Abstract

Two issues stand unresolved in the literature on William James's philosophy. Why did James fail to complete the systematic metaphysical work, The Many and the One, that he began writing in 1902? And, does he in A Pluralistic Universe give up his philosophy of pure experience for panpsychism? I argue that both of these issues can be resolved by recognizing that soon after beginning work on The Many and the One, James came to see that a serious flaw existed in his system. His solution to the problem of solipsism, based on his philosophy of pure experience, stood in direct contradiction to the theory of consciousness he had developed in his Principles of Psychology. I show that James's inability to eliminate this flaw while keeping all of his original system intact, was the likely reason he was unable to complete The Many and the One. I also show that he did eventually eliminate this flaw, but only after radically modifying his system. One of these modifications involved his rejecting the philosophy of pure experience for panpsychism. Much of my argument in the dissertation rests on the Miller-Bode notebooks, two notebooks that contain James's attempts to respond to objections by two of his contemporaries that identify the flaw in his system. I use these notebooks to establish that James was aware of the flaw, that he perceived it as devastating to his system, and that he tried for a number of years to eliminate it while keeping his system intact. These together, I argue, establish the plausibility of my claim that it was the existence of this flaw that kept him from completing The Many and the One. I also use the notebooks to document how James was finally led to make the modifications to his system that enabled him to eliminate the flaw, and that the move to panpsychism was one of these. This, along with my argument that all of these modifications play a central role in the argument of A Pluralistic Universe, establishes my claim that James ought to be understood as embracing panpsychism in that work.