Abstract

. William James's 1907 Lowell Lectures on Pragmatism borrow from the idiom of P.T. Barnum, the self-proclaimed "Greatest Showman on Earth." In James's use of Barnum's middlebrow form of address, we see a philosopher who not only ardently wished to change public opinion, but one who looked to populist forms of entertainment and instruction for models of how best to do so. Although the shadow of Barnum in these lectures clearly indicates the commodification of philosophy for this man who hoped to make money from his lectures, it also suggests some of the more oppositional cultural functions contained in his lectures —lectures that resembled the tangled, muddy street that James persisted in seeing as the real world.