William James
William James
William Jameswas an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth11 January 1842
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
William James quotes about
The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of the commander on the other side from the scientific general. Just what the respective enemies want and think, and what they know or do not know, are as hard things for the teachers as for the general to find out.
In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman.
Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences
Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract
Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system
The amount of psychology which is necessary to all teachers need not be very great.
What a teacher needs to know about psychology "might almost be written on the palm of one's hand."
The worst thing that can happen to a good teacher is to get a bad conscience about her profession because she feels herself hopeless as a psychologist.
A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock
The most ancient parts of truth . . . also once were plastic. They also were called true for human reasons. They also mediated between still earlier truths and what in those days were novel observations. Purely objective truth, truth in whose establishment the function of giving human satisfaction in marrying previous parts of experience with newer parts played no role whatsoever, is nowhere to be found. The reasons why we call things true is the reason why they are true, for to be true means only to perform this marriage-function.
I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is true so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives
Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it
'What would be better for us to believe!' This sounds very like a definition of truth
True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as.