 The Stream-Based Account of Space Perception in “The Spatial Quale” 256 5. Analysis and Elaboration of the Stream Thesis 268 5.1 The Response to Idealists 268 5.2 In What Sense is James an Empiricist? 277 viii 5.3 Objection: Why Think James’s Work on Space Targets T. H. Green? 285 5.4 The Epistemic Status of the Stream Thesis 287 6. The Secondary Literature on James 295 6.1 The Literature on James on Space 296 6.2 Against Kantian Readings of James 300 Chapter Five. The Structure of Empirical Psychology: The Stream of Thought as Pragmatically A Priori 309 1. Introduction 309 2. “A Plea for Psychology as a ‘Natural Science’” 312 3. The Stream Thesis and the Ends of Empirical Inquiry 319 4. Friedman on Constitutive Principles 340 5. Grice on Presuppositions 356 6. The Stream Thesis as Pragmatically A Priori 362 7. Suggestions for Future Research 373 Appendix I. Historical Study of Dictionary Definitions of “Empiricism” 382 Appendix II. Context of Discovery vs. Context of Justification: A Methodological Objection Addressed 385 Appendix III. The Impact of North American Philosophy on Positivism 389 Note on Typography 400 Works Cited 402 Curriculum Vitae 428 ix Abbreviations Citations to the following works will be given by corresponding abbreviations. These will typically be followed by a page range that, where appropriate, will be correlated with Books, Volumes, Sections, and so on, according to the format given after relevant entries, below. CMP Charles W. Morris Papers owned by the Institute for American Thought at Indiana University Purdue-University Indianapolis. CWJ William James, The Correspondence of William James (James 1992- 2004). Citation format: n.m, where n denotes the volume number, and m denotes the page number.
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