> ...[William James] is eminently quotable. In one letter to HG Wells he reflected on
"the moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess success".
We are indebted to him for expressions such as "stream of consciousness" too. Some have said he was a better writer than his brother, the novelist #HenryJames.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/23/william-james-centenary
#WilliamJames #JamesOnSuccess
I wonder if James's philosophy is good fit for Bayesian statistics??
> ... the principle of pragmatism comes into its own when there isn't enough evidence to decide whether something is true...
> ... while both believer and nonbeliever run the risk of being duped, he thought it was better to be duped "through hope" than "through fear".
> In his A History of Western Philosophy, Russell records how James was universally loved as a person. "His religious feelings were very Protestant, very democratic, and very full of the warmth of human kindness," Russell writes. "He refused altogether to follow his brother Henry into fastidious snobbishness." But if Russell is generous about the man, he is less so about the man's philosophy.
#WesternPhilosophy #BertrandRussell #RussellOnJames
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