This is so beautiful... recently I've been having a deep personal crisis, and for some reason I found a lot of solid tools to deal with this crisis from philosophy. I never thought philosophy would be so important to life, or the power it has to transform our approach to life. Like you cannot live too long, or have the capacity to respond responsibly without a certain philosophy of life to guide you, and this can be really tricky because if our thinking is wrong, the consequences are really bad. This talk was delightful and very good introduction to William James, thanks a lot.
Amy Pellegrini - When you study philosophy, you realise that nothing is nailed down and that everything is an open question, i.e., it blooms into sprituality. "Philosophy" is Greek for "love if wisdom". Wisdom to live a beautiful, authentic, ethical, potential-fulfilled, spritually-radiant life. The greatest problem of philosophy is consciousness - what is the subject observing, contemplating, organising, the object? Even oneself as the object. Even consciousness itself as the object. William James wrote a wonderful book called The Varieties of Religious Experience - highly recommended. Was your deep personal crisis more of an existential sort - what is the meaning of it all? - or more of a relationship with other people/an other person or physical health sort? I wish you all the best on your philosophical journey. Read the classics - original source - and come to your own conclusions. By their fruits ye shall know them.
Yeah this guy is incredible and it's literally the only seminar I've ever found on Pre Socratic philosophy at all. It's really interesting. I hope this guy uploads all his work.
Me too,I am not currently in school so for me to get my fix of philosophy,politics,et al i must scan the internet and of all the speakers and teachers I've heard,he is a dynamo,for sure,I truly hope he keeps uploading all his lectures,they are amazing.
I have listened to this again. I would also like to add that I love Heraclitus as you quoted, "One can not step in the same river twice." I love William James's journeys, and the stream of consciousness reminded me of Krishnamurti. I am now reading slowly, Dr. Iain McGilchrist books, "The Master and His Emissary," plus his new book, and lectures, "The Matter With Things," The Divided Brain and the Unmaking of the World," Our Brains and Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World." Plus C.E. Jung, "The Redbook" Libra Novus edited and with an Introduction by Sonu Shamdasani. Subsequently, this is a lot of reading as I have to reread this difficult books over and over as I also go back over your lectures and I thank you. I hope you are feeling better.
Great lectures Doctor Cecil. For a young man studying a B.A of Arts in French and sociology in his final year of his degree your lectures are pushing me further and further into doing philosophy for my Masters instead of French Literature.
Philosophy of altering our attitudes, our thoughts, patterns, paradigms is a fundamental truth that leads to so many break throughs in our lives. Dr. James is very pragmatic and we thank God for personalizing this great wisdom in Dr. James.
Wow this is delightful. Very entertaining, not what I expected lol great introduction before I start reading Varities of Religious Experience. Thank you for doing these and putting them up. Definitely going to check out your other videos
Every time I rewatch this lecture, I always hear in the first bit about how William James is basically one of our (America’s) only philosophers, and I imagine Thoreau just hiding behind a tree in the woods with the saddest look on his face lol
Varieties of Religious Experience is a monumental work which would be difficult to write today with its relatively easy access to information . It certainly gave me comfort as someone who was mystically orientated but at the time I read it was thinking that mystical experience was a very rare and bemusing thing 🕊️
I came here, coz I listened to Gary Zukav and he was telling this name of a great psychologist and philosopher he admires so much. Thanks you for sharing this nice lecture
Thank you ! Dr. C. My experience under William James definition is that your videos undeniable help people expand their neuron syntax. Beyond grateful to have stumbled on your Chanel !! Absolute gold !
I have not read most of the books discussed but I did read the Varieties of Religious Experience and I remember it being a lot more about the integration of the personality and the utility of the faithful outlook on life rather than subjectivity of personal experience... so my understanding of that book is very different that Wes'. Sort of casts doubt on the lecture as a whole, as entertaining as it is...
Wes Cecil will take you Walking to discover Humane Arts. Try Jacques Barzun's *A Stroll with William James* to enjoy learning more about the great American philosopher.
+Courtney Byles yeah he's really good. It's really nice that he puts all of these on youtube for free, IDK if you've checked it out by try his "Leisure Series", it's amazing!
fundamental to this philosophy although Dr. James was not a ideals, there is a world of timeless and changeless principles, and thus attuning to these principles of greatness, we live great life
Great lecture. Now, one thing confuses me a lot: Wes says that James was an empriricist and most definitely not an idealist. But he also says, later on in the lecture, that James points out that we have no direct interaction with reality, tat all our experience of the world is through the interpretive organ of our mind. But I thought this ( our experience of the world being exclusively through the interpretive organ of our mind) WAS what's known as idealism.
Small but important error: Charles William Eliot, not Charles Eliot Norton was the president of Harvard University who reformed the curriculum of Harvard. It is easy to confuse the two names. They were cousins and both were professors at Harvard around the same time.
It would not allow me to undo sentences that I did not mess up. So, let me add this correction. Darwinism asked, What is its origin-and lost itself to nebulas; pragmatism asks, What are the consequences?--- and turns the face of thought into action. Nature? Lol Wow!!!! Pluralism, Principals of Psychology. If God is omniscient and ominopotent, we are puppets. Calvin's and fatalism are the blood of such a definition. And the we result to Hindew mystics and we become batons twirling, life continues on. Heraclitus is one of my favorite philosophers and he stated as you quoted, "One can never step in the same river twice." I love William James's journeys, this stream consciousness and thought reminds me of Krishnamurti, born in India and his foundation is in Ojai, California died in 1986, where he lived and taught as in England and India. Plus, also I have have been reading Dr. Iain McGilchrist books, The Master and His Emissary," The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World," plus his new book, "The Matter With Things," Our Brains and Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World." 1500 hundred pages with notes and his lectures. Thankfully I just got through with C. J Jung, "The Redbook," Libra Novus edited and with an Introduction by Sonu Shamdasani. Lots reading and rereading, as I do your classes over and over.
Speculating... Perhaps it is a sensing issue explaining why dolphins won't jump over a net? Echolocation might not be efficient enough to "clearly see" it's a net. Would you jump over a net in darkness? Maybe the net confuses the sensory system, it is diffuse in it's brain, could act like a fog because too many reflection points for their brains to handle much like radar confusing metallic foil strips act.
When you talked about people have no experience of dying i coulnt help but think of the tom cruise movie "edge of tomorrow" where he literally gets bored of dying lol
Excellent lecture!! It's funny that he wasn't drawn to Taoism, I always told people if you want to understand Taoism intellectually read William James especially his work on Habit and the Gospel of Relaxation.
James sympathesized with socialism, but he disliked its ignorance of the individual and the genius. Cobwebs James is what he wanted to do away with. He knew he found no answers. He will be remembered for this empirical emphasis, the new realism than for his theory of truth. His last words was written and it layed on his desk" There is no conclusion. What has concluded that we conclude in regard to it. There are no fortunes and there is no advise to be given. FAREWELL. Become that lawyer, make millions on Wall Street. One might remain in the cities and stay psychopaths or one might buy a small farm to return to to grow a garden. A great short story by Tolstoy is "How Much Land Does One Man Need. "
Awesome lecture. We have James solo, because only the very few wealthy and privileged had the time and energy to simply sit and contemplate life. The rest of the immigrants and pioneers were too exhausted working and farming 20 hours a day. They didn't have the time or money to travel worldwide or be bored enough to day dream. Take away his money, put James on a farm or in a factory and let's see what his brain creates.
Jonathan Edwards. Emerson. Charles Sanders Peirce. John Dewey. W.V. Quine. Hilary Putnam. Richard Rorty. And of course this is just a sample. When will we stop hating on ourselves and stop always looking up to Europe as the exclusive creator of “genuine” culture and ideas…ahhhh. How can you start a talk on James by undermining that which he called his “self-conscious mission.” Folks, there IS American philosophy. Pragmatism is a rich tradition with many fascinating voices. We may choose the narrative that’s forced on us that pragmatism is just practical and doesn’t even understand truth. But let’s not begin teaching fresh, impressionable students with the historically and palpable falsehood that we don’t have philosophers. It just kills credibility to say that James is our only philosopher in your very first sentence! No matter how entertaining the rest of your talk may be, or how much you make the kids laugh with caricaturesque representations of how silly people from 150 years ago were…Oh, Lordy. Thank metaphorical god at least RU-vid does have some responsible disseminators of ideas.
While meditating on Josiah Royce, This Porttrait was spinning in the galaxy with constellations happening in infinity beyond finite finitood...the real reason why Royce and James were best friends had everything to do with wisckers vs. Non-Wisckers, Smokers and Non-Smokers, and above all, if you need to shave your beards and hair since more follicles retain Co-Vid19 and the many morphed mutations of the original CORONAVIRUS! THANK YOU! You are very welcome!
Would anyone care enough to recommend philosophy books for a beginner? Or is it possible to learn entirely by listening to such lectures without reading any books? And how does learning philosophy help in real life?
I think of classic fiction literature as a kind of light philosophy. It's all of the ideas without any of the rigor so for a casual it's quite nice. People like Dostoevsky, Melville, Milton, etc etc. If you want something more legitimate Plato is very easy to read. And one way philosophy can help you in real life, at least for me personally it did, is it can give you frame of references in which to interpret the world around you in. It validates some of your thoughts and connects you to history as you see that for thousands of years people have been contemplating the same problems with people and society that you yourself have.
Hi Wes. I don’t see a clickable link on your site to download the lecture notes. My goal is to utilize this lecture for a paper I’m writing on James... any chance you can point me to the file/download? Thanks in advance. In the meantime, I’ll keep listening here.
