The Stream of Consciousness: William James?

William James was an American psychologist and philosopher born January 11, 1842. James came from a family of intellectual brilliance as his sister was the diarist Alice James, his brother the novelist Henry James, and his father Henry James, Sr. was a well-connected theologian. Additionally, James's godfather was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Growing up, James suffered from multiple physical ailments including that of the back, eyes, skin, and stomach. Additionally he dealt with bouts of depression and contemplation of suicide. In June 1869 James finally achieved his medical degree from Harvard University after several interruptions due to his ailments and a short-lived expedition up the Amazon River. Although a certified medical doctor, James never practiced any sort of medicine. During one of his breaks from medical school, James traveled to Germany for a cure to his “soul sickness.” It was in Germany that James realized his true interests were in the fields of philosophy and psychology. It was in 1872 after much philosophical searching that James considered himself cured.

• Psyography: William James
• William James on Truth

Influences and Teachings

James spent the extent of his academic career as a professor of Harvard University varying between physiology, psychology, anatomy, and philosophy until his retirement in 1907. James was the first professor to teach a course in psychology at an American University in 1875. With the influence of James's teachings and writings including the notable Principles of Psychology, psychology courses, journals, and societies began to spread throughout the country. With his research on the human memory, James disproved the 2,000 year old belief that memorizing any material would improve the memory. Through his self-experiment, he proved this to be untrue. James's chief influences on the field of psychology include his theories on functionalism, the self, stream of thought, free will, the unconscious, and emotion. Even after his retirement, James continued to lecture and publish new theories.

• Influences and Contributions
• William James and Functionalism

Theories

Ones of James's most renowned theories involved the complexity of the stream of conscious thought. He theorized that consciousness is not merely a thing but a process or a flow of thoughts. James saw the consciousness as an infinite parade of emotions, images, sensations, and ideas that appear without a person's awareness and then pass away. It is a continuous stream of experiences and the consciousness's most important function is selecting to which experiences to pay attention. However these streams are not random or chaotic, there is a connected manner of order. The last though is connected to the thought before by some common rationale. There is an overlap between present, past, and future experiences. The current experience is connected to the last few experiences by a fringe that is continuously trailing off. Just at the beginning of the next experiences are starting to show up in the consciousness. With this theory, James saw thinking as an automated and evolutionary process that does not require any independent “thinker.”

Other Resources on William James

• The Meaning of Truth
• Memories and Studies
• The Moral Equivalent of War
• The Principles of Psychology
• Talks to Teachers
• Essays in Radical Empiricism
• The Dilemma of Determinism
• The Varieties of Religious Experience
• The Stream of Consciousness
• The Will to Believe
• Reflections of William's James Essays